Afforestation of degraded land—pyrrhic victory over economic, social and ecological reality?

• Published in: Ecological engineering 1998-02, Vol.10 (1), p.97-106
• Main Authors: Hunter, I.R, Hobley, M, Smale, P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Afforestation; Degraded land; Economics
• ISSN: 0925-8574; 1872-6992
• DOI: 10.1016/S0925-8574(97)10026-X

The term ‘degraded land’ is subjective and depends on the perspective of the observer. Foresters may view land as degraded when, in the view of the people who ‘degraded’ it, it has, for the first time, a value. While, for most people the term ‘degraded land’ unarguably includes land, possibly previously covered in trees, that has been mined and left devoid of all topsoil, all vegetation and any hope of regeneration in the medium term. The term is also held to include land that historically carried trees but which was cleared in the past and having no current alternative use, and has become apparently stable under some form of heath vegetation. In that state it may be valued for other reasons. Degraded land is sometimes held to include previously forested land that is in the process of being changed to other uses but may, currently, still contain remnants of forest. The purpose of this paper is to pose the question as to whether putting trees back on all types of degraded land is always the best decision when factors such as the economics of the operation; the social desirability of the operation and the ecological sustainability of it are considered and to highlight some of the issues a forester needs to consider before embarking on reafforestation of such land. Two examples are used—one from the North Auckland region of New Zealand, the other from the Western Ghats region of India. The New Zealand example shows that both the direct and maintenance costs of afforesting degraded land can be greater than those for afforesting better land and when the private sector is the major player in afforestation, degraded land will not be taken up for planting, however desirable that might be for other reasons. The Indian example demonstrates that land which appears to be degraded might, in fact, be important to someone’s livelihood and the political support for afforestation can be lost unless that implicit right is recognised.