Landscape restoration interventions have been priorities to combat land degradation in Ethiopia. This paper presents  important learned lessons  from the integrated landscape interventions implemented at Gergera watershed in Tigray, Ethiopia to restore degraded landscapes and enhancing the resilience of inhabitants.  

We will present principles and steps to be followed in the process of implementing a successful landscape restoration intervention. Community led restoration with shared goals and vision and intervention priorities was the main landscape restoration approach introduced to the experimental watershed.

This approach with multiple interventions provide a multitude of benefits in a short to longer time scale, such as improved household food security, diversifying income sources, rehabilitating abandoned lands, improving feed, fodder availability, improving environmental quality.  Degraded hillsides and gullies and farmland expected to be abandoned in 2-3 years due to gully formation were saved and restored through planting economically and ecologically important plants supported with physical structures. A gully as wide as 120 meters and 6-25 meters in depth converted from threats to opportunities and become sources of income for women and youths. Water availability was improved due to reduced runoff and increased irrigation, drinking water for livestock and humans. Restoration impacts have  brought a mindset-shift that degraded lands can be restored and used to improve the livelihood of the community. Quality planting materials availability, integrating landscape restoration with livelihoods improvement and incentives to grow trees in farms and landscapes are key success factors for an effective, inclusive, and sustainable landscape restoration and in creating functional agroforestry practice.

We, therefore, recommend integrated watershed and/or landscape restoration practices should be guided through developing a community led vision and intervention priorities with appropriate socioeconomic and restoration packages and incentives in Ethiopia and beyond.