Tree, Skills And Knowledge For Facilitating Forest Restoration And Agroforestry In Northern Thailand

Since the disastrous floods in Thailand in 2011, interest in restoring forest cover to the northern watersheds, to increase their capacity to absorb rainwater, has increased. In addition, the role of forests in sequestering carbon, the development of other PES schemes (payments for environmental services) and the promotion of forests as “Green Supermarkets” for villagers have all contributed to increasing demand for native forest trees, as well as the provision of skills and knowledge needed by stakeholders to grow them.Since 1994, Chiang Mai University’s Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU-CMU) has developed a “framework species” approach to rapidly restore indigenous and diverse forest ecosystems, matching the above criteria. The technique involves accelerating natural forest regeneration and enriching it, by planting native forest trees species, selected for their ability to shade out weeds and attract seed dispersing wildlife. Animals and birds, attracted to the planted trees, disperse in the seeds of most other tree species, resulting in rapid biodiversity recovery, litter accumulation (which increases water absorption) and development of a complex root matrix (which prevents soil movement). The unit has successfully applied this approach to restore evergreen forest to upper watershed areas and demonstrated both its effectiveness (Blakesley et al., 2002; Elliott et al., FORRU 2006, 2008) and its acceptability to local communities (Elliott et al., 2012; Elliott, Blakesley and Hardwick in press).

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