Last month I talked about the “Birds” pillar of FCEA’s work, and this month the focus is our “Forest Landscape Restoration” pillar! You might notice something is slightly different: we changed the name of this pillar from “Forest Restoration” to
“Forest Landscape Restoration.”

Why is that important?

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) as “the ongoing process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being across deforested or degraded forest landscapes. FLR is more than just planting trees – it is restoring a whole landscape to meet present and future needs and to offer multiple benefits and land uses over time” (IUCN, 2024).

This definition resonates with FCEA’s work in that we seek to address human well-being by putting environmental education (EE) at the core of everything we do. Further, I’m always going on about how our philosophy is tree growing, and not just tree planting, because we are committed to ensuring that all the trees we plant are strategically stewarded over time (such as through weed-whacking and the application of organic inoculates and composts we produce through our EE programs such as Women Committed to the Earth).

We have seen incredible results in our FLR projects as a result of conscientious tree growing efforts. Just check out the change in the Children’s Forest of Coto Brus in five short years, as illustrated by the comparative photos above of the same space transformed from pasture to a young forest!