Four Restoration Approaches
| Approach | What it involves | Best where |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted natural regeneration | Protect existing regrowth, exclude fire and grazing, remove competing weeds, no planting | Sites with living rootstock, nearby seed sources and recoverable soil. Usually the cheapest option and often the best. |
| Enrichment planting | Plant into gaps in existing regenerating vegetation | Partially recovered sites missing particular species or structure |
| Full replanting | Site preparation and planting across the area | Severely degraded sites with no rootstock, no seed source or destroyed soil structure |
| Productive restoration | Agroforestry, buffer planting, woodlots that also produce | Where people depend on the land and pure protection will not hold |
Most projects use a combination, zoned across the site. A blanket approach applied uniformly is usually a sign nobody assessed the ground.
How We Work
- 1. Baseline. Vegetation, soil condition, hydrology, existing regeneration, threats, land use and who uses the land. Recorded and mapped so it can be compared against later.
- 2. Land-cover history. Satellite imagery showing what the site was and when it changed. This frames what "restored" should even mean here.
- 3. Zoning. Which parts need protection only, which need enrichment, which need full replanting, and which should be left as productive land.
- 4. Species selection. Matched to soil, hydrology and altitude, weighted toward locally occurring species where the objective is ecological.
- 5. Implementation. Site preparation, sourcing, planting into established rains, protection.
- 6. Aftercare. Weeding, beating up, fire protection, grazing control. Budgeted for three years minimum, because this is where restoration succeeds or fails.
- 7. Monitoring. Survival and condition at 6, 12, 24 and 60 months, against the baseline.
Why Restoration Projects Fail
Five recurring causes
- Funded for planting, not for aftercare. The commonest and most avoidable. Budgets that end at planting day produce sites that look restored for one season.
- No baseline. Nothing can be demonstrated, so the project cannot prove value and does not get renewed.
- Wrong species for the site, chosen for availability or symbolism rather than ecology.
- Fire and grazing not addressed. On most degraded African landscapes these are the actual reasons the site is degraded. Planting into them without changing them repeats the failure.
- Local people excluded. If restoration removes access to something people need without replacing it, protection lasts as long as the project vehicle is on site.
Where We Work
Our team is based in Wakiso, just outside Kampala, and works across Uganda — Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Mpigi, Luwero, Mubende, Masindi, Hoima, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Gulu and beyond — with regional assignments across East and Central Africa.