Abstract ID: 3.10878 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

Colombia´s high-Andean forests and paramos are of great importance regulating water fluxes, storing carbon and supporting a remarkable biological and cultural diversity, while also supporting basic human needs. However, many economic activities have become threats due to soil overexploitation and the replacement of natural ecosystems with large-scale cultivation or grazing areas, as well as exotic tree plantations, invasions of exotic plants, and mining extraction. To reverse the resulting degradation, ecological restoration projects has been initiated by governmental, non-governmental and civil society actors. We set out to map the variety of projects operating in the high Andes of Colombia, aiming to understand how restoration objectives and actions differ among otypes of actors. We found that projects initiated by civil society, particularly local communities, often include both ecological and social motivations, such as recovery of biodiversity and water resources, but also improving the local economy, strengthening social organization, or recovering traditional knowledge. Corresponding actions include collective strategies such as cooperative work for the common good (“mingas”), plant propagation in community nurseries, and the strengthening of ecological knowledge and research, while restoration actions were often small-scale and integrated in agroecological systems. In contrast, projects by NGOs tended to orient their objectives towards global commitments such as climate-change mitigation, as well as support for environmental compensation that private companies must comply with. Actions commonly revolved around tree planting, also done by government entities, recently focused on meeting government targets for planting a specific number of trees rather than on ecological restoration, and fencing areas whose role in promoting natural regeneration remains uncertain. Governmental and non-governmental projects were less oriented towards social and community goals and more towards restoration of water resources and biodiversity. This overlap of restoration objectives among actors suggests these themes as a good basis for joint restoration efforts between them. Importantly, the objectives formulated by civil-society actors provide an indication to institutional actors that projects may need to adopt a broader view on ecological restoration, finding local nature-based solutions to ecological and socioeconomic problems in a synergistic manner.