Pacific Island Forest Restoration Initiative
News & Updates
September 2021 | Issue 1
What is PIFRI?
The Pacific Island Forest Restoration Initiative (PIFRI) will enhance the capacity of key developing Pacific Island countries to plan, implement, and monitor restoration initiatives for the continual provision of ecosystems goods and services from forested ecosystems, improved carbon sequestration, and strengthened resilience to climate change. Additionally, PIFRI will help ensure that Pacific Island Countries (PICs) attain their sustainable development and natural resource management goals. With technical support from USFS research scientists and other specialists, the selected organizations will implement restoration activities while monitoring restoration success and forest carbon emissions. USFS will also facilitate regional exchanges and other capacity-building activities for the collaborating organizations to support their restoration activities. This occasional newsletter will serve as a spotlight for PIFRI restoration activities occurring throughout the region.
Spotlight Story: Ebiil Society
See below for the full story on how Ebiil Society is bringing the community into their restoration project.
Spotlight Story: Loving Islands
See below to learn more about Loving Islands' resilience work in two Fijian villages!
Events
Forest Landscape Restoration Series
was completed last month.
See here for session recordings and here for resources
General Updates
Find us on Facebook! Click this link or search "Pacific Island Forest Restoration Initiative" to request to join the group
Ngarkeklau Coastal Reforestation Project
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Ebiil Society works in Palau to develop programs that improve community capacity to identify and improve their own environmental challenges or issues. Today, their projects have expanded into other communities including, informing national dialogues and frameworks for managing Palau’s natural resources. Their PIFRI Coastal Reforestation project’s main goal is to restore native forests on Ngerkeklau Island with special attention on the coastal areas to enhance carbon sequestration and other ecological benefits. Go to page 2 to read more about this project and see photos!
Coastal and Community Building Resilience Project
Loving Islands’ Makadru-Levukaidaku Matavura Coastal & Community Building Resilience Project in Suva, Fiji addresses the increasing vulnerabilities small island communities are facing as a result of adverse climate changes. The project will undertake significant environmental rehabilitation of coastal forestry and inshore coral ecosystems in two communities as the primary solution to building environmental and community resilience in small maritime islands. Their main activities will revolve around community consultation, planning, and training, development and implementation of Green Village Development Plans, forest restoration, coastal erosion rehabilitation, sustainable agriculture, and monitoring and evaluation. Go to page 2 to read more about this project and see photos! 
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In the first few months of their project, Ebiil Society created and submitted a management plan and began activities on their plant nursery and community engagement efforts. The plant nursery has expanded to accommodate the program growth and to expand reforestation efforts to include coastal forest restoration. Nursery staff has increased from two to three personnel, allowing for more consistent maintenance and quality inspections, ensuring the health of the plant collection. Ebiil has also begun working to remove invasive species, such as Meremia vines from the project area.
In addition to the nursery advancements, the coastal restoration project has positively impacted multiple groups, including schools, churches, and local communities. Through the Ebiil Outdoor Classroom program, the local schools are provided with the opportunity to learn at Ngerkeklau Island. Since November 2020, students have visited Ngerkeklau Island- Ebiil Outdoor Classroom and have been engaged in various ecological studies of marine and coastal forest including tree planting, marine debris removal, and invasive species eradication. A local church’s women’s group spent a weekend on the island, and Ulang Skang, a community elder, commented, “We felt so happy to see the recovery of the coastline and realized the hard work by Ebiil staff and felt obliged to assist.” Ebiil Society is also invited to monthly meetings with community leaders to provide written and oral update of the project as part of maintaining support for the project and to demonstrate importance of restoration efforts. 
In the first few months of the project, Loving Islands has increased the strand vegetation of the two villages shoreline, begun supporting the two villages community subsistence livelihood with the construction of two nurseries to provide long term access to stapled food trees, and increased ecosystem services through coastal protection, carbon sequestration. Increased food security and availability of products for subsistence is paramount in building the two communities Makadru and Levukaidaku resilience to natural disasters & climate change and stabilizing their local livelihoods. 
Loving Islands has partnered with the Indigenous community leaders, Fiji’s Ministry of Forestry and other local government departments to conduct training and consultations with the two communities, including women’s and youth groups to allow the villagers, women and youth to be part of the decision-making process. Their full participation in and support of the project is integral to its success. Through these environmental consultations, coastal rehabilitation activities were identified by the youth and women’s groups in forest restoration and also coral nursery and coral planting for reef rehabilitation. While this program will require training and coral reef assessments, the proposal from the youth and women is to initiate some level of restrictions on their fishing grounds through the use of their traditional management practices. For instance, not fishing on threatened reefs, as well as complying with government bans on fishing specific breeds during specific times of the year, monitoring fish, and assessing the coral reefs. In the consultations with the women’s groups, they recommended that the forest restoration within the village boundary focus on livelihoods. Planting seedlings for sources of food, for example breadfruit, mangos, lime, vegetables, avocados was recommended to allow the project to provide financial support during their involvement in the restoration and monitoring. The project is in the process of developing business plans for the women and youth groups.
The strong community focus of this project is already bringing the community together and will prove very important for the longevity of the restoration. In the coming months, Loving Islands and partners will continue to utilize community input as their project progresses. 
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PIFRI IUFRO Forest Landscape Restoration Training
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The Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) training workshop was led by experts from International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and from the US Forest Service. It was a six-session series that gave PIFRI grantees the opportunity to expand their knowledge on how to use the FLR approach for more effective forest restoration. It was also a way for PIFRI organizations to connect with one another on their forest restoration projects. This training provided valuable information that can be used to increase the success of PIFRI projects as well as any future forest restoration efforts. FLR is an exciting approach that integrates ecosystems and human communities at multiple levels (catchment, forest, watershed, island) and can help identify how restoration of only a few hectares can ultimately benefit the island as a whole.