The recovery of degraded land is an essential tool to mitigate the effects of climate change. Combined with environmental recovery and environmental rehabilitation, recovery of degraded areas is a human intervention, often through plans or projects for the recovery of degraded areas, which aims to reestablish the soil and vegetation in a location.
As we will see below, these three techniques can also be considered as the most comprehensive objectives of a Degraded Areas Recovery Plan.
What is the difference between recovery of degraded areas, environmental rehabilitation or environmental rehabilitation?
- Environmental recovery: returning the area to a non-degraded condition, without having to return to its original conditions. Follows guidance from decree 97,632 of April 10, 1989.
- Environmental rehabilitation: process of environmental recovery in which the recovered area must once again serve some purpose not necessarily the same as the previous one
- Environmental restoration: is a process of reestablishing the recovered area to a stage as close as possible to its original condition
In Brazil, environmental recovery follows the definition of decree no. 97,632, of 10-04-1989, which says: “return of the degraded site to a form of use, in accordance with a pre-established plan for land use, aiming to obtain stability of the environment”. In other words, the previously degraded area must have minimum conditions to establish a new balance, without the need to be similar or equal to what it was before degradation.
Environmental rehabilitation concerns the return of a previously degraded area to a biological state considered appropriate within environmental parameters regulated by scientific knowledge and environmental regulations in the region. In this case, the recovered area will not necessarily be productive again, but it may fulfill another ecosystem service, such as containing a gully, for example.
Environmental restoration is the most demanding tool for recovering degraded areas. In this case, the objective is for the areas to return to their original state, that is, before degradation. Therefore, all aspects of fauna, flora and topography must present the same characteristics as they had before undergoing intervention.
However, regardless of the general objective for the Degraded Areas Recovery activity, it is essential to organize the activities into a consistent program with very clear goals. This way, it will be possible to control the progress of activities and take action if there are any problems.
What is a recovery plan for degraded areas?
A plan, program or project for the recovery of degraded areas (PRDA) is a set of activities organized in a systematic way and distributed over time with the aim of meeting one of the three general objectives (rehabilitation, restoration or recovery) and specific objectives. These, in turn, can be rehabilitating a park area, protecting water, preventing landslides, among others.
- In general terms, therefore, a PRDA must follow the following script:
- Degradation diagnosis, which will classify and describe degradation in a given location
- Pre-degradation diagnosis, which will seek to determine what the area was like before degradation, including forest inventories prior to the implementation of the project or degradation
- Prognosis with proposals for recovery of the area in question, which will depend greatly on previous conditions and possibilities, including budget
- Survey of costs and labor needs
- Implementation of PRDA in the field
- Monitoring the recovery process, which is almost always accompanied by photographic reports, with drone or satellite images and written reports on the progress of the recovery.
In this way, recovering a degraded area can have the purpose of rehabilitating, which is making the area reintegrated into society, recovering or restoring. However, it is also necessary to establish specific objectives.
For example, a project to recover degraded land may also foresee the recovery of a gully as one of its specific objectives. All of this must be organized in a PRDA with a well-established roadmap and distributed over time.
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