Assisted Natural Regeneration harnesses the natural potential for recovery within ecosystems and landscapes.
What is Assisted Natural Regeneration?
Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is a broad set of practices that help degraded ecosystems recover naturally.
These practices are designed to eliminate barriers to the natural process of recovery and can include supplemental planting of native species that fail to regenerate naturally.
What can ANR look like? Depending on the situation, some techniques might include protecting the land from wildfires, fencing off sites to keep cows from grazing, or controlling harmful invasive species.
These practices are designed to eliminate barriers to the natural process of recovery and can include supplemental planting of native species that fail to regenerate naturally.
What can ANR look like? Depending on the situation, some techniques might include protecting the land from wildfires, fencing off sites to keep cows from grazing, or controlling harmful invasive species.
Why is Assisted Natural Regeneration Important?
Assisted Natural Regeneration holds immense potential for ecosystem restoration. Because it addresses conditions that are unique to each site or landscape, ANR is inherently flexible. And it can be more cost-efficient than other restoration methods: studies show that forests can be restored with ANR at less than one-third of the cost of tree planting.
However, its true value needs to be more widely acknowledged and harnessed by local communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, and top-tier decision-makers.
LEARN MORE: A status report on Assisted Natural Regeneration: What, why, who, where, and how?
Executive Summary of the Assisted Natural Regeneration Alliance White Paper
What Does Assisted Natural Regeneration Look Like?
Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) is a versatile approach with many entry points in different ecological and land management contexts.
ANR practices are tailored to specific contexts and scales:
Ecological Restoration
For ecological restoration, ANR blends elements of spontaneous natural regeneration with active restoration techniques.
Managed or Post-Logging Forests
ANR practices can foster recovery and enrich the diversity of forests and woodlands, ensuring sustainable use of timber and non-timber products.
Ecosystem Management
ANR helps degraded forests, shrublands, pastures, and grasslands to recover.
Shifting Cultivation
In landscapes impacted by shifting cultivation, ANR practices can transform fallow areas into sustainable agroforests or managed secondary forests.
Landscape Scale
ANR practices support biological corridors, ecological connectivity, buffer zones, watershed management, and riparian zone preservation.
Farms and Rangelands
ANR practices align closely with agroforestry and regenerative agriculture by rejuvenating trees and shrubs. They enhance essential services like water supply and pollination.
Why is Assisted Natural Regeneration Important?
People around the world have embraced ANR to restore their landscapes. WRI Brasil, Instituto Centro de Vida, Imazon, and Suzano have compiled the leading examples within Brazil and across the globe.
Açucena and Rio Preto Farms
Working with two large farms in Northern Brazil, Imazon is protecting the Amazon Rainforest by keeping cattle out of nearly 1,700 ha of naturally regenerating land.
Neblinas Park
Pulp and paper giant Suzano is transforming a eucalyptus plantation into a living laboratory for ANR across 7,000 ha in Southern Brazil.
Sesc Serra Azul Park
Sesc Pantanal is using cattle in Western Brazil are munching seedling-smothering exotic grasses, bringing vegetation and native grasses back to 5,000 ha of Brazil’s Cerrado savanna.
Monte Alto Forest Reserve
The Foundation for Monte Alto Forest Reserve and local communities in Western Costa Rica are restoring water-producing native forests, bringing back biodiversity to more than 300 ha.
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration
World Vision Australia is working with farming communities in Western Kenya to return native trees to 2,200 ha of degraded pasture.
Anaimalai Hills
After decades of logging, the Nature Conservation Foundation is using a mix of ANR and tree planting to restore 22,000 hectares in Southern India.
Photos (clockwise from top left): IMAZON Collection, Paulo Guilherme Molin, Henrique Andrade, Robin Chazdon, Global Landscapes Forum, Nature Conservation Foundation
The Benefits of Assisted Natural Regeneration
Assisted Natural Regeneration can also have positive impacts on people, nature, and climate:
Safeguarding livelihoods
ANR provides stable incomes for local communities through a steady supply of forest products.
Protecting native biodiversity
By making space for natural regeneration, ANR preserves the landscapes that many plants and animals call home.
Enhancing nature’s benefits
ANR helps to provide critical ecosystem services, including carbon storage, climate resilience, and water supply.
