Potential of community participation and non-timber forest species in forest restoration has been widely discussed but rarely demonstrated through long-term empirical studies. An attempt was made to restore the communal forest in temperate Indian Himalaya by mixed planting of multipurpose broad-leaved trees, bamboo, and medicinal herbs chosen by local people based on pooled indigenous and scientific knowledge. Funding was terminated after 7 years, while people–researcher interactions and monitoring of the restored forest and competing land uses/economic activities continued. People viewed co-occurrence of gregarious flowering induced mortality of bamboo and excessive crop/beehive damage by wildlife in the 10th year as a setback. Further, they envisioned threats to intact forest from mounting timber demand. As a common mitigation measure, they planted in gaps fast-growing and nitrogen-fixing Alnus nepalensis excluded in the initial treatment for harboring pests, yielding inferior products, and its negative association with medicinal herbs/bamboo. After 20 years, transplanted trees/bamboos were over two times taller than the naturally regenerated ones. The plantation had 75% of belowground and 17% of aboveground carbon stocks and 39% of flowering plant species in intact forest and was economically more efficient than intact forest and farms. People did not expand the trial because of its ineffectiveness in mitigating new problems and satisfying new aspirations. Agricultural abandonment nullified restoration-mediated carbon sequestration. There is a need of translating ecological concepts underlying cost-effective restoration into practices and of policies supporting participatory long-term adaptive forest restoration and its synergy with other economic activities in cultural landscapes.

中文翻译：

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印度温带喜马拉雅地区公共森林的参与式积极恢复

社区参与和非木材森林物种在森林恢复中的潜力已被广泛讨论，但很少通过长期实证研究证明。尝试通过混合种植多用途阔叶树、竹子和当地人民根据汇集的土著和科学知识选择的药材来恢复温带印度喜马拉雅的公共森林。资助在 7 年后终止，而人与研究人员的互动以及对恢复的森林和竞争性土地利用/经济活动的监测仍在继续。人们将第 10 年同时发生的群居开花导致竹子死亡和野生动物过度破坏农作物/蜂箱视为挫折。此外，他们设想木材需求增加对完整森林的威胁。作为一种常见的缓解措施，尼泊尔桤木因藏害害虫、生产劣质产品及其与药材/竹子的负面关系而被排除在初始处理中。20年后，移植的树木/竹子比自然再生的高出两倍多。该种植园在完整森林中拥有 75% 的地下碳储量和 17% 的地上碳储量以及 39% 的开花植物物种，并且比完整的森林和农场更具经济效率。人们没有扩大试验，因为它在减轻新问题和满足新愿望方面无效。农业废弃使恢复介导的碳封存无效。