rwanda – Ecosystem Restoration in Rwanda

Following the Rwanda Restore project kick-off in Kigali in January 2024, and a restoration stakeholder conference held in Kigali from February 19 to 21, 2025, the “living lab for social-ecological restoration in western Rwanda” sub-project of the “A Social-Ecological Systems Approach to Inform Ecosystem Restoration in Rural Africa” DFG Research Unit, Kicked-off the Living Lab in Rutsiro District, western Rwanda on February 25th, 2025. 42 participants attended the workshops from academia (Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management of the University of Rwanda and the Rwanda Polytechnic-Kitabi College), various governmental (Rwanda Water Resources Board, Rwanda Forestry Authority, Rwanda Agriculture Board and Rutsiro District), and non-governmental institutions (IMBARAGA Farmer Association, Forest of Hope Association, ARECO Rwandanziza, World Resource Institute -Rwanda, World Vision, Rwanda Organic Agriculture Movement, Albertine Rift Conservation Society, One Acre Fund, SNV-Rwanda, Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry-Rwanda) and local communities (Rutsiro Tea Growers Cooperative, farmer cooperatives, community farmer groups, traditional healers, beekeepers, model farmers in horticulture). The workshops aimed to establish a Living Lab Roundtable and define two governance models for the Living Lab, along with its code of conduct and communication strategy. Also, the workshop discusses opportunities and challenges for the current, mid-term and long-term future of restoration in Rutsiro, using a Three Horizons Approach, for restoration strategic planning in Rutsiro.

Organized into small group discussions, participants defined the code of conduct, communication principles and strategy and the three horizons for the restoration in the area

Governance model 1: Community-driven

Governance model 2: Actor-driven

At the end of the workshop, participants visited Living Lab sites in Gihango Sector. During the visit, the research team hiked through the hilly landscape to observe various land uses and assess the potential for restoration interventions. They were accompanied and guided by local field assistants and farmer group members, who provided valuable insights (see photo reference).

Stakeholders visits in Teba

Project team visit in Rutsiro

A community workshop was organized in two cells of the Gihango District: Teba and Shyembe. The field trip brought together representatives of farmers groups and cooperatives, carpenters, traditional healers, beekeepers, and farm owners of plots where the Living Lab sites sit.

Local community site visit in Shyembe Cell

Local community site visit in Teba Cell

Individual visits were also arranged to meet model farmers who have enhanced their nutrition by integrating food plants such as Chayote, Passion fruit, Avocado, Pineapple and Cucumber into agroforestry systems, particularly within their home gardens, for their consumption or the market. In some cases, farmers combine a variety of fruit plants and legumes within the same plot. The photos below capture the illustration very well.

NEXT STEPS!

The study selection and the social network analysis to identify haVE been completed in year 2024. The roundtable has also now been set up, the ongoing process before the end of this year will cover the co-design of field trials, definition of impact areas, delineation and registration of demonstration sites, including the signing of sustainability agreement with farm owners within the sites where the Living Lab will operate. The Living Lab roundtable of stakeholders will also develop the indicators of success…

Author: William Apollinaire

Following the workshop and conference in Kigali from February 19 to 21, 2025, Dr. Dula Wakassa Duguma and Susanne Vögele visited three pre-selected living lab sites in one of the two designated cells in Rutsiro district. These sites were presented on February 24 by SP7 team member Dr. Apollinaire William, who leads the planning and implementation of the Living Lab sub-project. The visit aimed to deepen the research unit’s understanding of the intervention sites for the co-created Living Labs, which are set to be launched in the coming months in Rutsiro District.

During the visit, the research team hiked through the hilly landscape to observe various land uses and assess the potential for restoration interventions. They were accompanied and guided by local field assistants and farmer group members, who provided valuable insights (see photo reference).

Dula Wakassa Duguma, Esperance Yamfashije (field assistant), William Apollinaire, Jean Baptiste Tegamaso (head of farmers’ group) and Susanne Vögele in Teba cell, Rutsiro district.

The visited sites are approximately a one-and-a-half-hour walk from the starting point, which is located near the main road. These sites are surrounded by various restoration activities, as well as cropland and pastureland, emphasizing the potential for integrating restoration efforts into agricultural landscapes. The area explored in the Teba cell includes three distinct sites, beginning with a restored reference site by the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS), which features radical terracing, agroforestry efforts, and woodlot patches (see picture below).

ARCOS reference restoration site (left picture) and newly established tree nursery (right picture ) in Tuba cell, Rutsiro district.

At the hilltop of the adjoining reference site, there is another location designated for modification and improvement of restoration activities. A third site is situated on the opposite hillside, where restoration efforts will begin from scratch. These three sites represent different stages of restoration, providing a solid foundation for comparison and analysis of their outcomes in the coming years.

In the neighboring Shyembe cell, two additional sites have been identified—one for modification and another for restoration from the ground up.

Site to be modified (left) and site to be started from scratch (right) in Tuba cell, Rutsiro district

The Living Lab concept and implementation plan were presented during stakeholder workshops and conferences. The latest workshop, conducted by William Apollinaire on February 25 and 26, brought together stakeholders from government institutions, NGOs, research and educational organizations, and local farmer communities. The goal was to foster transdisciplinary collaboration from the outset, ensuring that all parties were involved in identifying the socioeconomic and ecological preferences and expectations surrounding restoration in a collective roundtable format.

During this roundtable, two groups were formed, each representing a different governance model. These groups consist of community members (mostly farmers) and representatives from government and other institutions and organizations.

In the coming months and years, regular visits by stakeholders and the research unit will be conducted to monitor progress around the Living Labs and to study the effectiveness of integrating science and practice in an experimental, real-world setting.

Header Picture : Dula Wakassa Duguma, Susanne Vögele and William Apollinaire.

Author: Susanne Vögele

Preliminary results of photovoice research for SP6

In this blogpost Laura Kmoch shares reflections and preliminary results from her first fieldwork for our research unit’s subproject six. Having spent the past months in the project’s study landscapes, she just returned to Kigali – ready to share her experiences with you.

The glittering paths of Rwanda

Did you know that Rwanda’s paths and clay houses glitter? Neither did I when approaching Kigali just over five weeks ago. After brief meetings with our colleagues Ping, Verene and William, as well as Beth Kaplin and Venuste Nsengimana from our partner university, Gaelle and I set out to the field in Rwanda’s Western Province. We’d come for data collection in four rural villages that share common traits: Two of them – in Nyabihu District – are lake adjacent, implying wetland access for local residents. The other two – in Rutsiro District – border the Gishwati-Mukura National Park. It is tightly protected and part of a larger UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Research questions and aim

The aim of my fieldwork was to appraise restoration’s contribution to people through the lens of Western Rwanda’s rural residents: How and why do they experience restoration differently, in their everyday lives? Which benefits do they derive from different restoration types? Do detrimental contributions arise, as restoration interventions change their habitual landscapes? And how can restoration’s contributions to people best be classified? These are the questions I’d come to ask.

Laura Kmoch, Jeannette Uwitonze, and Gaelle Ndayizeye during fieldwork in Nyabihu District. Photos: Gaelle Ndayizeye and Honore Bahizi.

Photovoice: Seeing restoration through the lens of rural residents

My strategy of choice was “photovoice” – a participatory research approach, combining photography with semi-structured interviews. I’d never used it before. Fortunately, its implementation proofed to be fun and enriching for everyone involved. Having talked to key informants from each community, my research assistant Jeannette Uwitonze and I settled on the following approach: We met our research participants for initial group discussions, shared our research plans, and distributed tablets that would be used to take photographs. Eight to nine research participants then set out in each village to capture images, illustrating the intersection of restoration with their everyday lives. We met again in the evening to reobtain all tablets, and prepared for two-on-one interviews, through which we engaged with each photographer’s work in subsequent days.

Preliminary results

What about the results of this work, you ask? From a methodological stance, photovoice aims to empower research participants to express their personal concerns and everyday experiences through visual media and accompanying narratives. Shall we see some raw-data examples of what those are?

Title: “Alnus trees preventing soil erosion”

Image explanation:
“You see, this is Alnus trees.”

Beneficial contributions:
“The benefit from this tree – it helps to fix the soil. […] when the rain comes the soil are not falling down.”

“And also, […] it gives me a stick for using [with] the beans.”

“When it grows – becoming bigger – I also get a timber. And that timber [is] used to make furniture, like chairs, table…”

“It is also one to protect the environment. It provides a clean air.”

Evoked feelings:
“I am happy […]. Mostly, when there is much sunny, I [rest] under the trees to relax my mind.”

Title: “Trust”

Image explanation:
“In this picture, you see, there is a cow, a sheep, and me giving grasses. […]. I’m like – a cowboy for others – taking care for their livestock and then they pay me later.”

Detrimental contributions and challenges:
“To find grasses is very difficult.”

Links to restoration:
“There is a connection because this is a planted grasses, and that grasses help to avoid erosion.”

“There is also another connection, because – you see – there is a planted trees around, and that trees help to attract rain.”

“This animals also need rain.”

“Because I don’t have my own land [to] plant this grasses, sometimes I buy it to them […].”

Title: “Nyirakigugu Lake”

Image explanation:
“This is another beauty of this sector – Jenda Sector. […]. I was born in Mukamira, and this lake comes as new. I don’t know where it comes from.”

Beneficial contributions:
“You see that there is many people that are not eating meat. But now […] those who are not eating meat are able to eat fish that are coming from this lake.”

Detrimental contributions:
“There is land – and once this lake grow – all land disappears because of this. It was an agricultural land for people.”

Link to restoration:
“[…] now they have security, because they planted trees around the lake […]. When we didn’t plant that trees – this lake, it will continue to grow.”

Title: “Go up”

Image explanation:
“You see, this is beans. It falls down but the way I used sticks – to pin to the soil – and that beans growing, climbing up.”

Beneficial contributions:
“Even in my life beans […] helps in body building, body protection.”

“When I harvest these beans, I sell it to the market. […]. When I got that money, it helps me with my family. In my family we need to buy clothes. That is the important benefit I get from that bean.”

Links to restoration:
“You see, I use this bamboo as a stick for beans and I planted bamboo at the field too – it is not around my house.”

“I have a land. I make a terracing. And I planted bamboo around the terracing. Around the terrace.”

Reflecting on the photovoice approach

Compared to interview methods that do without visual probes, I thoroughly enjoyed co-generating data for this photovoice project. Similar to walking interviews on community land or farmers’ fields this technique enabled research participants to show – and not just tell us – what they wished to share. For instance, explanations about places we couldn’t reach during one-hour interviews, and restoration practices on land that our interviewees did not own.

Dissipating early-stage fieldwork concerns, all photography equipment was returned to us timely and in good condition, with a sufficient number of images captured by each participant. Older photographers, who’d never before used a smartphone camera, quickly acquired the necessary skills and confidence to take photos on their own. Often following enthusiastic instructions from their young, tech-savvy relatives.

Most research participants also expressed that the captured images evoking feelings of happiness and pride about own land-use achievements, as we reflected upon them. This likely explains interviewees’ eagerness to take all printed images that we prepared for them to their respective homes.

Newly build road (left) and glittering paths (right) in our study area. Photos: Laura Kmoch.

Next steps

With the first fieldwork in Rwanda completed, I’m looking forward to analyzing the co-generated data on interviewees’ perceptions of restoration, and restoration’s contributions to rural life and livelihoods in Western Rwanda.

Ooh, wait! You still want to know about those glittering paths? I haven’t found a satisfying explanation yet. They certainly arise from shiny, thin mineral flakes that are common in the region’s soil environments. But what type of mineral are they? And is their ubiquitous presence linked to volcanic processes in the region?

If you know – or share my interest in restoration benefits and photo-based research, please get in touch. You can reach me by email: laura.kmoch[at]uni-goettingen.de or via X: https://x.com/laurakmoch.

Read more about photovoice and our subproject six activities here:

Huber, J., Bieling, C., Garcia-Martin, M., Plieninger, T., and Torralba, M. (2023). Photovoice: Participatory research methods for sustainability – toolkit #8. GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, Volume 32, Number 4, pp. 386-388(3). https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.32.4.10

Ndayizeye, G. (2024). Plural Values, Rules, and Knowledge in Rural Landscape Restoration: Insights from Rwanda. People, Nature, Landscapes Blog. Medium. https://t.co/DbSSFhpGYV

Vögele, S., Bohn, S., Ndayizeye, G., and Kmoch, L., (2024). Appraising livelihoods, food security, and nature’s contributions to people from restoration landscapes in Western Rwanda. agrar aktuell. Newsletter der Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. pp. 22-23. https://t1p.de/umyor

Interview with Marina Frietsch, Leuphana University Lueneburg

In this interview, Marina Frietsch introduces us to the hopeful and dynamic world of ecosystem restoration. Marina is part of the subprojects for coordination and integration within the DFG research unit. She has explored the different temporal and spatial scales of restoration in her PhD and highlights the complexities of restoration, including the critical role humans play in both the degradation and recovery of ecosystems. Learn about innovative approaches to sustainability, the integration of social-ecological systems thinking, and the collaborative research going on in Rwanda.

In your PhD, you’re working a lot on restoration. What is restoration all about as a topic?
That’s a nice question because I think people have very different opinions, or perspectives on what ecosystem restoration actually is. I use the word ecosystem restoration quite frequently because I think, it tells you a lot about what we want to restore. It’s about different ecosystems, it’s not only about trees; it’s about different systems, where usually people interact with nature. We have not only ecosystems but actually social-ecological systems where restoration is happening. I believe ecosystem restoration is a lot about identifying degrading practices and then finding ways on how to respond to this degradation and develop or create ecosystems valuable both from an ecological point of view, but also for the people that are living in these ecosystems or close to these ecosystems.

Can you speak a bit about the role that humans play in these systems?
I think humans play a very central role in restoration, because on one side, they are the reason for degradation in many cases. And because they have practices that lead to ecosystems being not as ecologically sound as they could be. But I also think that people are a solution to these degrading practices because together with the people that work and live in the ecosystems that are being degraded, you can, of course, also develop solutions through ecosystem restoration that are sensitive to the needs and to the values of these people. So, I think, people do contribute to degradation but at the same time, they are the solution and they are the ones who then put restoration into practice in the end.

What got you interested in ecosystem restoration?
When you interact with sustainability in general, you come across a lot of very depressing topics like climate change, biodiversity loss and so many more. And I think for me, it was very nice and valuable to find an approach to sustainability that is very, very positive and where you can find a lot of enthusiasm for developing solutions that benefit both people and nature. So, for me, it’s a very positive way of responding to sustainability crises.

What do you want to find out about restoration? What’s the motivation or the research gap you’re looking at?
I want to bring together different scales at which restoration is happening. In my thesis, I’m looking both at a local and at a global scale and I’m also looking at the present and the future. I think it’s very important, to not only think about restoration in this simplistic way of “oh, what can we do today?“. But to also incorporate future challenges that might lie ahead, future values, future needs that people might have. So, I want to integrate spatial and temporal scales to better understand what can be good approaches to restoration that are actually sustainable in the long run.

In a recent paper, you’ve proposed a ladder of restoration ambition. Can you tell me more about this concept and how it relates to these different scales?
That’s something that came up when we were travelling through Rwanda. We thought a lot about how restoration developed there and we saw that, over time, restoration really changed a lot because people had different values and different needs. And what we propose with the ladder of restoration ambition is just this very simple thought actually, that over time and in different areas, people have different needs. It’s very valuable to acknowledge that restoration can also change and that we don’t have to stick to one specific way of doing restoration or to one specific restoration aim. We can also say: “what do we need now? What do we maybe need in 20 years or in 100 years? How can we bring this together?“. This paper really shows that restoration is very dynamic in its essence and not something that is static.

What makes Rwanda so interesting for this kind of research?
Rwanda is an excellent place to study restoration and there are many reasons for it. One of them is that Rwanda has been active in restoration for a couple of decades now and globally is one of the restoration leaders. And when you get to the country, you can really see this. There are many NGOs, and the government is also very active in putting restoration into practice. There are of course also many challenges concerning ecosystem restoration. We have governance issues and power inequities that need to be considered in ecosystem restoration, and this also applies to Rwanda. We also have large scale degradation that happened over the past century and a really dire need to respond to this and there are, of course, financing issues. A lot of big restoration challenges that apply to Rwanda, at the same time also apply to many different countries and systems all over the world. So, it’s very nice to study restoration in Rwanda to better understand the challenges and to find solutions that then also apply beyond.

You mentioned working with NGOs and other stakeholders. What does that look like?
We’re still in the starting phase of the research project. We’ve already met quite a few people and it was always very inspiring to talk to the people who actually put restoration into practice. You can also see that there’s a lot of motivation, enthusiasm for restoration with these stakeholders. That’s very, very nice. What we aim to do with our research project, is a co-development of knowledge and of understanding. We let the people who do restoration guide what we specifically look at. Ideally, you want it to be a cooperation and it’s a process of working together and sharing the expertise that everyone brings to the table. Through this we want to develop solutions for ecosystem restoration to work in the specific context that we have in Rwanda.

On the other hand, research in the global South is often accompanied by questions about power dynamics and justice. How is this reflected in your research?
That’s a very good question and I personally have spent quite a lot of time thinking about this issue. Because I think that, of course, you have a responsibility when you come from a country like Germany with a lot of money, as we have from the DFG, that is funding our project. You, of course, have this responsibility: how do you act in this context, how you use the money. It’s a challenge, that’s for sure. I think it’s extremely important to be sensitive to the context in which you’re working in and to actually talk to the people, and not just about the people. We really have to be attentive and reflect on these issues. In our research, we want to find a way to engage with stakeholders in Rwanda that is truly collaborative and respectful and that is sensitive to the power inequalities that exist in such a context.

You’re working in a large research unit with lots of scientists from different institutions. What’s your role in the team and what’s your perspective that you want to bring to the table there?
I am a postdoc in the coordination subproject. Our responsibility as a coordination team is to overview the whole process and make sure that everything goes smoothly. We’re also the point of connection for everyone else. And I’m also part of the integration subproject where we towards the end of the research project aim to integrate the different insights that were gathered by our colleagues. This is really amazing in my opinion because we have so many great people that are part of this research project and look at so many different aspects of ecosystem restoration. We have this very nice combination of a lot of expertise and very motivated PhD students who are still learning and who are still in the process of engaging with social-ecological systems research. It will be a privilege to then take all of this data and look at overarching patterns and look at dynamics that emerge from the more detailed findings that our colleagues are producing

Looking forward, what are the next steps in your research?
In the next few weeks and months, we want to focus on a manuscript that talks about different visions for the future of ecosystem restoration in Rwanda. This manuscript is based on a workshop that took place in Kigali at the beginning of this year. I’m very much looking forward to it because that’s a paper that brings together close to 40 co-authors. It’s a team of Rwandan restoration experts and the DFG research unit members. I think that’s going to be a very nice collaborative product, talking about different visions and different ideas for what restoration in Rwanda might look like in the next decades.

What’s your favourite part of your research? What excites you about it?
I think the nice thing is that I like everything of it: I really like data collection, I really like data interpretation, I really like writing. And I really, really like being in contact with researchers and other stakeholders. So, the good news is I like all of it! I think what I love most about it, is when I’m talking to people who are also excited about restoration and who share their motivation and enthusiasm. And these little conversations that sometimes happen on the side where you can see the people are so motivated and people want to make a difference and want to contribute to finding solutions that then benefit nature and benefit people. And I think that’s very motivating also for me to keep putting my energy into this topic.

Interview by Felix Schaaf.

Read more about ecosystem restoration here:
Frietsch, M., Fischer, J. Kaplin, B. A., & Martín-López, B. (2024). The relevance of international restoration principles for ecosystem restoration practice in Rwanda. Restoration Ecology 32(3): e14085. DOI: 10.1111/rec.14085.

Frietsch, M., Loos, J., Löhr, K., Sieber, S., & Fischer, J. (2023). Future-proofing ecosystem restoration through enhancing adaptive capacity. Communications Biology 6: 377. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04736-y.

Frietsch, M., Pacheco-Romero, M., Temperton, V. M., Kaplin, B. A., & Fischer, J. (2024). The social–ecological ladder of restoration ambition. Ambio. DOI: 10.1007/s13280-024-02021-8.

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NEXT STEPS!

Laura Kmoch, Jeannette Uwitonze, and Gaelle Ndayizeye during fieldwork in Nyabihu District. Photos: Gaelle Ndayizeye and Honore Bahizi.

Newly build road (left) and glittering paths (right) in our study area. Photos: Laura Kmoch.