Cinturón Verde Restoration Project, Honduras

Why We Are Partnering to Restore and Protect Tegucigalpa’s Water Recharge Zones

In the last two decades, deforestation and degradation of Tegucigalpa's water recharge zones have compromised the capital city’s already unstable urban water supply. This region has also lost 10,560 hectares of tree cover and over 14,000 hectares of forest have been impacted due to the effects of the pine bark beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis). The Cinturón Verde Landscape Restoration Project provides a nature-based solution to the region's urgent water crisis, complementing urban infrastructure improvements to play a critical role in climate resilience while creating co-benefits for biodiversity and livelihoods.

This reforestation and restoration project, comprised of a rich diversity of forest types, such as highland cloud forests, pine-oak, and broadleaf deciduous forests, integrates five protected areas, their buffer zones, and the biological corridors between them. By working across these different areas, the landscape restoration project directly secures water resources for over 1 million people, enhances biodiversity habitat, and develops sustainable livelihood opportunities for local communities.

How We’re Working Here

We are collaboratively working with communities, governments, and other stakeholders to co-design and co-develop programs that restore forests by addressing the drivers of deforestation and degradation. By incorporating a holistic restoration landscape approach, we are focusing on a mosaic of protected and unprotected forest types that support Tegucigalpa's three main water sources - Las Laureles Dam, La Concepción Dam, and La Tigra National Park. Our approach to supporting landscape restoration in this region includes:

• Collaboration with community water boards and other stakeholders to build a restoration vision and co-develop project goals.
• Reforestation and protection of key water recharge zones for Honduras’ Central District, improving water availability for over 1 million people.
• Expansion of biological corridors between protected areas through agroforestry and regenerative agriculture on private and communally owned land.
• Promoting forest-friendly, climate-resilient livelihood opportunities, co-developed with communities and other stakeholders in the project design phase.
• Protection of high biodiversity areas.
• Expansion of our forest fire monitoring and prevention efforts in coordination with firefighting brigades and volunteers.
• Monitoring and management activities for Pine Bark Beetle outbreaks.
• Coordination, support, and implementation of protected area management plans.

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Anticipated Impact

By building a common vision for the Cinturón Verde Landscape Restoration Project, communities and stakeholders are playing a leading role in protecting water resources, preventing and managing uncontrolled forest fires, restoring landscape connectivity, and building long-term climate resilience in the landscape they call home. Over the next 15 years, we expect the restoration project to enhance landscape connectivity and function, delivering lasting benefits for communities, the climate, and biodiversity, including:

• A more connected landscape that will provide ecosystem services, support biodiversity, and facilitate the movement of animals, plants, and water across the region.

• Reduced disturbance of natural fire regimes, improving forest health and long-term resilience.
• Increased water availability for urban and rural residents.
• Millions of trees planted and monitored across three forest types.
• Sustainable food production systems that promote soil health and improve connectivity in the landscape.
• Forest-friendly and climate-resilient livelihoods, created through direct employment, seed collection, and value-chain development.
• Reduced risk and impact of natural disasters such as floods, forest fires, landslides, etc.
• Improved air quality.