A village based participatory approval process allocates individual reforestation sites to households, along with defined use-rights & obligations using the following steps:

1. Application to local forest authorities by smallholders through voluntary user groups
2. Consultation on village level to exclude disputed land upfront & for taking unanimous decision on the future reforestation sites allocation. Results: minutes & sketch plan
3. Verification by communal decision makers & endorsement by a communal decree
4. Assigning land to the village afforestation body based on a specification document
5. Mapping of individual wood lots; plot owners receive individual map with GPS coordinates signed by the mayor of the community
6. Registration of sites by the land office; official verification of the reforestation site based on sketch plan, the communal decree and the enrolment into the local tenure plan.

Forest authorities register the transfer of use rights for an indefinite period, including equal access and benefit sharing for the participants. Smallholder households involved in the afforestation scheme own ~3 ha. This enables them to produce about 2.6 t charcoal per year for 27 years without further investment.

The approach focused on 3 essential ecosystem functions: water, biodiversity and soil. The following steps were used to define criteria for each group:

1. Identification of ecosystem service relevant parameters and criteria (> 100 criteria)
2. Pre-screening: spatialization of parameters at national, regional and local scale (41 spatially available criteria)
3. Consultation: selection of final criteria based on 3 groups (water, biodiversity, soil) during group work, direct consultations; prioritization, indicator weighting and determination of criteria values (28 prioritzed criteria). Criteria examples: rainfall, hydrological resources, population density, land use, soil carbon and productivity 
4. Multicriteria analysis based on quantitative and qualitative values; preparation of 14 scenario maps, combining different groups (water, biodiversity and soil) with four priority levels; identification of priority area of 11,122,540 ha
5. Verification of results based on data from the national restoration opportunities assessment method (ROAM) study and other sources
6. Validation of results by the national FLR committee & platform and selection of 8 priority watersheds

A series of trainings for national decision makers was conducted covering topics such as FLR terms & definitions, strategies addressing drivers of degradation (e.g. wood energy), as well as financing options. Capacity building was conducted continuously and had a ‘training on the job’ character; it was aligned with concrete aspects such as FLR studies (ROAM study, financing options), the national FLR strategy and identification of FLR priority landscapes. ~40 relevant actors (universities, civil society, private sector) were able to provide their input in the form of questionnaires on how to define priority areas for FLR, which was a cornerstone of capacity building.

The training was complemented by the participation of national representatives at various FLR & AFR100 regional and international conferences; this enabled further knowledge exchange at global level to improve national strategies.

At present, capacity building focuses at the regional level; a training module has been developed and tested in Boeny region in April 2018 and will be adapted for application in Diana region. Additional trainings will be held for the Ministry of Spatial Planning, covering land governance.

Before beginning to approach potential funders it was necessarily to carefully plan and design the project and anticipate all the information that funders would wish to know. This includes the project aims and outputs, the team involved, the logistical plan and the budget. It is also important to clearly think about how the project will have a lasting legacy beyond the clean-up expedition. This should be developed into a full written project proposal.

Following completion of the project design it is necessary to set-up project media sites, this also required developing a project logo, title and tag line. We also set-up specific project email addresses. The media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & project website) all required initial content and therefore a photo library was compiled and content text established. Before launching the project we also completed team recruitment (12 team volunteers in total) and allocated specific team roles for the duration of the project, for example, social media officer, outreach officer, science officer. With this now in place it was possible to plan a fundraising strategy.

The ordinances and the master plan stipulate collaboration among relevant local stakeholders to establish a common system for conservation management. In line with the city ordinance, private companies that withdraw more than 30,000 m3 of groundwater annually are requested to form, implement and monitor a conservation plan. They also submit a report on the recharge of groundwater to follow the prefectural ordinance. Through this collaboration system, the governments have achieved multiple projects to recharge groundwater with involvement of different stakeholders. The prefectural government, for instance, took the lead in recharging groundwater by filling fallow paddy fields full of water in collaboration with farmland owners in upper basin region, agricultural cooperatives, and neighboring towns and villages. Furthermore, there are some companies participating in the projects as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. Farmers are requested to use fertilizers and treat animal excrement properly in order to decrease the concentration of nitrate.

Even though the national law does not cover the groundwater system, the groundwater management has been governed through a series of ordinances, comprehensive plans, and action plans for more than 40 years. Groundwater Preservation Ordinances was established in 1977 for Kumamoto City and in 2001 for Kumamoto Prefecture. The city and prefecture governments jointly developed a comprehensive plan to control groundwater in 1996, incorporating collective input from 17 municipalities in the catchment area into the plan. Later, a second version of the plan in 2008 was developed by the group of 15 municipalities in the catchment, identifying four prioritized areas: 1) improvement of the balance of inflow and outflow of groundwater, 2) protection and improvement the quality of groundwater, 3) raising awareness of citizens for the conservation of groundwater, and 4) establishment of a common goal among stakeholders. A detailed five-year action plan was also developed the following year in order to implement mitigation measures in a timely manner. 

Without sustained support, enforcement and prevention of the transgressions into the LMMA would have been impossible. The more famous the Vamizi LMMA was, the more pressure was increasing from people accessing the area. The continuous support in gasoline for the patrols and the maintenance of the CCP boat was crucial to the success of the LMMA. The fee collected from the tourist users of the LMMA is an extra reward for the maintenance of the LMMA and to the persons doing the patrols belonging to the CCP’s.

Kadokawa Care Prevention Center was established by Toyama City using donations from citizens and the city budget. One citizen donated hundreds of millions of JPY, or around millions of USD, to the city for the improvement of social welfare services for elderly citizens, and the city decided to build a special center for preventive care on the site of a demolished elementary school. The city also received valuable and useful assets (i.e., hot spring facilities and special apparatus for exercise) donated by several citizens before it began operating. While the property is owned by the city, the facility is operated and managed by a joint venture of private companies.

In aging rural cities, the population aging rate is higher in the city center, and therefore it is important to make the city center more elderly-friendly. This means making the area safe, habitable and accessible to the elderly. Toyama City demolished and integrated several schools due to the shrinking and aging demographic context and utilized one of them for the site of the Prevention Care Center. The location in the downtown area is highly accessible by public transportation such as bus, light rail transit, and community bus from the central station.

Toyama City is promoting integrated and inclusive care services for the elderly population, and local networks play a key role. The city has 32 community general support centers as contact points for the elderly people in each community, where experts (e.g. nurses, certified social workers, welfare caretakers) monitor and guide the health of the elderly people and advise them to attend the Kadokawa Care Prevention Center, when necessary. The city also works together with a city-based voluntary club which 36% of all the elderly citizens of the city have joined. The city asks several members in the club to take a leadership role in promoting community-based activities for preventive care and communicating with the support centers and the City of Toyama. This community-based approach also helps members become more aware of their own health, and it enhances self-reliance and encourages mutual help among communities.