IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania 
Beijing, 24-27 October 2016 
 
Practices and problems in seed sourcing for forest and landscape restoration: results from 
a global survey 
Riina Jalonen
a
*, Michel Valette
b
, David Boshier
c 
a 
Bioversity International, Malaysia; r.jalonen@cgiar.org  
b
 Department of Biology and Ecology, University of Montpellier II; michel.valette88@gmail.com 
c 
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK; david.boshier@plants.ox.ac.uk 
* Presenting author 
 
Forest and landscape restoration efforts worldwide require large amounts of tree seed and 
seedlings in planting, or natural dispersal and recruitment. Forest degradation and climate 
change pose challenges for selecting and acquiring tree seed that is genetically diverse and 
suited to both current and future growth conditions on restoration sites. A global survey was 
conducted among restoration practitioners in October 2015 to study: (i) from where and how 
restoration practitioners source tree seeds and seedlings, (ii) what problems they have in this 
process and (iii) how they think seed availability could be improved. A total of 140 respondents 
from more than 50 countries completed the survey. Types of restoration projects varied along 
two main gradients identified by Multiple Correspondence Analysis: (i) from locally 
implemented conservation-oriented, to large scale production-oriented projects, and (ii) from 
projects with intensive vs. limited effort in selecting and sourcing seed suited to project 
purposes. Perceived problems regarding availability and quality of seed were fairly common 
and widely dispersed across these different types of projects. The results indicate gaps between 
currently used seed sourcing strategies and those strategies restoration practitioners would 
prefer. Awareness of the importance of origin and genetic quality of seed for productivity and 
adaptive capacity appears low in many projects, including projects that specifically aim for 
timber production and climate change mitigation. Evident needs and recommendations are 
discussed for improving seed and seedlings supply to help meet global and national targets for 
forest and landscape restoration. 
 
Key words: Tree seed supply, seed provenance, genetic diversity, climate change, Multiple 
Correspondence Analysis