The study linked East African and European researchers in strategic alliances so as to contribute to resolving conflicts prevailing between the needs of forest stakeholders and the need to sustain forests and their biodiversity. The particular objectives were to: i) establish and validate ecological and socio-economic criteria to assess processes and dynamics of natural forests; ii) design and validate nature-based tools to gear forestry operations towards sustainability; iii) integrate results into exploitable technology packages and disseminate them amongst target-groups.

• Strengthened local user groups in Ethiopia to use their natural resources sustainably.
• Transformed degraded Miombo forests of Tanzania into semi-natural production forests.
• Supported private sector and community-based reforestation programs in Uganda.