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  • Forests and fungi: Mekong communities reap the rewards of a 500 million-year-old partnership

Forests and fungi: Mekong communities reap the rewards of a 500 million-year-old partnership


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Marasmius purpureostriatus. Photo by Steve Axford/ICRAF
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By Andrew Stevenson, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

We are only just beginning to realise how much life on earth depends on the partnership between fungi and forests. A recent video, released to mark the International Day of Forests on 21 March highlights new research into fungi in the Mekong region, including how local communities can benefit from harvesting and cultivating mushrooms – and how these benefits are linked to protecting forests.

Most people would agree that forests are a vital part of a healthy planet: around 1.6 billion people directly depend on forests for their livelihoods, and forest trees help provide us with healthy soils, clean water and even breathable air. The role of fungi is less well known. Yet without fungi, forests would not exist. In fact, without fungi, it’s unlikely that there would be much life on land at all – over 500 million years ago, it was a partnership between fungi and plants that allowed marine plants to colonize the land. Today, fungi continue to help forests grow by supplying trees with nutrients and breaking down organic matter.

Researchers examine fungi samples in Yunnan, China. Photo by Catherine Marciniak/ICRAF

Fungi are also a vital source of nutrition and income for many communities around the world, including in the Greater Mekong region, which comprises parts of China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. This area contains an astonishing variety of fungi, including many species which produce edible and medicinal mushrooms. Yet according to World Agroforestry Centre mycologist Dr Samantha Karunarathna, “while local people are keen to make use of this resource, they often don’t know how to identify wild mushrooms that are safe to consume – and they can struggle to sell their harvest for a good price.”

In response, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) are training local communities in mushroom identification, cultivation, harvesting and trade, and  have established the Southeast Asian Fungal Network to help communities and researchers share information. As ICRAF soil biologist Dr Peter Mortimer points out, “the project aims to give Mekong communities not only a reliable source of income and nutrition but also an incentive to conserve natural forests, which are the source of many of the most valuable mushroom species”.

Marasmius purpureostriatus. Photo by Steve Axford/ICRAF

ICRAF and KIB’s work on fungi in the Mekong region has been endorsed by the Mountain Futures Initiative, an international effort to find and support new projects that can improve the lives of mountain communities and safeguard their environments. The Initiative aims to plant the seeds of brighter, more sustainable futures in mountain regions around the world by bringing scientific research and traditional knowledge together.

The two organisations are also working together to catalogue the Mekong region’s fungal diversity: over 3,000 species are known to exist in this region, and over the past five years, 20% of the species collected have been new to science. However, continued deforestation means that these unique varieties of fungi – and their potential applications in medicine, agriculture and industry – are rapidly being lost. National and international support for further research and conservation efforts is therefore urgently needed to safeguard the future of this ancient partnership between forests and fungi.


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  • Gender in agriculture: creating opportunities for women

Gender in agriculture: creating opportunities for women


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Ana Maria Paez-Valencia, gender specialist, World Agroforestry Centre.
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Ana Maria Paez-Valencia, gender specialist, World Agroforestry Centre.

By Susan Onyango, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

By the year 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow to 9 billion. To meet this increasing demand for food, agricultural productivity must be sustainably improved. The Sustainable Development Goal no. 2 on agriculture, food security and nutrition demonstrates global commitment towards realizing this ambition.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2017, Women in the Changing World of Work: Plant 50-50 by 2030, reiterates the importance of gender equality and empowerment in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Ana Maria Paez-Valencia, gender specialist at the World Agroresty Centre, talks about gender in agriculture and how women’s participation can be enhanced.

How has the World Agroforestry Centre’s work helped integrate gender into agricultural programmes and policies? A lot of our work on gender has been done with implementing agencies, NGOs and local governments. The Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi project in Indonesia, for example, led the implementing local extension agents and NGOs to consider social, cultural and even gender differences in the communities in a systematic way across all the activities. Similarly in the Drylands Development Programme, we are currently supporting the integration of gender dimensions to make the programme more gender responsive and likely to contribute to women’s empowerment. We also develop capacities of different partners in the project to understand gender and its relevance to their work.

At the policy level, in 2016,  our team in Peru contributed to the National Climate Change Gender Action Plan led by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable People. For three to four years now, the World Agroforestry Centre in Latin America has been working on gender issues in value chains and climate change adaptation and mitigation. All this work fed into that action plan.

What are the key gender issues in agriculture and food security? There are many issues and they vary according to geographic and socio-economic context. But in general, they include access and control of productive resources including land, extension services, inputs and markets. Participation in decision-making is also an important issue. These challenges take different forms at different levels. At the household level, for instance, intra-household relationships have important implications on who takes part and who benefits from agriculture and food security interventions. For example, programmes looking to improve women’s productivity might end up adding to their already overloaded workloads. Women worldwide work more hours than men as they not only participate in productive activities like tending to the farms, but also look after their families and household affairs. These various roles need to be recognized, valued and even challenged to be able to provide suitable options to improve the lives of women and their families.

What are the gaps in research that need to be addressed to achieve optimal gender inclusion in agriculture? Look at intra-household relations – how can we involve men in the conversation? Identifying gender roles and needs in different contexts is important but we need to move forward. We need to find ways to ensure that both men and women benefit from our research and the practices that we promote are not adding to women’s drudgery. We need to work around power relations at the household level, considering cultural contexts, so that women have a meaningful participation in the decision-making processes.

Would closing the gender gap in agriculture generate significant gains? A lot of studies have been done on economic benefits and potential increases in production with regards to the gender gap in agriculture. Some statistics claiming that women produce 60-80% of the world’s food have been questioned. Studies that have seriously looked at the statistics actually concluded that it is impossible to find a precise measure of women’s contribution to food production, as women do not produce food separately from men. Even when looking at women’s labour participation in agriculture, the results vary significantly from region to region. According to FAO, in sub-saharan Africa as well as southeast Asia it is close to 50% while in Latin America it is about 20%. There are also significant variations from country to country.

What is important to note is that although women are greatly involved in agriculture, they face unequal access to resources that are critical for agricultural production. There should not be a need for an economic argument pointing at the benefits of reducing this gap. Although there are plenty of debates on this, it should be about the right of women to have the same opportunities to gain from this activity.

What opportunities are there for women to benefit more as active participants in the agriculture sector? There many opportunities! Women can achieve more if they have access to fair markets and if they are allowed to have a say on how resources are spent, how they can improve production and how available resources are utilized. They can also benefit if carefully targeted for trainings that fit their schedules and mobility restrictions, and if they could keep control over crops and resources when these become commercially viable.

But many of these opportunities are curtailed by traditional gender norms and roles about what women can or should do. These norms and roles also determine gender relations and power dynamics that are more effectively addressed at the household level.

We have to always remember that gender is about the relationship between men and women. Transforming those traditional norms that are the root of women’s disadvantaged position requires challenging the distribution of resources and allocation of duties within the household, and more importantly involving men and boys to encourage collaboration and discourage conflict.


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  • What next for customary forests in Indonesia?

What next for customary forests in Indonesia?


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Photo: Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR
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Photo: Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR

Originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Researcher Agus Mulyana, affiliated with the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, speaks about the implications of a recent handover of management rights, and what it will mean for indigenous communities

A recent handover of customary land rights from the Indonesian government to indigenous peoples has been hailed as a milestone for many forest communities in Indonesia. At the start of 2017, more than 13,000 hectares of customary land was handed over to nine indigenous communities, recognizing their longstanding stewardship and management of forests.

Among the indigenous communities recognized by the move, the Kajang people of South Sulawesi were put forward as a national model for others to follow. Agus Mulyana, a senior researcher in governance at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), was involved in the process leading up to the handover. We asked for his thoughts on what it took to get to this point, and what needs to happen next.

What was the status of indigenous people in forest management before this handover?

The indigenous Kajang community manage their forest in a traditional way, based on the regulation of Pasang Ri Kajang, a customary law passed down through generations. In 1982, via regulation No. 760, the Agriculture Ministry issued a decree that declared a forest area in South Sulawesi covering more than 3.6 million hectares, including the Kajang customary forest. With this, the status of the forest changed to become the property of the state, with the function of a limited production forest. This change in status threatened the conservation of the forest, because it led to illegal timber exploitation.


It also resulted in conflict over the changing status of the forest, and a cross-cultural conflict between the government and the indigenous community. The local government assumed the authority to issue permits for the use of forest timber, while according to traditional law, logging in the area was forbidden. In fact, the indigenous community were forbidden by their own law to even enter the forest.

For the indigenous community of Kajang, protecting the forest is not only a matter of protecting their own interests. Based on the the 1982 regulation, about 332 hectares of the Kajang customary forest became a limited production forest (HPT). Based on participatory mapping, the converted area was about 314 hectares. Participatory mapping also shows that the total area of the customary forest is more than 22,500 hectares. The area has a hydrological function, as it contains three important watersheds that ensure clean water supply and irrigation for thousands of hectares of rice paddies in three districts of the Bulukumba regency.

Our research looks at opportunities to address and resolve conflicts by switching the focus on both sides from only focusing on the status of the forest and who it belongs to, toward a broader focus on the function and interests of each side with regard to the forest area. We want to convince stakeholders on both sides that cooperative management will bring far better outcomes for upholding the function of the forest.

How do you think forest management will change after this?

The issuance of the new Forestry Minister’s Decree is a sign of progress, and a bold step for the government. This can become the perfect arena for finding out the best way to increase the prosperity of the indigenous community and safeguard the natural environment.

With the issuance of the decree on customary forests, the role of indigenous communities will become more strategic in determining the fate of their forests. The action taken by the state to change the status and function of customary forests will in the end support all stakeholders to learn how to develop methods of collaborative management.

It also means that the government has taken on a new role, as a facilitator and regulator to assist and empower traditional institutions. As a facilitator, the government will need to assist indigenous communities in facing external threats that are out of their range of influence to overcome, such as expansion of investors to take control of forest areas. As a regulator, the government will need to assist in building the capacity of indigenous communities. For example, by helping them to establish new institutions via the processes of policy development, including by issuing local reglations on tradition-based, or community-based, forest management.

What will it mean for forest conservation?

Conservation is threatened when the status of a forest is changed to become a limited production forest. But local governments can respond to situations like this from a collaborative management approach.

The Bulukumba Regency Forestry Agency and the indigenous Kajang community can make an agreement to take concrete action, such as by conducting joint patrols by forest rangers and the community. Aside from this, formal and traditional sanctions can be strengthened for every case of a violation.

In the future, conservation activities can also strengthen traditional institutions so that synergies between traditional culture and forest conservation are better supported — even more so if all stakeholders consider the hydrological function of the Kajang forest area. I am optimistic that the community and the government will work together for better conservation outcomes. This will include maintaining the balance between fulfilling the economic development needs and protecting the environment.

Do you think traditional knowledge will now play a greater role in forest management? How?

Traditional knowledge is an important element of informal institutions, and is made up of three important elements, namely: soft infrastructure (such as values, principles, local regulations and so on), planning arrangements (organizational structures and governance, personnel and leadership) and mechanisms (conflict resolution, law enforcement, planning and deliberation). Contained within these three elements are the implicit strengths of local knowledge management systems.

One example is the cultural philosophy of Kamase Mase, that is, to live a simple lifestyle supported by abundant natural resources. Those among the community with the right to fell timber are those who cannot afford to buy it elsewhere. Logging is practiced only within an area determined by customary law, without the use of machinery, and must be carried out under close supervision.

Strengthening this kind of local knowledge will determine the fate and future not only of customary forests, but also indigenous communities as a whole. By taking into account the three elements mentioned above in all policies, this can provide a guarantee and lessen uncertainty from the government toward indigenous communities, about whether customary forests will truly be protected, or will be sold for business interests.

What will it mean for local economic development?

The benefits received are both direct and indirect. One benefit is that the rights and responsibilities of the community over customary forest will become more legally secure as they enter the state administrative system. The government may no longer intervene, let alone determine the management of customary forests into the future. The government can also no longer arbitrarily put up signs in customary forest.

Indigenous communities do not demand rewards or appreciation. It is still too early to measure the economic impacts of this decree for the Kajang community. For now, a large proportion of the Kajang community are farmers, with land-based economies.

In my opinion, the decree will have real influence if it is translated into a system for rewards and/or payment for environmental services, as a form of appreciation for the indigenous community’s protection of the forest in an upstream watershed area, for instance. This appreciation can be given in the form of removing the cost of school fees, payment for medical treatment, or helping to arrange beneficial trade and market structures for their agricultural produce.


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  • FTA Gender Research Updates - March 2017

FTA Gender Research Updates – March 2017


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Raul Golinelli for Bioversity International's photo contest 'Women and Agricultural Biodiversity':
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CIAT: Gender, group membership and trees on farms in Nicaragua

BIOVERSITY INTERNATIONAL: Celebrating gender and biodiversity

ICRAF/BIOVERSITY: Review of guides for gender-equitable value chain development

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Gender, group membership and trees on farms in Nicaragua

This project has the objective to analyze how women’s and men’s participation in groups may influence their capacities to access and implement information on the use of trees on farms in a Climate-Smart Village in Tuma la Dalia, Nicaragua.

It also considers the implications for developing tree-based climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies and actions in the region. Additionally, the study draws upon initiatives from two CGIAR Research Programs: the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) intra-household survey in Tuma la Dalia, and the Nicaragua-Honduras Sentinel Landscape of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). More data comes from CATIE’s Nicacentral site of the Mesoamerican Agroenvironmental Program (MAP).


BIOVERSITY INTERNATIONAL

Celebrating gender and biodiversity

By Marlene Elias, Bioversity International

Raul Golinelli for Bioversity International’s photo contest ‘Women and Agricultural Biodiversity’:

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Bioversity international has launched a series of factsheets on “Creating mutual benefits: examples of gender and biodiversity outcomes from Bioversity International’s research”.

The publication features six case studies carried out by Bioversity International with local NGOs and partners. Three of these take place in forest and agroforestry landscapes, and are the result of FTA research initiatives. Women are typically involved in biodiversity management, but they are often excluded from research processes.

Following this year’s theme #BeBoldForChange, the case studies are a perfect example of how adopting a gender lens in research can lead to opportunities and benefits for both men and women. These case studies illustrate that a focus on gender and biodiversity, and efforts to actively include women and marginalized groups in research activities, can lead to more equitable relations and decision-making as well as positive food security and biodiversity outcomes.


WORLD AGROFORESTRY CENTRE (ICRAF) and BIOVERSITY INTERNATIONAL

Review of guides for gender-equitable value chain development

Inclusive value chain development (VCD) figures prominently in the agenda of agencies committed to local economic development. This is reflected in a growing number of guides for development practitioners on how to design and implement gender-equitable VCD.

The time is right to take stock of these guides—to flush out their strengths, limitations, and gaps in order to have inputs for improved guidance.

Supported by both FTA and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM), an ICRAF-Bioversity team has reviewed seven guides for gender-equitable VCD, published by international organizations. Various criteria were identified for understanding women’s and men’s engagement in VCD, from how gender is considered in the assessment of the enabling environment, to the extent to which the guides addressed the potential trade-offs resulting from VCD promoted activities, for example between market and non-market livelihood activities.

Some key findings include:

  • The guides, grounded in key concepts in gender studies, advocate persuasively for the integration of gender into VCD design. In doing so, they represent an important step forward in sensitizing practitioners on the importance of adopting a gender-sensitive approach to VCD.
  • Most guides provide extensive checklists for gender analysis with numerous considerations and questions. There are few details on implementation requirements in terms of skills, time and budget. Practitioners with limited experience in gender concepts or intervention design may struggle to specify their approach, select the appropriate instruments, and adapt them to the local context.
  • Little attention is paid to the potential trade-offs between new roles and responsibilities in value chains and those in relation to other, non-market oriented livelihood activities. What such trade-offs mean in terms of repercussions for women’s and men’s overall work load and leisure time, among other aspects of well-being, go largely unaddressed.
  • Gender equity and women’s empowerment through VCD means strengthening their bargaining power within the household. Guides need to consider distribution of income and access to resources, and the implications for the design of gender equitable interventions.

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  • “Not just another report, sitting on a shelf”: new findings on gender in oil palm.

“Not just another report, sitting on a shelf”: new findings on gender in oil palm.


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Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR
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Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

By Bimbika Sijapati-Basnett and Leona Liu

Oil palm expansion threatens to displace local women from the lands where they cultivate their food crops, and this way help to feed their families. Furthermore, the women´s work contributions to oil palm production are largely unrecognized, and in the rare cases that they are, women are overrepresented in the ‘casual worker’ category, with limited entitlement to decent working conditions. Finally, gender issues are not considered in policies, certification bodies and regulations in the sector.

The objective of the ongoing research by scientists at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), in collaboration with the University of Indonesia and the University of Brighton, is to point out the critical roles that women play as members of local communities, members of smallholder households, and investors.

The researchers furthermore hope to raise awareness on gender issues in oil palm, as mentioned by Bimbika Sijapati-Basnett, Scientist and Gender Coordinator at CIFOR: “We really don’t want this research to be just another report that sits on the shelf. Our hope is to raise awareness about what constitutes key gender issues in the current debate about sustainable oil palm, and to make sure that women’s rights are safeguarded.”

Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

Scientists point out that oil palm offers both challenges and opportunities for these diverse groups of women and their families. And yet, the emerging policy discussions related to sustainability of oil palm supply chains, inclusion of smallholders, promotion of rights of workers and indigenous peoples need to better consider gender as a key cross-cutting issue. Stakeholders should also strive for greater gender equality and women’s empowerment through proposed policies and actions in the sector.

One of the outcomes of the research is laid out in this infobrief, offering 1) recommendations to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) on how to develop mechanisms for addressing gender inequities in oil palm and 2) lessons for other certification standards such as Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO).

Another main outcome is a recent policy dialogue held at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. In this dialogue, key players involved in oil palm in Indonesia highlighted the need for equal rights and opportunities for women and men. Furthermore did the panelists stress the need for women to have a bigger say in decisions related to land, employment and smallholder inclusion.

Watch the video

Transforming the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for greater gender equality and women’s empowerment

Social impacts of oil palm in Indonesia: A gendered perspective from West Kalimantan

This research is funded by the UK Department of International Development, the United States Agency for International Development, Rights and Resources Initiative, Oxfam and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.


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  • Cool insights for a hot world: trees and forests recycle water

Cool insights for a hot world: trees and forests recycle water


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Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CIFOR
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Photo: Neil Palmer/CIAT/CIFOR

By Daisy Ouya, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

Anyone who has walked outside on a sunny day knows that forests and trees matter for temperature, humidity and wind speed. Planting trees speaks to concerns about climate change, but the directly important aspects of the tree-climate relationships have so far been overlooked in climate policy where it relates to forest.


Click here for more information on the Virtual Symposium on forests, climate and water on International Day of Forests, 21 March, and World Water Day, 22 March. 

Please click here to register.


That, at least, is the conclusion of a new review. The authors suggest that the global conversation on trees, forests and climate needs to be turned on its head: the direct effects via rainfall and cooling may be more important than the well-studied effects through the global carbon balance.

Yet, current climate policy only recognizes the latter. While farmers understand that trees cool their homes, livestock and crops, they had to learn the complex and abstract language of greenhouse gasses and carbon stocks if they wanted to be part of climate mitigation efforts. Not anymore, if the new perspectives become widely accepted.

In the review, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, the 22 authors provide examples for the planet-cooling benefits of trees. Scientists found evidence for the widespread perception that trees and forests also influence rainfall. As such, the review insists that water, and not carbon, should become the primary motivation for adding and preserving trees in landscapes.

“Carbon sequestration is a co-benefit of the precipitation-recycling and cooling power of trees. As trees process and redistribute water, they simultaneously cool planetary surfaces”, says Dr David Ellison, lead author of the study.

Planting trees has long been an expression of intent to do something of substance in the climate change debate; scientists have found a new rationale for this.

“Some of the more refined details of how forests affect rainfall are still being discussed among scientists of different disciplines and backgrounds. But the direct relevance of trees and forests for protecting and intensifying the hydrologic cycle, associated cooling and the sharing of atmospheric moisture with downwind locations is beyond reasonable doubt.”

Trees are giant air conditioners with no power bills. They use solar energy to convert water into vapour, thereby cooling their surroundings. On a hot day the surface temperature of a forest—in an example discussed in the paper—is similar to that of a nearby lake, while a dry patch of meadow or a tarmac road in the vicinity are more than 20 °C hotter. The cooling power equivalent is around 70 kWh for every 100 liter of water transpired, similar to the output of two home air-conditioning units.

“There are important implications for practice, as we can no longer simply focus on carbon sequestration to mitigate or adapt to climate change”, says Dr Victoria Gutierrez, Chief Science Officer of the WeForest NGO that supports forest landscape restoration efforts in tropical countries, and co-author of the study.

“For organizations and agencies working to restore forest ecosystems for climate and people, it is crucial that we pay greater attention to the sustainability of the water processing and cooling aspects of the trees.”

Planting trees has long been an expression of intent to do something of substance in the climate change debate; scientists have found a new rationale for this.

As they cool the planet, trees may also promote rainfall. Two ingredients for rainfall are: i) water vapour in the atmosphere to which trees and wetlands contribute importantly and in quantities that can be measured, and ii) a starting point for condensation of vapour into cloud droplets and rain drops. Trees are a source of volatile compounds that can become cloud condensation nuclei and trees are also a source of bacteria that form ice nuclei.

“In clean, dust-free air, cloud droplets may cool down to -40 °C, high up in the atmosphere, before freezing occurs if there are no ice nuclei present that can catalyse freezing”, says Dr. Cindy Morris, one of the co-authors. “But trees and forests release ‘ice nuclei’ into the atmosphere including certain fungal spores, pollen and bacteria that can initiate rainfall at much warmer temperatures, sometimes as warm as -4 °C. This means that rain initiation can take place more readily in low-altitude clouds.”

As forests modify and contribute to the atmospheric flows of moist air they influence downwind rainfall. While coasts derive most of their rainfall from oceanic evaporation, downwind continental surfaces are increasingly dependent on upwind terrestrial sources of atmospheric moisture. On average 40% of rainfall over land is recycled from evapotranspiration over land surfaces.

Long-distance dependencies

Important examples of long-distance dependencies have been documented between the Congo basin and East Africa providing rain to the Ethiopian Highlands and the Sahel; the Amazon supporting rain in NW Argentina; and mainland Southeast Asia feeding atmospheric moisture to China. In all these cases, major changes in tree cover can break the chain and reduce precipitation in downwind basins.

“Where most water studies have focused on the ‘blue water’ in rivers and the ‘green water’ used by plants, water in the atmosphere is now recognized as ‘rainbow water’”, says Meine van Noordwijk, co-author, Chief Scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Coordinator of the landscape theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. “The policy arena may have to adjust to the idea that rainfall is not simply the result of large scale air mass movements, but depends importantly on how upwind neighbours care for their forests.

“Reliable rainfall in the continental interiors of Africa and South America, as well as in other downwind locations, may depend on maintaining relatively intact and continuous tree cover from upwind coasts. The geopolitics of these relations can become a source of conflict, but can also lead to new types of cooperation.”

With these and more fascinating “cool insights” and evidence from research, the authors point out that there is a strong basis for a hydro-climate policy that involves forests and trees. This policy would be much wider than what has so far been shaped by scientific understanding of the greenhouse-gas dominated climate and been incorporated in international agreements.

The review concludes with a cry to action on forests, water and climate: “Climate policy must take these water-processing, cooling and rainfall-generating effects of trees and forests more explicitly into account.”

Significant revision of national, regional and continental climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are urgent as next steps.

Read full review article:
Ellison D, Morris CE, Locatelli B, Sheil D, Cohen J, Murdiyarso D, Gutierrez V, van Noordwijk M, Creed IF, Pokorny J, Gaveau D, Spracklen D, Tobella AB, Ilstedt U, Teuling R, Gebrehiwot SG, Sands DC, Muys B, Verbist B, Springgay E, Sugandi Y, Sullivan CA. 2017. Trees, forests and water: cool insights for a hot world. Global Environmental Change. http://www.cifor.org/library/6408/trees-forests-and-water-cool-insights-for-a-hot-world/

The 22 authors are from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU); Ellison Consulting; France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA); Montana State University; France’s Institute for Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD); Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); Norwegian University of Life Sciences; University of Texas-Austin; Bogor Agricultural University; WeForest; World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF); Western University, Canada; ENKI-Czech Republic; University of Leeds; Wageningen University & Research; Addis Ababa University; Uppsala University; KU Leuven – Belgium; FAO; and Southern Cross University -Australia.


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  • Call for equal rights and opportunities for women in oil palm

Call for equal rights and opportunities for women in oil palm


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Jakarta, 3 March 2017 – Key players involved in oil palm in Indonesia highlighted the need for equal rights and opportunities for women and men. Panelists at a policy dialogue on gender and oil palm today outlined the need for women to have a bigger say in decisions related to land, employment and smallholder inclusion.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), in collaboration with the University of Indonesia and the University of Brighton, organized a discussion bringing together multiple actors related to the oil palm sector. Advocacy organizations, certification bodies, government agencies, indigenous communities, private sector representatives, researchers and women’s rights groups discussed the challenges and opportunities that oil palm represents for women.

“Today’s dialogue shows that there is interest across the board on improving gender equality throughout the oil palm value chain and certification process,” said Dr. Bimbika Sijapati-Basnett, Scientist and Gender Coordinator at CIFOR. “Today wasn’t just about discussing problems but also about identifying workable solutions that will have real impact on the ground.”

Research conclusions

Ongoing research by CIFOR points to the critical roles that women play as workers, smallholders and investors. However, gender issues are not considered in policies, certification bodies and regulations in the sector.

Oil palm expansion threatens to displace local women from their land, on which they cultivate food crops. Women’s work and contributions to oil palm production are largely unrecognized. When they are, women are overrepresented in the ‘casual worker’ category, with limited entitlement to decent working conditions.

This research is funded by the UK Department of International Development, the United States Agency for International Development, Rights and Resources Initiative, Oxfam and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.


RELATED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS:
Transforming the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for greater gender equality and women’s empowerment
Social impacts of oil palm in Indonesia: A gendered perspective from West Kalimantan

PHOTOS AVAILABLE:
Gender and oil palm oil in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Photos of policy dialogue event (on demand).

VIDEOS AVAILABLE:
Gender and palm oil: Science in the field
Gender and palm oil: Staying independent
Gender and palm oil: Working together as a couple
Gender and palm oil: A day in the life of a female palm oil worker


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  • FTA events: Training workshop for Africa Tree Finder

FTA events: Training workshop for Africa Tree Finder


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By Roeland Kindt, Senior Ecologist, World Agroforestry Centre

In collaboration with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Agroforestry Centre is organizing a workshop in Uganda to train users of the new version of the Africa Tree Finder. The workshop is planned for the first week of April with IUCN finalizing the exact dates right now. Watch this space for more information.

The Africa Tree Finder is a smart phone application developed for the www.vegetationmap4africa.org. The App can easily be installed on a smart phone with the Android operating system via the Google Play store.

Similar to the objectives of the web-based and Google Earth versions of the vegetationmap4africa, the main objective of the Africa Tree Finder is to enable selection of ‘the right tree for the right place’ by combining information on the distribution of indigenous tree species in natural vegetation types with information on products and services that these tree species can provide.

A specific objective of the App is to support forest landscape restoration activities related to the Bonn Challenge, a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. In response to the Bonn Challenge, Rwanda has committed to restore 2 million hectares, whereas Uganda has committed 2.5 million hectares, Kenya 5.1 million hectares and Ethiopia 15 million hectares.

 In the newest version of the Africa Tree Finder, information is provided on the origin, local names (a key feature requested by local users), species description, ecology, uses, propagation, seed treatment, seed storage and management for species listed in the RELMA-ICRAF useful tree species series. The newest version of the App also enables users to upload geo-referenced imagery that documents progress on restoration projects or that can be used to verify the accuracy of the map.


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  • Linking sustainable supply, inclusive business models and innovative finance

Linking sustainable supply, inclusive business models and innovative finance


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Pressures on forests and lands forests and lands are increasing as the world population and economies keep growing. Oil palm workers in Indonesia returning home. Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR
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Pressures on forests and lands forests and lands are increasing as the world population and economies keep growing. Oil palm workers in Indonesia returning home. Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

By Pablo Pacheco, Team Leader – Value Chains, Finance, & Investments, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Coordinator of Flagship 3

Pressures on forests and lands are increasing as the world population and economies keep growing. This pressure also leads to better solutions from public and private actors to enhance sustainable supply mechanisms and integrate smallholders in supply chains. In this context, Flagship 3 Sustainable global value chains and investments for supporting forest conservation and equitable development embraces the challenge of researching and providing options of how value chains and investments can be made more sustainable and inclusive, and leverage the potential of finance for scaling up.

In 2017, Flagship 3 will identify knowledge gaps, distill best practices, produce methods and tools, convene stakeholder meetings, engage in business and multi-stakeholder platforms, support learning initiatives, and co-generate options of policies and practices to:

  • Improve the sustainability of forests, agricultural and tree-crops production in forest landscapes by identifying complementarities between public regulations on the one hand, and private standards and commitments on the other hand;
  • Inform businesses and service providers about business models that are more inclusive, gender-responsive, economically viable and environmentally sustainable;
  • Increase investment flows in forest and tree-crop sectors by helping develop innovative finance mechanisms to support smallholders and small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs).

The three groups of activities we embrace have interconnected goals and approaches. The first goal examines the policy and institutional environment shaping the governance of supply chains, with special emphasis on supply chain and territorial interventions.

Assessing the impacts of certification standards in cacao and coffee is part of the work on value chains.Photo: Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

The second goal focuses on business models in timber and tree-crop value chains that link corporations with smallholder farmers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The third goal assesses how the financial sector influences the social and environmental performance of value chains and businesses, and how innovative finance provides opportunities for smallholders and SMEs.

Enhancing public and private arrangements for sustainable supply

Research under this theme will equip farmers, businesses and the public sector with knowledge of institutional arrangements and management systems to produce agricultural crops and manage forests in more integrated and sustainable ways—and in compliance with social and environmental standards.

We will focus our efforts on producing synthesis to engage in two international processes (e.g. FLEGT, zero deforestation) and to inform two regional/national policy dialogues on the public-private governance mechanisms that are needed to enhance sustainable supply in order to ease the pressures on forests. Our primary focus will be on timber in Central Africa and oil palm in Southeast Asia.

Timber is another key commodity in this research area. Photo: Tomas Munita/CIFOR

We will complete analysis on the governance of timber value chains (Cameroon, Zambia, Uganda) and of palm oil in Indonesia, and link analysis on the connections between global sustainability processes (e.g. FLEGT VPA, RSPO, ESPO) with national regulations and initiatives to enhance sustainable supply in the timber and oil palm sectors.

More complex policy regimes are emerging linking public regulations and private standards, yet there is need to connect them and build complementarities between them.

We are also supporting the development of monitoring tools and approaches to assess progress in performance of corporate commitments to sustainability with focus on oil palm, cacao and timber. We are also assessing the impacts of certification standards in cacao and coffee.

Supporting initiatives to foster the development of inclusive business models

Better knowledge is needed on how to build business options and fair partnerships that create opportunities for smallholder farmers who are increasingly involved in global value chains. This research also aims at safeguarding the rights of marginalized groups such as women and indigenous people.

We will advance work on inclusive business models by operationalizing a strategic partnership with the Dutch development organization SNV. This partnership is aimed at building and testing approaches and interventions that improve the effectiveness of inclusive business models across several SNV projects. In addition, we will support ongoing multi-stakeholder processes for strengthening capacities and policy environments for smallholders and SMEs in the timber and oil palm sectors in some select countries and landscapes.

Our main efforts will be on assessing the technical and economic performance of independent oil palm smallholders in West and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia and of outgrower schemes implemented in the oil palm and sugarcane sectors across some select countries (e.g. Brazil, Tanzania and Mozambique). This will yield some recommendations on building more inclusive models.

We are also working on developingapproaches to design project interventions that consider the specific needs of women and youth in more inclusive business models.

Engaging with responsible finance institutions and impact investors

We want to build bridges to connect responsible financial institutions and innovative financing mechanisms with smallholders and land users in forest landscapes. The goal here is to embrace more sustainable practices and inclusive business models under reduced financial and territorial risks, and to achieve greater social benefits for smallholders and SMEs accessing those financial resources.

Our work on finance and investments, with support from our partners (e.g. The Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade, FAST), will engage key financial institutions and impact investment funds and managers to identify the demand for responsible finance and their challenges to undertake investments at scale especially in forest landscapes.

We will focus on identifying existing schemes and demand for responsible finance and impact investment, and their challenges. Besides that, we will advance studies on palm oil in Indonesia and cacao in Ghana related to innovative finance schemes to overcome barriers facing smallholders who want to take up more efficient and sustainable practices. This work has the potential to trigger transformational change.

 


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  • Tree seed selection, genome sequencing, improvement of priority species and more

Tree seed selection, genome sequencing, improvement of priority species and more


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By Ramni Jamnadass, Co-Leader, Tree Diversity, Domestication and Delivery, World Agroforestry Centre and Coordinator Flagship 1

In 2017, Flagship 1 Tree genetic resources to bridge production gaps and promote resilience will continue to enrich databases for a range of important tools and the knowledge framework already generated under FTA Phase I and previously. Figure 1 illustrates the already high annual use of products and indicating the visibility of the staff involved in research and development communities.

Annual use of research outputs from Flagship 1

Overall, we will

  • work towards safeguarding existing genetic diversity,
  • seek new solutions for critical steps in the domestication and improvement of priority tree species; and
  • investigate delivery pipelines for improved germplasm relevant to addressing the constraints for trees on farms to a) make desirable impacts on people’s livelihoods, and b) support delivery systems for landscape restoration initiatives.

Among the major outputs of our research this year will be a contribution to an assessment of the global status of biodiversity using an ecoregion-based approach.

We’re also working on a global survey of tree seed selection and its importance in forest and landscape restoration.

Additionally, we will see the first results of genome sequencing of both crop and tree species under the African Orphan Crops Consortium and systematic prioritization of species for further domestication.

One of our prime outputs this year will be an analysis of why institutional environments for agroforestry seed systems matter; and the publication of a number of technical fact sheets and guidelines will contribute to capacity development efforts in all regions.

Results from studies of fruit production and consumption related to domestication will be of particular gender sensitive relevance.

Genetic code extracted from wood can be used as a forensic tool to crack down on illegal logging. Photo: Bioversity International/J.Loo

Bioversity’s International activities 2017

Bioversity’s forest-related research focuses primarily on conserving and managing sustainable use of forest tree genetic resources, in forests and woodlands as well as plantings, including providing decision support to restoration planners.

We work with national partners in government, universities and civil society, on species that are important for rural people in lower-income countries. Currently, we are carrying out research with community forestry associations which harvest and manage mahogany in forest concessions within the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Central America.

In several priority countries in Latin America, we work with public and private partners to support the sourcing of appropriate planting material.

In Central Asia, we collaborate with national partners to improve conservation management of populations of wild fruit and nut tree species of global significance.

In Central and Western Africa, we are working in moist forests with a variety of partners to reduce illegal logging and develop conservation strategies for valuable species; and in dry woodlands, to increase the success of forest restoration while improving the value of restored forests, particularly their contribution to nutrition of local people.

Our research focuses mainly on understanding patterns of genetic diversity, threats to genetic resources, variation in nutritional characteristics of food products derived from important tree species, and gender relations in conservation and management of forest resources.

The impact of our research is enhanced through our interaction with FAO and four regional networks of scientists and policy makers coordinated by Bioversity which we established in collaboration with FAO (for example APFORGEN), and by incorporating our key messages in training materials available here.

In collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Forestry and the private company China Happy Ecology we have initiated a regional forest genetic resources training centre for Southeast Asia in China and will hold the second training there in late summer, 2017.

Related events in 2017


Training workshop on the new version of the Africa Tree Finder

co-organized by ICRAF and IUCN

Date, time and location to follow


IUFRO 125th anniversary congress

Co-organizing a session on:

Food-trees in forest and farmlands: improving livelihood of communities in tropical regions” (session number 25) under General Congress, Theme 1: Forests for People.


IMMANA Grant: Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions

Project Inception meeting: 3rd and 4th March 2017

Project title: ENRICH- Enriching the Kenyan diet with consumption of fruits and vegetables by using reliable, cheap and fast consumer-generated data: a proof of principle study for real-time and in-situ metrics to assess fruit and vegetable intake by targeted consumers in Nairobi, Kenya.

Led by: Wageningen University



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  • Building on past success for better quality science: FTA gender research in 2017

Building on past success for better quality science: FTA gender research in 2017


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Capacity Building is a big part of FTA gender work. Photo by Mokhammad Edliadi for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
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Capacity Building is a big part of FTA gender work. Photo by Mokhammad Edliadi for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

By Marlène Elias, Gender Specialist, Conservation and Management of Forest Genetic Resources, Bioversity International, and Gender Coordinator of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA)

In 2017, we will build on progress made in Phase I to strengthen capacities for gender analysis, equip scientists and partners with the latest thinking on gender in Natural Resource Management (NRM), and integrate gender dimensions in monitoring and evaluation frameworks.

A Fellowship Program is meant to develop capacities and support comparative research on gender and tree-seed systems.

Through a strong emphasis on knowledge sharing and communications, scientists will develop knowledge hubs around gender, forestry and NRM, e.g. through an online learning module for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, which is meant to promote uptake of research findings.

Through action research, using innovative methodologies, FTA researchers will improve awareness of gender issues and the capacities to address them. This will contribute to more gender equity and social inclusion in joint forest management and to the wider participation of women in decision making and control over resources in households and in the community.

The gender cross-cutting theme will focus on four main areas to achieve a deeper integration of gender dimensions across the research portfolio and increase the quantity and quality of gender strategic research:

  • Capacity building of scientists and partners in intersectionality, gender transformative approaches and engagement of youth in livelihoods and resource management.
  • Tailored support to research teams to identify and address gender dimensions, particularly looking at tree-seed systems, land and forest restoration, land-use change at the landscape level, climate change, and forest commodity value chains.
  • Monitoring and evaluation of
  • gender integration in research and action across flagship portfolios, and
  • contribution of strategic gender research to outcomes on equity and inclusion.
  • Knowledge sharing, including synthesis of findings and lessons across the above specified themes, strengthening our communications, and building and nurturing partnerships to inform FTA research and increase its uptake and use.
One line of research in 2017 has to do with the gender dimensions of the charcoal value chain. Photo by Ollivier Girard for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

In Flagship 1 on tree genetic resources, we focus on comparative research on gender and tree-seed systems within the context of a Fellowship Program. This will enhance scientists’ capacities to conduct gender-responsive research and produce empirically informed recommendations for policy makers and practitioners regarding gender responsive tree-seed delivery systems.

In Flagship 2 on livelihoods, bilaterally funded work on gender, migration and multi-local livelihoods will document the impact of gender differences in patterns of migration and mobility on women’s influence in forest governance in six countries.

It will identify which types of policies, institutional arrangements and interventions foster enabling environments for women and men to benefit from migration and multi-local livelihoods in forested landscapes.

In Flagship 3 on value chains, research and practice on the gender dimensions of timber and charcoal value chains in Africa will support the development of institutional arrangements and mechanisms for a sustainable and inclusive supply of timber.

A study across the whole of FTA on the gendered dimensions and inclusiveness of agribusiness expansion in Tanzania aims at developing business models that are more inclusive, economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

In Flagship 4 on landscapes, studies and guidelines on intersecting sources of marginalization in joint forest management will help women, young people and ethnically marginalized groups to participate in decision-making. Synthesis work will also be conducted around gender roles and norms in agroforestry practices.

In Flagship 5 on climate change, research is planned on the gender dimensions of options for climate change adaptation at the farm level in Latin America. This will help us to better assess how national adaptation policies and practices deal with gender issues and the social inclusion of groups that tend to be marginalized.


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  • Trees in Andes to counter Peru’s climate and water crisis, says FTA scientist

Trees in Andes to counter Peru’s climate and water crisis, says FTA scientist


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N-fixing alder trees line an oat field in a traditional Andean agroforestry system. Photo by Cathy Watson/ICRAF
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Remnants of quenuale forest on almost bare hills in Huascaran National Park. Photo by Cathy Watson/ICRAF

By Cathy Watson, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

In Peru, the Andes used to be home to biting poverty but are far more prosperous today. Their indigenous inhabitants benefited from land reform, and successive governments have invested in roads, municipalities and even sports grounds. Nevertheless, there is much to worry about. The environment is profoundly fragile,  its degradation threatening economic growth.

Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel from the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is researching the mountains’ trees.  Over half the water in the Amazon watershed comes from Andean forests. But they are fragmented, neglected and a fraction of what they once were. On farms, exotic trees have supplanted native ones.


Coming up: Virtual Symposium on water, climate and forests


In Ancash, Mathez-Stiefel, who is also a Senior Research Scientist  at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) in Bern, meets experts on social and environmental change. “In Peru we’ve done well on production but less on environment,” says Pedro Estrada, who heads ALLPA, an NGO based in the town of Huari.

Looking across at a group of women in traditional hats and big skirts and at a poster for a bullfight with matadors from Colombia, Estrada says. “It’s striking to see indigenous women eating in restaurants, and twenty years ago, no one would have had ten soles to see a bull fight. Today more money circulates in the economy.”

Other informed commentators also appreciate Peru’s progress but worry deeply about its sustainability. Dr. David Vidal, who directs Peru’s National Research Institute on Glaciers and Mountain Ecosystems, describes how “the glaciers in the Andes have dangerously retreated – 40% since the 1970s”.

Highly degraded sloping land in Peru’s Ancash region. The vegetation is dominated by species of Eucalyptus. Photo by Cathy Watson/ICRAF

Robert Lopez, who is chief of the 340,000 ha Huascaran National Park, is worried that the park’s 41 sub-watersheds are overlooked, especially in light of Peru’s water crisis. “We have to see the park as a water bank that produces water.”

Lopez has just 26 rangers. Yet the park holds most of Peru’s glaciers and lies in the world’s highest tropical mountain chain, the Cordillera Blanca. Rivers that start in the park flow to the Amazon as well as Peru’s hot arid Pacific coast where large farms rely on their water to produce the exports that have helped make Peru a middle income country. Income per person is now $12,000 a year.

The growth of jobs elsewhere in Peru partly explains the threat. “When the park was created in 1975, government gave rights to the people who were using it,” says Lopez. “But they were meant to periodically withdraw to let it recover. This broke down 10-15 years ago. Mining dynamized the economy, pulling men out of cattle. They now just roam, compacting soil and stopping regeneration.”

Glacier expert Dr. Vidal says “In the last 20 years, there has been an abandonment of agriculture towards mining, medium cities, and the coast. In agriculture, you can earn 10-12 soles a day, in mining 40-70. What type of reforestation can we do? Plantations have been planted but we need to think about how to make them deliver more ecosystem services and improve water infiltration.”

N-fixing alder trees line an oat field in a traditional Andean agroforestry system. Photo by Cathy Watson/ICRAF

Mathez-Stiefel has documented changes in highland villages. One was a vast hacienda 40 years ago with Argentine livestock. Until land reform in the 1970s, its Quechua-speaking inhabitants were serfs who surrendered animals as tithe to the landowner. Transport was by mules, houses were straw, and education took place in a church rather than a school.

Since then, as in most of Peru, where 40% of the population has moved out of poverty since 2000, a great deal has improved. The village now belongs to the community and has houses of cement, potable water, a health center, a kindergarten, primary and secondary school, and electricity. Nationally, 91.4% of dwellings in Peru have electricity, 74.2% in rural areas.

“Some people say land reform was rushed, and there have been attempts to reverse it,” says ALPA’s Estrada, whose grandfather’s own 40 hectares were given to his workers in the reform. “But people are much better off because of it. The system was unjust. There are still communities in the jungle that are made up of people who fled peon status in the Andes.”

However, Mathez-Stiefel has found less positive change – more extreme weather and crop disease, less forest and indigenous tree cover, the virtual disappearance of llamas and other camelids, and depopulation, particularly the flight of men.

Anthropologist Teófilo Altamirano from Peru’s Catholic University calls internal migration “the major transformational force of the past 60 years” in the Andes. Today just 30% of Peruvians live in the mountains, half the figure before. Other ICRAF research has found that about 15% of people in the Amazon are Quechua speakers, a sign of the number of indigenous people that have left the highlands.

Mathez-Stiefel believes trees can address the interlinked challenges of climate, water, energy, diet and livelihoods. “The Andes is dominated by eucalyptus but there is also a rich array of traditional agroforestry practices and indigenous species. One of the most exciting is quenuales, a tree which lives where nothing else lives – up to 15,000 feet.”

“Quenuales (Polylepsis spp.) are uniquely suited to store water in upper basins,” says literature at the Huascaran National Park. “The leaves and bark absorb water, thus creating very humid zones in which there is development of mosses, lichens and fungi. The water absorbed is deposited underground and feeds the region’s ponds. The roots prevent erosion and landslides to lower areas.”

Increasingly aware of its importance, government has begun restoring quenuales. Farmer Margarita Rubina, 42, approves. “It’s a sturdy hedge and protects the house from wind and its branches are good for cooking,” she says.  Dressed traditionally, in many ways, she represents the new Andes. Guinea pigs run around her feet on her earth floor. But her children study in schools in town. And where Rubino once had a herd of criollos, descendants of the small stocky cattle brought by the Spaniards 500 years ago, she now has four exotic cows and sells cheese. Mathez-Stiefel and Estrada discuss if planting protein-rich fodder trees might raise her output of milk.

“The rural world has not been seen as an opportunity for life,” says the vet, whose family has been Andean for 300 years. “We need to improve rural identity. Youth do not want to repeat the lives of their parents. But a dignified comfortable life is possible here. Agroforestry is super interesting”

Mathez-Stiefel has work ahead but has clearly found allies.

___ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___

For more about ICRAF’s program in the Andes, contact s.mathez@cgiar.org

Her research to characterize Andean villages was a collaboration between ICRAF and the Andean Forest Program funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.


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  • Indonesian district government takes over FTA approach Smart Tree-Invest

Indonesian district government takes over FTA approach Smart Tree-Invest


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Lisa Tanika (second from left), of ICRAF working with district environmental officers to help build their capacity in monitoring watersheds. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/Sacha Amurazaman
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Lisa Tanika (second from left), of ICRAF working with district environmental officers to help build their capacity in monitoring watersheds. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/Sacha Amurazaman

By Sacha Amaruzaman, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

The Government of Buol District, Indonesia, has committed to replicate three activities of the Smart Tree-Invest project run by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) under the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, with funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The activities include farmers’ learning groups that run under the Agriculture Office and watershed and tree-replanting monitoring under the Environmental Office. About IDR 350 million (≈ USD 26,000) has been allocated in the district’s 2017 annual development budget or APBD (Anggaran Pendapatan dan Belanja Daerah) to fund the replication.

The development is the result of close collaboration between ICRAF and Buol district government through the Climate-smart, Tree-based, Co-investment in Adaptation and Mitigation in Asia (Smart Tree-Invest) project. ICRAF has been running the project since 2014 in Buol, Central Sulawesi Province. The action-research project has been implemented in two sub-districts within Buol Watershed, the biggest in the district. With their own funding, the district government will expand the project’s activities into Mulat-Lantika Digo Watershed, the next largest.

Smart Tree-Invest aims to improve farmers’ livelihoods and maintain environmental quality by promoting co-investment in ecosystem services. The initial findings indicated that any co-investment scheme in Buol would need to meet several conditions, particularly, strengthening the capacity of the local government and farmers in order to create the enabling environment for co-investment in ecosystem services.

The project has already helped build capacity in managing agriculture and ecosystem services, particularly, with the local government, NGOs, farmers and businesses in the district. Smart Tree-Invest implemented pilot activities to improve farmers’ livelihoods through farmers’ learning groups and has developed a participatory model to monitor watershed conditions.

Smart Tree-Invest has also made significant progress in strengthening the multi-sectoral coordination body (the district’s watershed working group) to improve coordination of local development. The farmers’ groups have succeeded in producing good-quality seedlings and completed the first planting in January 2017.

Approaching the close of the project in March 2017, the Smart Tree-Invest team will continue to work on synthesizing the best practices into recommendations for the government’s Village Development Fund, particularly, in providing models for allocating village budgets towards conservation and livelihoods’ activities.

The district government has requested ICRAF to continue its technical assistance for the replication activities in Buol for 2017, supported by the government’s own funds.


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  • Mapping bamboo forest resources in East Africa

Mapping bamboo forest resources in East Africa


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Training is an essential part of improved natural resources management. INBAR staff alongside some of the participants in land mapping training, East Africa. Photo: INBAR
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Training is an essential part of improved natural resources management. INBAR staff alongside some of the participants in land mapping training, East Africa. Photo: INBAR

The International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation is working with partners across the world on an ambitious project to map bamboo resources. The findings will form an important part of Flagship 4: Landscape Dynamics, Productivity and Resilience, of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

Bamboo has vast potential to help tackle global poverty and natural resource problems. This fast-growing grass is abundant in forests across the world, where it performs a wide range of ecosystem services such as biodiversity protection, reforestation and landscape restoration. Importantly, bamboo could also provide sustainable livelihoods for millions of people in rural communities – helping countries meet their Sustainable Development Goals.

One key example of bamboo’s usefulness is its ability to replace traditional sources of bio-energy. Using timber for cooking is a leading source of deforestation across many rural communities, including much of sub-Saharan Africa. Bamboo provides a clean, renewable, tried and tested energy alternative in the form of charcoal briquettes and wood for domestic and industrial use – one that will be particularly needed as demand for energy grows.

Despite this, lack of information about bamboo stocks – their distribution, varieties and characteristics – has long prevented many countries from making more use of this strategic resource.


Read also: Bringing in the development expertise: INBAR to join CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry


The global land cover mapping project, led by the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR) and researchers from the Tsinghua University, China, aims to address these knowledge gaps. Unlike traditional assessments of bamboo stocks, which are often based on assumptions about local growing conditions or out-of-date information, researchers are using the latest remote sensing technology to pinpoint exactly where bamboo is growing.

Results are then uploaded to an online portal, where they can be easily accessed, shared and added to by local researchers and practitioners on an ongoing basis. The result is a comprehensive, worldwide inventory of bamboo cover and observed changes.

Currently, the project is creating national assessments for Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, in partnership with the INBAR-led Dutch-Sino project on East African bamboo development. At present, East Africa’s bamboo sector remains largely untapped, despite the region having sub-Saharan Africa’s largest natural bamboo forests and accounting for around 3-4% of the world’s total known bamboo coverage.

A better understanding of regional bamboo stocks is very much needed to create multifunctional forests, as part of FTA’s Flagship Programme 4: Landscape Dynamics, Productivity and Resilience.

Better data about land cover and land use change is only one part of FTA’s Flagship Programme 4. Improving the management of forest resources is key to improving their productivity and resilience. With this in mind, INBAR and Tsinghua University are training staff from Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

As a result, it is hoped that national practitioners from forestry services, environment ministries and research institutes will be able to use the Mapping portal to collect, share and analyse data effectively to inform decision making.

And the data generated by INBAR’s land cover mapping could also help to enrich FTA’s existing work on observing changes in forests, and will provide information for decision-making on international initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge and CBD Aichi Biodiversity Targets.


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Indonesian president hands over management of forests to indigenous people


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Saputra watching a fellow Kajang at work weaving a palm-leaf roof panel. Photo: Amy Lumban Gaol/ICRAF
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Andi Buyung Saputra, Kajang leader, left, with President Joko Widodo.

By Lia Dahlia and Amy Lumban Gaol, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

President Joko Widodo has bestowed the right to manage customary forests on nine indigenous communities, heralding the end of decades of uncertainty and the beginning of a new era of secure right to land. Under the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, the World Agroforestry Centre and Global Affairs Canada have helped one community regain control of their forests.

Indonesia has had a long history of conflict over control of its massive areas of tropical forests that are spread across the many thousands of islands that make up the archipelagic nation. Declaration under former Dutch colonial rule of state ownership of all forests was rarely accepted by the millions of people who lived in them and who had managed them sustainably for centuries.

Widodo’s formal handover of titles is a highly symbolic step in the long fight for recognition by indigenous communities, whose customary rights remained contested by the new nationalist government after independence in 1945 despite being enshrined in the founding constitution. The islands now known as Indonesia have long been home to thousands of distinct ethnic groups with their own languages, customs and identity.

‘The recognition of customary management of forests is not restricted to the acknowledgment of communities’ rights as stated in the 1945 Constitution. Recognition also means an appreciation of Indonesia’s original values and its identity as a nation’, said Widodo in his opening speech at the Declaration of Recognition of Indigenous Forests event held at the presidential palace in Jakarta, 30 December 2016.


Also read: Impact story: Sulawesi provinces promise to stick with agroforestry


The event was attended by international and national figures, including representatives of the nine indigenous communities receiving customary titles, including the leader of the Kajang people of South Sulawesi, Andi Buyung Saputra. Abdullah Mojaddedi, representing the Government of Canada, was also a special guest along with James M. Roshetko, senior agroforestry scientist with the World Agroforestry Centre and the leader of the Agroforestry and Forestry in Sulawesi (AgFor) project. AgFor had supported the Kajang people in their struggle to achieve legal recognition of the management of their sacred forests. AgFor itself was supported by the Government of Canada.

Saputra watching a fellow Kajang at work weaving a palm-leaf roof panel. Photo: Amy Lumban Gaol/ICRAF

Of the nine recipients, the Kajang were noted by Widodo as a national model from which others could learn. The road leading to recognition was long and fraught, with conflict between the Kajang, different levels of government and the private sector over control of the forests. The fight began when a previous national government had changed the management status of the Kajang’s forests from ‘indigenous’ to ‘production forests with limited uses’, bringing them under the management of the government for various purposes, including allocation to the private sector for the development of rubber plantations.

Roshetko explained that, ‘Good coordination between AgFor’s partner organizations,  the Kajang community and local government was a key to assisting the creation of the Bulukumba District Regulation on Inauguration, Recognition and Protection of the Indigenous People of Ammatoa Kajang. The regulation has led to the current point: recognition of indigenous management of forests, issuing of the presidential decree, and handover of title’.


Also read: Contagious ideas for smarter farms in Sulawesi


Andi Adriardi, a member of Balang, an NGO working with the AgFor project that had helped the Kajang achieve ownership of the title, said that, ‘The Indonesian national government identified the case of the Kajang indigenous forest as a good lesson that approaches perfection it is a well-managed forest where the Kajang have developed a set of local regulations that affirm, recognize and protect based on traditional management, which is supported by modern spatial mapping’.

Even though the Kajang’s forests are relatively small and isolated, the struggle to protect them has had a great impact on the Government of Indonesia’s policy. Not unimportantly or perhaps unsurprisingly, the Kajang’s forests are home to a wealth of endemic species that provide important cultural functions for the people. The forests also store carbon on an island with nearly all of its carbon stock—also known as trees—removed in the last few decades. The deforestation not only increased carbon emissions and contributed to global warming but subsequent agricultural uses have struggled to maintain soil fertility and productivity owing to increased erosion and general degradation of the land that followed the loss of the forests.

Saputra, in his acceptance speech in response to the handover of title by Widodo, noted that, ‘Our traditional wisdom has played an important role in managing and preserving our forests. This has contributed to keeping our Earth greener and reducing the negative impacts of climate change’.

The process toward resolving the conflict and achieving the return of customary title had begun some years before when, in 2008, the Bulukumba District Forestry Agency, assisted by Hasanuddin University, took the initiative to draft a regulation about the Kajang’s forests. That first initiative faced many challenges and for various reasons could not be implemented.

In 2012, the AgFor project started in South Sulawesi with support from the Government of Canada. One of its objectives was to increase the awareness, understanding and technical capacity of participatory governance of agricultural land and forests. Picking up on the government and Kajang’s desire to resolve the conflict, experts in governance from the Center for International Forestry Research, one of the partners of AgFor, provided training in collaborative processes to address complex problems, conflict-resolution techniques, participatory mapping, database development and analysis, and how data can be linked to creating policies.

Participants included representatives of the Kajang leadership and other community members, village and sub-district government staff, members of the district’s Forestry Agency and Tourism and Culture Agency, the Legal Bureau of Bulukumba, and several NGOs, such as Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara South Sulawesi and Balang.

‘Working together with the Bulukumba District government, we were all able to change the process of developing regulations from exclusive to inclusive’, explained Agus Mulyana, senior governance researcher with AgFor partner the Centre for International Forestry Research. ‘We all opened the door to understanding and creating stronger regulations. Our collaborative effort lead to the emergence of the Bulukumba District Decree no. 760/VII/2013 regarding the Formulating Team for the Draft District Regulation for Recognition of Customary People in Bulukumba. Today’s presidential decree is a nice “year-end gift” for everyone’s hard work during a long process’.

That process started with forming a consultative team made up of representatives of all the interested parties, to support the drafting of the regulation to ensure it met everyone’s needs. AgFor partner Balang conducted various studies, such as a stakeholder analysis, categorization of tenure, classification of formal and informal access rights, cataloguing of forest policies, and consideration of the various cultural practices. These studies provided important information to the many people who needed to be included in what was described by those involved as a ‘robust’ participative approach to drafting a complex regulation.

‘An important next step will be providing the community with the knowledge, skills and resources to enhance their management to ensure that their forests remain assets for future generations’, said Roshetko.

Moira Moeliono, AgFor senior scientist with the Centre for International Forestry Research, agreed, commenting that, ‘The district regulation is not the end of the work but rather the beginning of a long journey to improve forest management and indigenous rights. After the promulgation of the district regulation and recognition by the presidential decree, everyone needs to continue to move forward to resolve other matters, particularly, regulations need to be created that link management of the customary forests to watershed management and strengthening the indigenous institutions’.

The recognition of the right of indigenous people to manage forests by the Indonesian Government is an important step in agrarian reform as part of the Nawa Cita, Widodo’s program of nine main strategies to address long-term problems afflicting rural communities, such as poverty, inequality and lack of paid employment. Widodo also pointed out that transferring management of customary forests to indigenous people was a small part of Indonesia’s social forestry program that wants to bring 12.7 million hectares under community management.


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