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  • Storytelling guide illustrates how local practices can contribute to landscape restoration

Storytelling guide illustrates how local practices can contribute to landscape restoration
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The book’s illustrations attractively portray life on the land in Sumba, Indonesia. Image by ICRAF

Researchers in Indonesia have produced an illustrated book to help farmers better understand research results.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) recently published an illustrated storytelling guide, Menanam pohon di bukit batu (Planting trees on a stony hill), to help spread knowledge of land-restoration and food-security techniques developed by researchers and farmers in Haharu District on the island of Sumba.

“The Sumba community is similar to many others in Indonesia,” explained Elok Mulyoutami, one of the authors, who is a gender specialist and social scientist with ICRAF Indonesia. “They have little interest in reading. This presented a challenge for us. We wanted to share more widely the techniques for land restoration and improved farming that we had developed together with farmers. 

“Observing the cultural practices of the people of the district, we realized that storytelling was very popular and could perhaps become the best way of disseminating our research results, providing agricultural advice and raising people’s awareness of how to better manage their natural resources.”

Read the book: Menanam Pohon di Bukit Batu (Planting trees on a stony hill)

The book, in plain Indonesian designed to be read aloud, uses three children walking home from school in the heat to tell the stories of reforesting their land. At home, one child asks his grandfather why their island home was so hot and dry; if there were more trees wouldn’t it be cooler and fresher? His grandfather’s answers make the boy feel optimistic that Sumba would once again be forested.

The second child asks her mother about the maize they grow and learns how the stalks are used to restore soil fertility in the traditional hillside terracing system that also includes fertilizer trees. Her mother also explains how men and women work together in the fields and learn new skills and knowledge from attending training courses that helps them better manage and protect their harsh yet fragile land.

“Gender equity is relatively well established in Sumba society,” explained Mulyoutami. “Although complicated by class and caste issues. It was important that the book featured women and men collaborating according to their abilities, as happens in reality.”

A seasonal calendar developed by the researchers and farmers is faithfully reproduced in the book. Image by ICRAF

The third child vows to become a smart and good farmer, sharing knowledge and skills with others so that many people can plant more and more trees to ensure that the savanna will become a forest again.

Sumba was largely deforested by the early 2000s as individuals and companies alike sought valuable sandalwood and other indigenous species. Conditions now are harsh and life is difficult. The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and partners, Wahana Visi Indonesia and Lutheran World Relief, supported by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, have been working together for several years on the Indonesia Rural Economic Development program to help farmers overcome the great challenges to their very survival.

“The idea of using a children’s storybook approach to explain our research results came from the project’s specific concern for youth and children,” said Mulyoutami. “Wahana Visi Indonesia, our partner, had produced children’s books before so we were able to draw on their expertise and had their full support.”

Read also: From savannah to forest: Women’s roles in land restoration in Sumba

Working with Jakarta-based illustrator, Resi Desta, designer Riky Hilmansyah and co-author Tikah Atikah, Mulyoutami gathered technical know-how and cultural nuance from ICRAF staff members who also worked in Sumba — Iskak Nugky Ismawan, Erik Maramba, Asep Suryadi, Nikolas Hanggawali, Gerhard Sabastian, Riyandoko, Suci Anggrayani, Pratiknyo Purnomosidhi and Lia Dahlia — that resulted in a bright, accessible and accurate book that has been well received by the target audiences.

“It’s important to underline that this book is not only for children,” said Mulyoutami. “It’s also useful for agricultural extensionists, rural advisers and farmers to give them a good grounding in how local practices can contribute to restoration.”

The communities of Haharu are committed to expanding their knowledge and restoring their land to its once fertile and productive state. A book such as this is one more tool to use to help reach that goal.

By Rob Finlayson, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

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  • Menanam Pohon di Bukit Batu (Planting trees on a stony hill)

Menanam Pohon di Bukit Batu (Planting trees on a stony hill)

12 October, 2018
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Buku panduan bergambar dan berceritaini merupakan sebuah alat sederhana untuk menyampaikan pesan dari hasil-hasil dokumentasiyang perlu diketahui khalayak banyak. Substansi buku ini berasal dari hasilpendokumentasian pengetahuan lokal dan gender serta kegiatan pelatihan daripetani ke petani yang dilakukan di Kecamatan Haharu, Sumba Timur, Nusa TenggaraTimur. Kondisi alam di tanah Haharu unik dengan dominasi padang sabana dantanah berbatu. Tidak hanya menjadi (semi) panduan yang berguna untuk penyuluhdan petani penyuluh, buku ini menjadi bahan bacaan untuk anak-anak sekolahdasar maupun tingkat menengah yang berpotensi untuk mengembangkan modelpengelolaan sumber daya alam yang sesuai dengan kondisi alam setempat. Penyusunanpanduan bergambar dan bercerita ini dimaksudkan untuk meningkatkan minat bacamasyarakat, mengingat budaya masyarakat yang lebih banyak mendengar danberbicara daripada membaca. Khasanah pengetahuan lokal khas Sumba Timur iniperlu diketahui masyarakat luas, terutama para pihak yang berkenan mendukungprogram pembangunan yang masih sangat diperlukan untuk meningkatkan penghidupandan kehidupan masyarakat Sumba Timur.

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  • CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) Annual Report 2017

CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) Annual Report 2017

30 August, 2018
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The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) contributes to 9 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to all CGIAR Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs) and to 31 sub-IDOs with different levels of investment. With efforts targeted respectively at 29%, 33%, 38% across System Level Outcomes (SLOs) 1, 2 and 3, FTA balanced its work across four main production systems (natural forests, plantations, pastures and cropping systems with trees) dealing with a number of globally traded and/or locally important tree-crop commodities (timber, oil palm, rubber, coffee, cocoa, coconut, wood fuel, fruits, etc.), that form the basis for the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of smallholders. These commodities also represent an important share of the land area, including 13 million km2 of forests and 9.5 million km2 of agricultural lands (45% of the total agricultural area with >10% tree cover). Progress towards IDOs in 2017 resulted from FTA work on technical innovations and tools, as well as on value chains, and institutional and policy processes. These innovations were taken up and diffused by different actors and along value chains, and all were suited to their particular context. As 2017 is the first year of FTA’s six-year program, progress towards SLOs was aimed at the upstream level; in some cases there was already progress towards downstream uptake.

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  • ICRAF’s Tony Simons talks transformational change in land management

ICRAF’s Tony Simons talks transformational change in land management

29 August, 2018
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ICRAF’s Tony Simons speaks at the GLF Investment Case Symposium 2018 in Washington, D.C. Photo by L. Vogel/GLF

The second of three Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in 2018 is being held at the UN headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, on Aug. 29 to 30, with a focus on forest and landscape restoration.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), one of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) partner institutions, is based in Nairobi, and its Director General Tony Simons is set to have some of the last words at this current GLF.

Simons is speaking in the Policy Plenary just before the conference finale, which will explore how to create enabling environments for transformational change in landscape management in the region.

Originally from New Zealand, Simons has an impressive track record working on issues at the interface of tropical agriculture and forestry in more than 40 developing countries. GLF’s Landscape News spoke with him about the potential he sees for policy change to help make forest landscape restoration work for ecosystems, people and profit across the African continent.

What are some of the issues for enabling sustainable landscapes in Africa at the moment?

Africa has tremendous opportunities, but it’s also got a lot of issues and difficulties. It’s the second largest continent in the world; the second most highly populated; the most rural; the poorest; and the most reliant on agriculture. It has the least forest cover; the highest use of wood energy; and it’s got one of the youngest populations in the world. There are very low levels of mechanization in agriculture: 95 percent of crops are rain-fed, and only 5 percent are irrigated.

Staggeringly, Africa imports 35 billion dollars a year of food. That’s going to be 110 billion by the year 2030. Of that 35 billion, 95 percent of that is brought in from other continents. So while there is plenty of land available – and people to work it – food production is not yet happening at the scale that it should be.

Food trees grow on a farm in Kenya. Photo by A. Mamo/ICRAF

What policies need to change to help make landscapes more sustainable?

Back in 2009, the African Union [AU] heads of state passed a resolution on land use and management across the continent. It was at a time where there was a huge amount of attention on land grabbing. So the policy instruments put into place were about keeping the resource under sovereign control.

So that’s one of the issues in Africa now: about 75 percent of the land – even if it’s under customary control – is formally owned by the government. And the governments don’t really know what to do with it.

I think we’ve got to put land stewardship back in the hands of people. You’ve got the land; you’ve got a young population; you’ve got growing prosperity; better education; literacy and numeracy is growing; but there needs to be a kind of revolution in land management. It’s not going to be by individuals; it’s going to be by groups, collectives, communities and watersheds. We’ve got to leverage the agenda of that wise stewardship down to the level of the people.

Sustainable management costs money. How can we make it worth people’s while?

If you travelled to the world’s second largest rainforest, which is the Congo, and I sold you an acre of rainforest, it would cost about $10,000. But the government gets less than $100 of revenue from that per year: a 1 percent return. That’s the biggest problem with forests and wetlands: they’re not remunerative.

And that’s because we don’t count the value of all of the fantastic biodiversity, carbon provisioning, precipitation enhancement and other ecosystem services that these places provide. In a continent where 95 percent of crops are rainfed, forests are very important for agriculture. But protecting and restoring them is not remunerative because of the partial accounting. So that needs to change.

However, we’re not going to get anywhere if we spend all this money restoring the land to how it was in the past, because it will still be under pressure for exploitation. So we’ve got to make a viable business case for restoring that land. And that’s going to be about connecting and linking financial capital, natural capital, human capital and social capital.

This is also at a time when we’re seeing pressures on financing. So how do we get all of these new approaches and opportunities out to people? NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have stepped up in quite a large way, but the private sector needs to step up much more. And for that to happen, there are a number of things that we need to look at. The first one is the opportunities: where are the business cases, the viable enterprises to piggyback on?

The second thing to look at is investment return. What returns will the governments, the small-scale farmer, the community and the foreign investor get from investing in landscape restoration? And what are the risks associated with this, and how can we de-risk? Many people perceive agriculture as complicated, as confused, as risky, as having a low rate of return, as not really investment material. Investors need to see that yes, this is a viable enterprise, and when we start thinking about bringing that financial return to social dividends, to environmental dividends, that’s when it all starts to come together.

Rubus Pinnatus grows on Nyambene Mountain, Kenya. Photo by A. Mamo/ICRAF

Beyond opportunity, risk and return, next comes leverage. We have been relying in Africa on external Overseas Development Assistance (ODA); but ODA is currently drying up and being reallocated. Now for every single dollar of ODA, there’s $3 of remittances, there’s $6 of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), there’s $24 of domestic private sector spend, there’s $55 of national government spend, and there’s $1,000 of private capital.

So let’s use that $1 of ODA to leverage all those other sources. That’s going to be the real opportunity to bring change in landscapes.

What’s significant about having the GLF in Nairobi this year? 

Africa is innovative and unique. Practitioners can take things that worked in Latin America and Asia and adapt them, but Africa also has some fantastic indigenous ways of understanding and transforming landscapes. For example, we’re already seeing in Ethiopia how social capital is driving land use change.

The GLF provides an important opportunity to showcase that it’s not just doom and gloom, and that things are progressing. Let’s make a business case for restoration. Let’s connect with people; let’s think about gender, land ownership and tenure, and about motivating the youth. We candrive confidence to investors to bring financing to restoration. It’s not just about ecosystem services; it’s all of humanity that stands to benefit from this.

To hear more from Tony Simons and other policy experts, tune into the Policy Plenary live stream on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 5.45pm Nairobi time (GMT+3).

By Monica Evans, first published at GLF’s Landscape News. 

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  • ICRAF’s Tony Simons talks transformational change in land management

ICRAF’s Tony Simons talks transformational change in land management
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ICRAF’s Tony Simons speaks at the GLF Investment Case Symposium 2018 in Washington, D.C. Photo by L. Vogel/GLF

The second of three Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in 2018 is being held at the UN headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, on Aug. 29 to 30, with a focus on forest and landscape restoration.

The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), one of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) partner institutions, is based in Nairobi, and its Director General Tony Simons is set to have some of the last words at this current GLF.

Simons is speaking in the Policy Plenary just before the conference finale, which will explore how to create enabling environments for transformational change in landscape management in the region.

Originally from New Zealand, Simons has an impressive track record working on issues at the interface of tropical agriculture and forestry in more than 40 developing countries. GLF’s Landscape News spoke with him about the potential he sees for policy change to help make forest landscape restoration work for ecosystems, people and profit across the African continent.

What are some of the issues for enabling sustainable landscapes in Africa at the moment?

Africa has tremendous opportunities, but it’s also got a lot of issues and difficulties. It’s the second largest continent in the world; the second most highly populated; the most rural; the poorest; and the most reliant on agriculture. It has the least forest cover; the highest use of wood energy; and it’s got one of the youngest populations in the world. There are very low levels of mechanization in agriculture: 95 percent of crops are rain-fed, and only 5 percent are irrigated.

Staggeringly, Africa imports 35 billion dollars a year of food. That’s going to be 110 billion by the year 2030. Of that 35 billion, 95 percent of that is brought in from other continents. So while there is plenty of land available – and people to work it – food production is not yet happening at the scale that it should be.

Food trees grow on a farm in Kenya. Photo by A. Mamo/ICRAF

What policies need to change to help make landscapes more sustainable?

Back in 2009, the African Union [AU] heads of state passed a resolution on land use and management across the continent. It was at a time where there was a huge amount of attention on land grabbing. So the policy instruments put into place were about keeping the resource under sovereign control.

So that’s one of the issues in Africa now: about 75 percent of the land – even if it’s under customary control – is formally owned by the government. And the governments don’t really know what to do with it.

I think we’ve got to put land stewardship back in the hands of people. You’ve got the land; you’ve got a young population; you’ve got growing prosperity; better education; literacy and numeracy is growing; but there needs to be a kind of revolution in land management. It’s not going to be by individuals; it’s going to be by groups, collectives, communities and watersheds. We’ve got to leverage the agenda of that wise stewardship down to the level of the people.

Sustainable management costs money. How can we make it worth people’s while?

If you travelled to the world’s second largest rainforest, which is the Congo, and I sold you an acre of rainforest, it would cost about $10,000. But the government gets less than $100 of revenue from that per year: a 1 percent return. That’s the biggest problem with forests and wetlands: they’re not remunerative.

And that’s because we don’t count the value of all of the fantastic biodiversity, carbon provisioning, precipitation enhancement and other ecosystem services that these places provide. In a continent where 95 percent of crops are rainfed, forests are very important for agriculture. But protecting and restoring them is not remunerative because of the partial accounting. So that needs to change.

However, we’re not going to get anywhere if we spend all this money restoring the land to how it was in the past, because it will still be under pressure for exploitation. So we’ve got to make a viable business case for restoring that land. And that’s going to be about connecting and linking financial capital, natural capital, human capital and social capital.

This is also at a time when we’re seeing pressures on financing. So how do we get all of these new approaches and opportunities out to people? NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have stepped up in quite a large way, but the private sector needs to step up much more. And for that to happen, there are a number of things that we need to look at. The first one is the opportunities: where are the business cases, the viable enterprises to piggyback on?

The second thing to look at is investment return. What returns will the governments, the small-scale farmer, the community and the foreign investor get from investing in landscape restoration? And what are the risks associated with this, and how can we de-risk? Many people perceive agriculture as complicated, as confused, as risky, as having a low rate of return, as not really investment material. Investors need to see that yes, this is a viable enterprise, and when we start thinking about bringing that financial return to social dividends, to environmental dividends, that’s when it all starts to come together.

Rubus Pinnatus grows on Nyambene Mountain, Kenya. Photo by A. Mamo/ICRAF

Beyond opportunity, risk and return, next comes leverage. We have been relying in Africa on external Overseas Development Assistance (ODA); but ODA is currently drying up and being reallocated. Now for every single dollar of ODA, there’s $3 of remittances, there’s $6 of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), there’s $24 of domestic private sector spend, there’s $55 of national government spend, and there’s $1,000 of private capital.

So let’s use that $1 of ODA to leverage all those other sources. That’s going to be the real opportunity to bring change in landscapes.

What’s significant about having the GLF in Nairobi this year? 

Africa is innovative and unique. Practitioners can take things that worked in Latin America and Asia and adapt them, but Africa also has some fantastic indigenous ways of understanding and transforming landscapes. For example, we’re already seeing in Ethiopia how social capital is driving land use change.

The GLF provides an important opportunity to showcase that it’s not just doom and gloom, and that things are progressing. Let’s make a business case for restoration. Let’s connect with people; let’s think about gender, land ownership and tenure, and about motivating the youth. We candrive confidence to investors to bring financing to restoration. It’s not just about ecosystem services; it’s all of humanity that stands to benefit from this.

To hear more from Tony Simons and other policy experts, tune into the Policy Plenary live stream on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 5.45pm Nairobi time (GMT+3).

By Monica Evans, first published at GLF’s Landscape News. 

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  • Forests are key to combating world's looming water crisis, says new GFEP report

Forests are key to combating world’s looming water crisis, says new GFEP report

19 July, 2018
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Rain clouds hover over a forest in Yen Bai, Vietnam. Photo by Rob Finlayson/ICRAF

The world is facing a growing water crisis: already, 40 percent of the world’s population are affected by water scarcity, and climate change threatens to increase the frequency of both floods and droughts in vulnerable areas around the world.

A new report released recently at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York suggests that successfully managing the world’s forests will be key to mitigating these risks and ensuring safe and sustainable water supplies for all.

Forest and Water on a Changing Planet: Vulnerability, Adaptation and Governance Opportunities presents a comprehensive global assessment of available scientific information about the interactions between forests and water, and was prepared by the Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) on Forests and Water, an initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests led by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO).

Read more: FTA at GLF: From rainfall recycling to landscape restoration

“In the assessment, we focused on the following key questions: Do forests matter? Who is responsible and what should be done? How can progress be made and measured?” said panel cochair and Meine van Noordwijk of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) – a member of IUFRO – and Wageningen University, Netherlands. Van Noordwijk is also a former research leader at the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA)

The role of forests in the water cycle is at least as important as their role in the carbon cycle in the face of climate change. In addition to being the lungs of the planet, they also act as kidneys.

Xu Jianchu of ICRAF noted that, “while public attention has tended to focus on forests’ potential as carbon sinks, from a local perspective water is often a greater priority.”

Read more: Bridging research and development to generate science and solutions

An agroforestry area is pictured in Sierra Leone. Photo by ICRAF

Carbon-centered forestation strategies could have significant consequences on water resources; in some cases, efforts to increase carbon storage using fast-growing trees have had a negative impact on local water supplies.

According to Xu, who contributed to several chapters in the report, looking at the climate-forests-water-people system as a whole could help formulate policies that address both local priorities and global targets such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

For example, water-sensitive land management policies in the Hindu Kush and Himalayas have successfully revived natural springs which are a critical source of water for local communities.

As noted by panel co-chair Irena Creed of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, “natural forests, in particular, contribute to sustainable water supplies for people in the face of growing risks. And it is also possible to actively manage forests for water resilience.”

The report also calls for nuance in both scientific assessments of forests and policy-making. Rather than simply classifying land cover as ‘forest’ or ‘non-forest’, for example, the publication emphasizes the need to pay attention to forest quality and how trees are arranged within a watershed.

Read more: Trees, water and climate: Cool scientific insights, hot implications for research and policy

In Vietnam’s Huong River Basin, the intensification of traditional swidden-fallow systems from 1989 to 2008 was not an explicit change in land use but it still had major consequences for water flows. Over that same period of time, forests in the headwaters of the basin recovered and expanded, which would ordinarily be expected to mitigate the risk of floods. Yet intensification of the swidden systems overwhelmed these effects and in fact exacerbated flooding.

The report concludes by identifying a clear policy gap in climate-forest-water relations and calls for a series of regional or continental studies to complement and extend the current global assessment.

Filling this gap will not be a simple process, and the authors highlight the fact that any process for managing the trade-offs inherent in forest management must fully consider the wellbeing of local, indigenous and other vulnerable communities. To that end, social and environmental justice must be integrated into climate-forest-water policies, and stronger participatory approaches are needed to ensure that policy goals are sustainable and equitable.

By Andrew Stevenson, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

The IUFRO-led Global Forest Expert Panel initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests established the Expert Panel on Forests and Water to provide policy makers with a stronger scientific basis for their decisions and to specifically inform international policy processes and discussions on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the related Sustainable Development Goals.

The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) is the only world-wide organization devoted to forest research and related sciences. Its members are research institutions, universities and individual scientists as well as decision-making authorities and others with a focus on forests and trees. 

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  • Forests are key to combating world's looming water crisis, says new GFEP report

Forests are key to combating world’s looming water crisis, says new GFEP report
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Rain clouds hover over a forest in Yen Bai, Vietnam. Photo by Rob Finlayson/ICRAF

The world is facing a growing water crisis: already, 40 percent of the world’s population are affected by water scarcity, and climate change threatens to increase the frequency of both floods and droughts in vulnerable areas around the world.

A new report released recently at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York suggests that successfully managing the world’s forests will be key to mitigating these risks and ensuring safe and sustainable water supplies for all.

Forest and Water on a Changing Planet: Vulnerability, Adaptation and Governance Opportunities presents a comprehensive global assessment of available scientific information about the interactions between forests and water, and was prepared by the Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) on Forests and Water, an initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests led by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO).

Read more: FTA at GLF: From rainfall recycling to landscape restoration

“In the assessment, we focused on the following key questions: Do forests matter? Who is responsible and what should be done? How can progress be made and measured?” said panel cochair and Meine van Noordwijk of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) – a member of IUFRO – and Wageningen University, Netherlands. Van Noordwijk is also a former research leader at the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA)

The role of forests in the water cycle is at least as important as their role in the carbon cycle in the face of climate change. In addition to being the lungs of the planet, they also act as kidneys.

Xu Jianchu of ICRAF noted that, “while public attention has tended to focus on forests’ potential as carbon sinks, from a local perspective water is often a greater priority.”

Read more: Bridging research and development to generate science and solutions

An agroforestry area is pictured in Sierra Leone. Photo by ICRAF

Carbon-centered forestation strategies could have significant consequences on water resources; in some cases, efforts to increase carbon storage using fast-growing trees have had a negative impact on local water supplies.

According to Xu, who contributed to several chapters in the report, looking at the climate-forests-water-people system as a whole could help formulate policies that address both local priorities and global targets such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

For example, water-sensitive land management policies in the Hindu Kush and Himalayas have successfully revived natural springs which are a critical source of water for local communities.

As noted by panel co-chair Irena Creed of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, “natural forests, in particular, contribute to sustainable water supplies for people in the face of growing risks. And it is also possible to actively manage forests for water resilience.”

The report also calls for nuance in both scientific assessments of forests and policy-making. Rather than simply classifying land cover as ‘forest’ or ‘non-forest’, for example, the publication emphasizes the need to pay attention to forest quality and how trees are arranged within a watershed.

Read more: Trees, water and climate: Cool scientific insights, hot implications for research and policy

In Vietnam’s Huong River Basin, the intensification of traditional swidden-fallow systems from 1989 to 2008 was not an explicit change in land use but it still had major consequences for water flows. Over that same period of time, forests in the headwaters of the basin recovered and expanded, which would ordinarily be expected to mitigate the risk of floods. Yet intensification of the swidden systems overwhelmed these effects and in fact exacerbated flooding.

The report concludes by identifying a clear policy gap in climate-forest-water relations and calls for a series of regional or continental studies to complement and extend the current global assessment.

Filling this gap will not be a simple process, and the authors highlight the fact that any process for managing the trade-offs inherent in forest management must fully consider the wellbeing of local, indigenous and other vulnerable communities. To that end, social and environmental justice must be integrated into climate-forest-water policies, and stronger participatory approaches are needed to ensure that policy goals are sustainable and equitable.

By Andrew Stevenson, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

The IUFRO-led Global Forest Expert Panel initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests established the Expert Panel on Forests and Water to provide policy makers with a stronger scientific basis for their decisions and to specifically inform international policy processes and discussions on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the related Sustainable Development Goals.

The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) is the only world-wide organization devoted to forest research and related sciences. Its members are research institutions, universities and individual scientists as well as decision-making authorities and others with a focus on forests and trees. 

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  • Plant breeders contribute to achieving food security across Africa

Plant breeders contribute to achieving food security across Africa

Participants take part in a practical session during the course. Photo by ICRAF
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The third class of graduates from the UC Davis Africa Plant Breeding Academy pose for a group photo. Photo by ICRAF

Thirty-four plant breeders from 18 countries graduated from the UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy in May 2018.

The advanced plant breeding course was delivered by the Seed Biotechnology Center of the University of California Davis, in collaboration with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC).

The course, hosted by one of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) partner institutions — the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) — in Kenya, equips practicing African plant breeders with advanced theory and technologies in plant breeding, quantitative genetics, statistics and experimental design to support critical decisions. This was the third cohort of the course, with participants drawn from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The program was delivered by a team of tutors and complemented by guest speakers, including Leena Tripathi of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) who covered banana improvement through transformation and gene editing, Damaris Achieng Odeny of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) on finger millet genomics, Dusty Vyas of LGC Genomics on genotyping sequencing and DNA analysis, and Alex Lipka of the University of Illinois on genomic selection. Participants also visited the International Livestock Research Institute’s Trepathi lab and glasshouse.

The plant breeders presented various proposals, explaining how they would put their newly acquired skills into practice. Mayada Beshir of the Agricultural Research Corporation in Sudan and Ermias Abate Desta of the Amhara Agricultural Research Institute of Ethiopia were each awarded US$5,000 from Mars Incorporated and Illumina for their winning proposals.

“Sorghum is the most important crop for us in Sudan and is widely produced by smallholders. We are experiencing the effects of climate change, as everywhere, and are observing new traits or stresses that have not been seen before. Sorghum productivity is declining yet the government is working hard to avail land, water and inputs,” said Bashir.

“As a breeder going through this training, my role is to help the farmer. The farmer will consume part of the harvest and sell the rest for income. I will produce a better variety of sorghum that is resistant to the stresses we are seeing right now and add nutrient value with better yield.”

Read more: Orphan crops for improving diets

“Tef is a staple crop and is grown only in Ethiopia,” said Desta. “It is an orphan crop because it hasn’t captured the attention of the international scientific community. My work is to identify varieties of tef that are tolerant to soil acidity, a common problem in highly productive areas of the country. I will use my prize money to produce soil acidity-tolerant genotypes of tef. Smallholders cannot afford the lime that needs to be applied to acidic soils for amelioration. Acid-tolerant varieties of tef will help as a management strategy and improve their yields.”

“The UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy is part of the African Orphan Crops Consortium,” explained Allen van Deynze, a primary instructor at the academy. “The goal of the consortium is to make nutritious crops productive for Africa. The plant breeding academy is delivering food security in the continent. The people here today are the ones who are going to make the difference. Those who have passed through the academy are the ones who have taken on the challenge to make sure that everyone has nutritious food on their table.”

Participants take part in a practical session during the course. Photo by ICRAF

“When you go back, remember all that you have learned will be wasted if you fight, compete or do not collaborate,” said Tony Simons, director general of ICRAF. “It is a great honor to partner with all the institutions that support this program, because out of all the initiatives that ICRAF has implemented in the last 40 years, this has been one of the most impactful.”

Recounting the start of the consortium that led to the UC Davis African Plant Breeding Academy, Howard Shapiro, chief scientist at Mars Incorporated, acknowledged the organizations and individuals who contributed to the consortium. Of the 101 crops that were selected for sequencing, 47 are trees and the remainder are annual crops.

“No one had ever considered to do this amount of research on crops,” noted Shapiro. “Major foundations and organizations chose one crop — cassava, maize — and that is all they work on. Our idea was that we could fix the nutritional productivity of 101 food crops that are not only the backbone of rural Africa, but are also important in urban centers. An idea of paradise is that we can end chronic hunger and malnutrition by improving the nutritional quality and productivity of the 101 food crops. All those who have passed through the academy are the ones who will deliver this paradise.”

“We have sequenced 10 species for the AOCC,” noted Xin Liu of BGI. “We are trying to release data as soon as possible. You can combine this data for better application and breeding processes for all the crops. We made a commitment three years ago to sequence 101 crops. We have our own sequencers that can be used to generate more data and we would like to contribute all the science and technology we can to this consortium.”

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a primary partner of the academy and has sponsored 31 plant breeders of the second and third cohorts. It also funded master and doctoral courses for over 400 of the 500 plant breeders in Africa. So far, 18 countries have released over 600 varieties of crops.

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

“We realized that the breeding field keeps changing. This course has helped us keep up and modernize our breeding efforts,” said Rufaro Madakadze, program officer of AGRA’s Africa Seed System. “We fund training to develop technologies that people will use.”

Speaking on behalf of the class, Maureen Atemkeng of Nigeria expressed gratitude to the academy, particularly for the opportunity to interact with international experts. She added that the course helped in building principles of efficiency, responsibility and sustainability for the next generation.

“Hunger and malnutrition can be eliminated in our lifetime,” said Rita Mumm, director and primary instructor of the academy. “The vision of the African Plant Breeding Academy is to train 150 plant breeders. Graduates, you will continue to work together, contribute your talent to teams, and join the African Association of Plant Breeders. I exhort you to mentor the next generation of plant breeders. Share your knowledge and experience.”

In closing, Ramni Jamnadass, coleader of ICRAF’s Tree Productivity and Diversity research unit that hosts the AOCC, encouraged the graduates to contribute to breeding programs that will banish food and nutrition insecurity in Africa.

The course is delivered in three two-week sessions spread over 18 months at the ICRAF campus in Nairobi. Since its inception in 2013, 89 plant breeders have successfully completed the course and covered more than 99 species, of which 57 are African orphan crops.

By Susan Onganyo, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.

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  • A business case: co-investing for ecosystem service provisions and local livelihoods in Rejoso watershed

A business case: co-investing for ecosystem service provisions and local livelihoods in Rejoso watershed

28 May, 2018
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The Rejoso business case is based on information from piloting a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme aimed at stimulating multi-stakeholder co-investment in restoring and maintaining good watershed functions. The business case presents the benefits of applying innovations in setting the PES pilot that enhance participation and inclusiveness of smallholder farmers in the programme, link the scientific approaches to on-theground actions and, ultimately, ensure that the programme is cost-efficient and effective in restoring and maintaining watershed functions compared to ‘business as usual’.

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  • Trends, drivers of change and possible solutions to address deforestation and loss of forest habitat in the Kenya-Somalia cross-border area

Trends, drivers of change and possible solutions to address deforestation and loss of forest habitat in the Kenya-Somalia cross-border area

25 May, 2018
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The coastal forests of northeast coast of Kenya and southern Somalia form the northern tip of the East African Coastal Forest Biodiversity Hotspot. While this hotspot is considered threatened by deforestation and forest degradation, there is little up-to-date information on the status of these forests, their rates of deforestation and degradation, the underlying drivers of change and the opportunities presented by restoration of the degraded forest lands. The EU/IGAD-funded Biodiversity Management Programme, which supports one project that aims at the biodiversity conservation commissioned a study to describe the loss of tree cover, the associated drivers of change and reviewing possible solutions. This report first presents historic vegetation maps that localize the lowland tropical rainforests and the drylands forests that are the habitats of the biodiversity of the East African Coastal Forest Biodiversity Hotspot. Next, using information from Global Forest Watch (GFW), this study reports significant deforestation in the lowland tropical rainforests in southern and central Lamu County and adjacent Tana River County. We further report isolated deforestation in the dryland forests in the Awer Conservancy in the northern part of Lamu County. The GFW data reveals only limited deforestation in the south of Somalia. The Fire Information Resource Management System (FIRMS) active fire data reveals frequent fires in the lowland savannas surrounding the remaining tropical rainforest fragments. More isolated areas affected by fires are reported from the dryland forests in South Somalia, presumably reflecting the active charcoal industry in this area. Our analysis thus reveals that few fragments of indigenous lowland tropical rainforest remain in Lamu and Tana River Counties, while charcoal production is affecting the dryland forests in southern Somalia and the drier areas across the border in Kenya.

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  • Genetic Diversity Analysis Reveals Genetic Differentiation and Strong Population Structure in Calotropis Plants

Genetic Diversity Analysis Reveals Genetic Differentiation and Strong Population Structure in Calotropis Plants

22 May, 2018
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The genus Calotropis (Asclepiadaceae) is comprised of two species, C. gigantea and C. procera, which both show significant economic potential for use of their seed fibers in the textile industry, and of their bioactive compounds as new medicinal resources. The available wild-sourced germplasm contains limited genetic information that restricts further germplasm exploration for the purposes of domestication. We here developed twenty novel EST-SSR markers and applied them to assess genetic diversity, population structure and differentiation within Calotropis. The polymorphic information index of these markers ranged from 0.102 to 0.800; indicating that they are highly informative. Moderate genetic diversity was revealed in both species, with no difference between species in the amount of genetic diversity. Population structure analysis suggested five main genetic groups (K = 5) and relatively high genetic differentiation (FST = 0.528) between the two species. Mantel test analysis showed strong correlation between geographical and genetic distance in C. procera (r = 0.875, p = 0.020) while C. gigantea showed no such correlation (r = 0.390, p = 0.210). This study provides novel insights into the genetic diversity and population structure of Calotropis, which will promote further resource utilization and the development of genetic improvement strategies for Calotropis.

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  • Vietnam prepares for long-term agroforestry strategy to address national and international commitments

Vietnam prepares for long-term agroforestry strategy to address national and international commitments

Mountains in Northwest province show signs of erosion from unsustainable farming practices. Photo by Robert Finlayson/ICRAF
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Mountains in Northwest province show signs of erosion from unsustainable farming practices. Photo by Robert Finlayson/ICRAF

Vietnam is preparing for a long-term strategy to speed up the adoption of agroforestry nationwide.

Agroforestry has been practiced for a long time in Vietnam. However, widespread adoption remains limited. Building on previous work to address barriers to adoption, a workshop was held on April 5, in which participants agreed that a long-term strategy for the development of agroforestry throughout the country was needed to address national and international commitments.

Titled “Enhancing Agroforestry Development in Vietnam: Policy Environment and Investment Opportunities”, the workshop featured presentations by Nguyen Ba Ngai, vice director of the Vietnam Administration of Forestry; Chu Van Chuong, vice director of the International Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; Yurdi Yasmi of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); and Delia Catacutan, country coordinator of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Vietnam.

Read more: Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development awards ICRAF coordinator for agriculture and rural development work

The workshop was another step forward after a 2015 national policy dialogue for agroforestry development, from which two actions were implemented with technical and financial support from FAO. First, a review of agroforestry-related policies; and, second, the formulation of an agroforestry development proposal for the country. Progress on these two actions was presented at the workshop to ensure the most viable strategies were developed for Vietnam.

The policy working group presented its analysis, confirming that there was no specific policy for agroforestry development, the situation being compounded by a lack of legal definition of agroforestry practices and lack of official guidelines. The working group highlighted that many of the barriers to adoption could be addressed through the promulgation of supportive policies, including on land and tenure, financial mechanisms and rural advisory or extension support for farmers.

Workshop participants pose for a photograph. Photo by Tran Ha My/ICRAF

The Northern Mountainous Agriculture and Forestry Science Institute, ICRAF and UN-REDD presented their experiences of promoting agroforestry practices in different regions of the country, followed by an FAO presentation on the National Target Program on Sustainable Forest Development and Drought Initiatives, which was reinforced by a call for all present to work together to prepare a proposal on nationwide agroforestry development.

Just what shape that would take was discussed by the participants, with many agreeing that it was necessary to have an official definition of agroforestry upon which to base a legal framework for a specific policy and subsequent activities. Others, however, argued that it was not necessary to have a unique policy for agroforestry, saying it would be better to integrate practices into existing policies relating to forestry, agricultural extension or advice, and payment for forest environmental services.

Overall, the workshop participants agreed that there were many way to achieve more effective promotion of agroforestry, such as through promulgating agroforestry techniques, improving governance, establishing financial mechanisms, developing markets (including carbon), increasing education and training, integrating with payment for forest environmental services and UN-REDD programs, and adopting organic certification.

Participants also agreed that there was an urgent need for a nationwide study of agroforestry to assess the successes and lessons from existing practices, regions suitable for agroforestry and the main commodity species. The participants expected that a long-term strategy for the development of agroforestry in Vietnam would be developed in the near future.

Read more: Agroforestry sites in Vietnam provide lessons for farmland in Bhutan and Nepal

Representatives from the Vietnam Administration of Forestry, FAO, ICRAF and the Japan International Cooperation Agency covered such a strategy in a panel discussion. They argued that Vietnam should have a national program with targets and resource mobilization for long-term development. The government is expected to be able to gather national and international partners to fill the gaps in technology, finance and markets.

There was also discussion of deeper collaboration to speed up the adoption of agroforestry. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development expressed its support for partners continuing to work with the government in restructuring the agricultural sector to increase production quality, quantity and value.

By Pham Thanh Van, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World. 

This work is linked to the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.

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  • Impacto del cambio climático sobre la cadena de valor del café en el Perú

Impacto del cambio climático sobre la cadena de valor del café en el Perú

07 May, 2018
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Climate change is affecting the value chain of Peruvian coffee. Changes in rainfall patterns and temperature variations reduce crop productivity and decrease its quality. The present study estimates that between 13% and 40% of the coffee area of the country’s northeast will no longer be suitable for coffee; these areas should develop adaptation strategies and actions that contemplate crop change. Between 85% and 45% of producers will have to carry out actions of incremental or systemic adaptation that allow crop sustainability, which includes sources of additional income.

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  • Unpacking 'sustainable' cocoa: do sustainability standards, development projects and policies address producer concerns in Indonesia, Cameroon and Peru?

Unpacking ‘sustainable’ cocoa: do sustainability standards, development projects and policies address producer concerns in Indonesia, Cameroon and Peru?

26 April, 2018
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Sustainable cocoa has attracted considerable attention. However, stakeholders in cocoa development may differ in their understanding of sustainable cocoa, their interests and actions taken in advancing sustainable cocoa. This article analyses cocoa sustainability at nested scales and analyses to what extent sustainability standards, policies and development projects address sustainability concerns and contribute to ecosystem services. The analysis is based on literature reviews and key informant interviews in Sulawesi (Indonesia), Ucayali (Peru) and Centre Region (Cameroon). Producers in all three countries shared concerns of price volatility, weak farmer organizations and dependence on few buyers. Producers in Sulawesi and Centre Region compensated low returns to cocoa production by diversification of cocoa systems. Public and private development actors were concerned with low production volumes. Research has so far focused on biodiversity loss, which differed depending on the cocoa sector’s age in a country. Policies and development programs in all countries have focused on cocoa sector expansion and productivity increases, irrespective of smallholder needs for economically viable farming systems and existing market structures resulting in little bargaining power to farmers. Sustainability standards have spread unevenly and have converged in compliance criteria over time, although initially differing in focus. Recently added business and development criteria of sustainability standards can potentially address farmers’ concerns. Competing interests and interdependencies between different actors’ responses to concerns have so far not been openly acknowledged by public and private sector actors.

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  • Fungal diversity notes 709-839: taxonomic and phylogenetic contributions to fungal taxa with an emphasis on fungi on Rosaceae

Fungal diversity notes 709-839: taxonomic and phylogenetic contributions to fungal taxa with an emphasis on fungi on Rosaceae

24 April, 2018
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This paper is the seventh in the Fungal Diversity Notes series, where 131 taxa accommodated in 28 families are mainly described from Rosa (Rosaceae) and a few other hosts. Novel fungal taxa are described in the present study, including 17 new genera, 93 new species, four combinations, a sexual record for a species and new host records for 16 species. Some are introduced as new ascomycete genera. We also introduce new species. New host records are provided for others. New combinations are noted. This study also provides some insights into the diversity of fungi on Rosa species and especially those on Rosa spines that resulted in the characterization of eight new genera, 45 new species, and nine new host records. We also collected taxa from Rosa stems and there was 31% (20/65) overlap with taxa found on stems with that on spines. Because of the limited and non-targeted sampling for comparison with collections from spines and stems of the same host and location, it is not possible to say that the fungi on spines of Rosa differ from those on stems. The study however, does illustrate how spines are interesting substrates with high fungal biodiversity. This may be because of their hard structure resulting in slow decay and hence are suitable substrates leading to fungal colonization. All data presented herein are based on morphological examination of specimens, coupled with phylogenetic sequence data to better integrate taxa into appropriate taxonomic ranks and infer their evolutionary relationships.

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