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Forest science for the future: Back to the drawing board?


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Farming land on peatland area in Mendawai village, Katingan. Central Kalimantan. Photo by Nanang Sujana/CIFOR
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Scientists discuss best way forward at IUFRO XXV congress

How can forest research and science, the foundations of the science of natural resource management, be renewed amid unprecedented global challenges?

At the 25th congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), in Curitiba, Brazil, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) hosted an official side event. It involved six top scientists from partner organizations, in addition to congress delegates who discussed priorities for future forestry research.

The talk stirred up a wide-ranging debate among scientists on how to confront the ongoing planetary crises such as climate change, threats to biodiversity and deforestation in a unified manner.

The title of the session was “Research on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry: What’s Next?”

“We could be tempted to rush to the drawing board, but before this, we need to go back to the incredible amount of former research and see whether it worked or not,” said Vincent Gitz, director of FTA, the leading international research program exploring how forests, trees and agroforestry play a central role in food security, nutrition and sustainable development through improved production systems.

Scientists recognize that efforts to reach the Paris Agreement target to keep global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels will not be met without reductions in emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation.

Forest loss accounts for about a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural emissions, 35 percent of which occur in developing countries, contribute a similar amount.

This puts reducing deforestation and restoring landscapes on the menu for research attention. The sheer volume of research findings can seem daunting, which include context-specific, typology-related and other topics, but through careful synthesis, real solutions and methods can be found, participants said.

As well, gaps in knowledge exist in terms of options for sustainable land management, for too little is known about the relative costs and benefits of land management and restoration approaches, said panellist Andrew Miccolis, Brazil country coordinator for World Agroforestry (ICRAF).

“Everybody is talking about landscape approaches, but what’s really put into practice?” he queried. “We need to better understand trade-offs between agriculture, different agroforestry and forestry systems; what are the options for different contexts, for different landscapes”

Financial focus

Through benefiting from local economic value in conserving forests, communities will be able to tackle the causes of deforestation and forest degradation, and benefit from full institutional and political commitments of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions caused by Deforestation and forest Degradation), said panellist Amy Duchelle, team leader of Climate Change, Energy & Low Carbon Development Team at CIFOR.

“On restoration, we could learn from the experience of REDD+ and also explicitly link to REDD+,” she said.

To date, challenges have included agreeing how to measure forest emissions levels upon which payments should be based, what costs payments should cover and who among governments, subnational programs or local people should be paid.

Many REDD+ initiatives are currently funded by CG donors.

“There is still a clear need for rigorous assessments and how to attribute benefits to a determined intervention,” Duchelle said. “We’re at an important moment regarding finance: the first results-based payments for REDD+ have been disbursed in 2019; market based mechanisms for forests may be emerging. Much more work is needed on reference levels, as well as on units for offsetting, issue of permanence.”

Brazil was approved for a $96.5 million payout under REDD+ in February 2019 in return for reducing deforestation in 2014 and 2015, based on the concept that by slowing down deforestation according to previously measured reference levels, trees that would have been cut down were not.

“With REDD+ we’re making a large scale policy and intervention experiment,” Duchelle said. “REDD+ provides an opportunity to measure and attribute benefits to a determined intervention. And it’s gaining traction in a growing number of countries.”

But to be effective research needs to reflect not only on the ‘what,’ but also on the ‘how’,” Gitz said.

Evaluating change

“We’re in a transformative period and research needs to adapt to these changes, to new pathways for solving complex issues,” said panellist Yanxia Li, senior program officer at International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, organization having joined FTA in 2017. “Research needs to be able to create transformative processes that bring science to real practice.”

In a similar vein, Edwin Cedamon, post-doctoral fellow with Australia’s University of Adelaide said that a greater effort must be made to increase the reach of communications outreach to development and agricultural and forestry extension workers on the frontlines, typically at provincial and municipal government levels.

“We need to know how much our knowledge is reaching these people and what FTA technology and innovation are lacking for them,” Cedamon said. “There is little if not nil knowledge resources and or materials readily available in local extension and development service offices.”

Transparent trajectory

Misleading messages can also create hurdles, participants said.

Maria Brockhaus, professor of International Forest Policy at Finland’s University of Helsinki insisted on the importance of credibility. “We need to be transparent about failure, she said. “The tipping points are crucial, we really need to be credible.”

Pablo Pacheco, Global Forest Lead Scientist with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature supported this notion.

“The worlds of science and society are disconnected,” he said. “There’s the question of credibility – you need to make your assumptions clear. We also have be careful about misleading messages.”

“Deforestation is not a problem of forestry but of agriculture, a challenge that can be addressed in part through further research on policies on agriculture and land use,” said panelist Roger Villalobos, who works with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE)

“Natural forest management is the most powerful tool for forest conservation – we need more research on policies that have an impact on forests like on migration,” he added. “We need better communication with society, farmers, decision makers.”

Urgent action

“We have no more time – we need to use what we have already learned,” said panellist Plinio Sist, director of the Forests and Societies Unit at the French Agricultural Centre for International Development (CIRAD, a managing partner of FTA). “Our current knowledge is enough to call for action.”

Sist expressed a sentiment that was echoed throughout the IUFRO congress, held under the shadow of uncertainty brought about by the climate crisis, on the heels of U.N. Climate Week in New York.

Further research is required to understand complex systems, but the situation in deforestation and biodiversity loss is so urgent that the focus should be on requesting specific actions, Sist said, adding that scientists must not shy away from initiating transformative processes to influence policy.

“We’ve accumulated enough knowledge to develop applicable solutions and concrete actions to fight deforestation and for climate change mitigation, now it is time to act” According to Sist, it’s a responsibility of scientists to also act as evidence-based advocates and activists.

Communications and interventions are central, said Gitz in his concluding remarks as moderator, adding that scientific investigations must start from the ground up – putting the needs of people first and then determining which trees are best suited to the landscape—the only way we can do this is by reshaping our approach to managing the landscape spaces within which we work.

He left the door open for further discussion within FTA, recommending action-based research which, he said, must be innovative, strongly transformative and demonstrate concrete results.

By Julie Mollins, communications specialist.

FTA is the world’s largest research for development program to enhance the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in sustainable development and food security and to address climate change. CIFOR leads FTA in partnership with Bioversity International, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR, ICRAF and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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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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  • 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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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
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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The power of science to halt deforestation


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A coffee plantation is pictured on a hillside in Lampung, Indonesia. Photo by U. Ifansasti/CIFOR
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A coffee plantation is pictured on a hillside in Lampung, Indonesia. Photo by U. Ifansasti/CIFOR

Science and research can offer significant contributions to halting deforestation and increasing the area of healthy forests around the world in a sustainable manner. 

With halting and reversing deforestation seen as key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives of the Paris agreement on climate change, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests organized from Feb. 20-22 the conference “Working across sectors to halt deforestation and increase forest area” in Rome, to discuss ways of meeting these targets in the coming years with various actors and stakeholders.

The conference included a session on science and research coorganized by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), in which participants discussed how science-based innovations have the potential to revolutionize the way forests and landscapes are monitored and managed, provided such innovations are mainstreamed and made more accessible to users, including enabling their use in local languages.

The session’s panelists were Ambassador Hans Hoogeveen, Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN; Daniela Kleinschmit, Professor of Forest and Environmental Policy at the University of Freiburg and Coordinator of IUFRO’s Division 9 on Forest Policy and Economics; Avery Cohn, Assistant Professor of International Environment and Resource Policy for the Fletcher School at Tufts University; Pablo Pacheco, Principal Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); and Christopher Stewart, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for OLAM. Representing the organizers, IUFRO Vice President John Parrotta moderated the session and FTA Director Vincent Gitz contributed as a panelist.

Ambassador Hoogeveen introduced the session with a wake-up call for forests, the planet, and the people living on it. Science could play a crucial role in forming a clear message for the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), and youth could also play a role in this, he suggested. Governments know that forests are important, the ambassador said, but they are often more focused on other pressing issues. Forests, therefore, must be placed among these most pressing of issues. One approach may be for science to make the business case for forests, which would encourage private sector involvement.

From the perspective of FTA, Dr. Gitz emphasized that science is promoting cross-sectoral coordination in three ways. First, science uncovers and shows links, relations and solidarities between sectors, in a way that cannot be ignored. Second, science cannot be disconnected from implementation. Science and research can provide evidence for stakeholders to understand the forces at play, and the suitability of options and solutions according to different contexts. Third, by the very process of constructing evidence, and in a solution oriented way, science and research create favourable conditions for coordination between sectors.

Fellow panelist Prof. Kleinschmit noted that deforestation was a challenge for science, as the causes and effects are complex, and analysis and finding solutions can be difficult. She highlighted the need to orchestrate and integrate scientific expertise with other forms of expertise in order to create solutions and policies that are sensitive to context. Prof. Cohn explained how evidence-based supply-chain initiatives could have a role in reducing deforestation, and tropical forest goods and services could contribute to development. Like Ambassador Hoogeveen, he also discussed the business case for forest conservation.

Dr. Pacheco highlighted the importance of the coproduction of knowledge, saying that research must be credible, legitimate and relevant — for science to be usable, we must adjust to the needs of stakeholders. We can build on new forms of governance, he suggested, and upon multistakeholder platforms on sustainability. Finally, Dr. Stewart discussed how those in the private sector define sustainability: a long-term supply of what they need. He pointed to the need for ways to better determine the value of different types of capital such as natural capital and intellectual capital, and suggested that forest and land management practices be reoriented so that we use only the interest on the natural capital, rather than the capital itself which is very often the case today.

Rice fields are seen in an agroforestry area of Lampung, Indonesia. Photo by N. Sujana/CIFOR

The panel concluded that there is a need to look at the interface between forests and other sectors, including how to link small projects with broad international commitments. If a disconnect exists between science and political dialogue, science needs to critically look at internationally agreed upon targets, and if actions are going in the right direction as well as creating strong alignment among targets. In fact, there has been considerable movement, especially in CGIAR, toward the improved alignment of science with targets determined at global and national levels. The SDGs are instrumental in that sense.

IUFRO underscores the importance of platforms bringing together science with policymakers, the private sector and other stakeholders. Such platforms are key for increasing mutual understanding, aligning research priorities with the needs of stakeholders, enhancing uptake and implementation. There are many examples of substantive, transformative knowledge available in research that can be transferred and scaled up for greater impact.

FTA gives priority support to research that engages with stakeholders from the ground up, including civil society and the private sector. This engagement is multifold — on work priorities, problem statements, research questions, elaboration of research protocols and the best use and uptake of results. Creating mechanisms that engage research with stakeholders is also needed because much of the evidence and data are in the hands of stakeholders: communities and the private sector.

At both IUFRO and FTA, we believe that the very process of constructing evidence in a solution-oriented way can be a pathway for increased coordination between sectors. Science itself needs to be cross-sectoral in its approaches, as this can facilitate various sectors getting on board. We expect that the implementation of the SDGs will encourage such approaches.

By IUFRO Vice President John Parrotta and FTA Director Vincent Gitz. 

For more details about the Halting Deforestation conference, view the conference program or watch recordings of the plenary sessions.

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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Halting deforestation is ‘everyone’s fight’ 


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Mau Forest and tea plantations are pictured in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Photo by P. Shepherd/CIFOR
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A paddy field and palm oil plantation area is seen from above in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by N. Sujana/CIFOR

Halting and reversing deforestation are key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the objectives of the Paris agreement on climate change.

Within SDG 15 on life on land, Target 15.2 calls for halting deforestation by 2020, while the UN Strategic Plan for Forests (UNSPF) adopted in 2017 by the UN General Assembly calls for reversing the loss of forest cover and increasing forest area by 3 percent worldwide by 2030.

The Collaborative Partnership on Forests organized a conference titled “Working across sectors to halt deforestation and increase forest area” on Feb. 20-22 to discuss with various actors and stakeholders the possible ways of meeting these targets.

The conference aimed to provide substantive input to the High Level Political Forum (HLPF), the United Nations’ central platform for follow-up and review of the SDGs, that will this year have a particular focus on SDG 15. The objective was thus to identify ways to help halt deforestation and increase forest cover and to engage actors in this objective. The chairs’ summary of the conference has now been released.

At the conference in Rome, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) led the organization of a session on stakeholders, and coorganized with the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) a session on science and research. Scientists from FTA also participated in various other sessions, on areas such as landscape management, agroforestry, restoration, sustainable agriculture, governance and finance.

“The role of different stakeholders” session was jointly hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), IUFRO and FTA. It was grounded in the fact that most drivers of deforestation lie outside the forest sector, are rooted in wider social and economic issues, and are related to the interaction of numerous factors at local and global levels. Deforestation and forest degradation, in turn, affect a wide range of actors, threatening incomes, livelihoods and ways of life for forest-dependent populations and compromising the provision of ecosystem services.

Timber production is seen in Tanzania. Photo by N. Mtimgwa/CIFOR

The session gathered an impressive set of panelists, with a considerable range of experience, while I had the pleasure of moderating the discussion. The Honorable Lamin B. Dibba, The Gambia’s Minister of Forestry, Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources, delivered a keynote on policies implemented in The Gambia. Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Regional Vice President of Conservation International, Conservation Biodiversity’s Regional Director for Mexico and Central America and former environment minister for Costa Rica, retraced the implementation of policies to protect forests in his country.

Cécile Ndjebet built on her broad experience in civil society organizations, including as founder of the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF), to recommend facilitating the engagement of all actors. Petra Meekers, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development at Musim Mas Group, explained how the private sector is increasingly concerned and engaged.

In addition, Salina Abraham, President of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) and youth coordinator for the Global Landscapes Forum emphasized, the importance of youth as a vector of innovation and change. Marco Albani, Director of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, and member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum, highlighted the synergies between government and private sector action.

Participants emphasized the importance of having all actors involved, recognizing the crucial role of governments to ensure the coordination of policies and to create an enabling environment and mechanisms for actors to fully play their roles and engage with one another. Deforestation is a global phenomenon which requires global, regional and national efforts to address it. It calls for the coordination of efforts of all stakeholders along two dimensions: vertical along value chains; and horizontal, across scales, particularly at landscape level.

The example of Costa Rica shows the potential of effective coordination between policies, grounded on clear shared recognition of the value of natural capital. National policies and the rule of law are the basis, which require transparency and good governance.

Voluntary standards and corporate responsibility are insufficient by themselves but they can also play a role in facilitating the adoption of rules. The private sector, to answer demand, and civil society as triggering it, have thus a fundamental role at both global and national levels. Sustainable production and production (SDG 12) can strengthen this movement.

Mau Forest and tea plantations are pictured in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Photo by P. Shepherd/CIFOR

Value chains have many actors, all along the chain. It is essential to have all these actors, men and women, at the center of actions and activities. Their roles and contributions need to be properly recognized and rewarded. They need to be supported, through capacity building and financial support, so that they can engage with one another and with the private sector. There is considerable untapped potential in women, youth, and more broadly in civil society.

The private sector is increasingly willing to act, taking seriously its responsibilities. It is not always easy. It is important to have an entry point to engage with local communities, like sustainable land use, and to have the engagement of local government. There is a need for different business models. We must give back more to communities, taking into account social issues, gender dimensions, and food security and nutrition. Academia can help a lot.

The example of The Gambia shows how community management, with a return of income from forests to forests and communities, can be a powerful mechanism for sustainable forest management and rural development.

Ensuring coordination between sectors requires appropriate mechanisms, some of which have already shown their merits. For instance, the Forest Forum in Finland has for 21 years been engaging decisionmakers not only from the forestry sector but also from connected sectors, raising awareness and learning from each other. This mechanism is now being adopted in other countries.

In various countries there are already mechanisms to organize the participation and coordination of actors, at local, subnational and national levels. They are often linked to a clear jurisdictional level, which facilitates implementation. There are opportunities to improve their efficiency, to bring in new actors, and to give them more meaningful representation. In that regard the participation of civil society, women and youth can bring new perspectives and trigger action on the ground.

The private sector is willing to be part of these collective dynamics and can make a key contribution to the implementation of the SDGs.

From these exchanges the following key points can be deduced:

  • We need coordination of efforts between all stakeholders along value chains, and across scales, particularly at landscape level.
  • Governments play a crucial role in ensuring coordination of policies and in creating the enabling environment and the mechanisms for actors to fully engage.
  • The private sector, to answer demand, and civil society as triggering demand, have fundamental roles in shaping enabling environments at both global and national levels.
  • The different roles and contributions of all value chain actors, both men and women, need to be properly understood, recognized and rewarded. There is a considerable untapped potential in women, youth and broader civil society.
  • The private sector is increasingly willing to act, and is taking its responsibilities seriously.
  • Community management, with the return of revenues from forests to communities, can be a powerful mechanism to foster sustainable forestry management and rural development.
  • Coordination between sectors requires appropriate mechanisms. Some countries already have mechanisms to organize the participation and coordination of actors at local, subnational and national levels.
  • Private sector actors and large corporations, especially large-scale crop plantations, can act as role models in enforcing zero-deforestation commitments throughout their operations, and in taking care of environmental and social concerns.
  • To improve interactions between stakeholders, quality governance is key to genuinely confront multiple objectives and demands, agree on priority actions and align solutions informed by scientific evidence, shaping integrated zero-deforestation policies and enabling environments.

Deforestation is a problem for everyone, and fighting against deforestation is everyone’s fight. Zero-deforestation should be an essential element of SDG12 on responsible consumption and production, including outside the forest sector in food, feed and bioenergy.

By Vincent Gitz, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) Director. 

For more details about the Halting Deforestation conference, view the conference program or watch recordings of the plenary sessions.

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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REDD+ findings from Tanzania, Indonesia and Peru show gender divide


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A woman picks tea leaves in Tanzania. Photo by Nkumi Mtimgwa/CIFOR
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A woman picks tea leaves in Tanzania. Photo by Nkumi Mtimgwa/CIFOR

Men and women differ in their preferences when it comes to REDD+ benefits. Men prefer cash incentives while women lean toward non-cash benefits, according to the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) Esther Mwangi, a Principal Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Mwangi and an international team of researchers conducted in-depth intra-household interviews in Tanzania, Indonesia and Peru as part of a work package comprising a larger project on REDD+ and tenure.

Across all three countries, in addition to the benefit preference of men and women, researchers found a correlation between increased women’s participation and more equitable distribution of benefits. But they also found male dominance in different decision-making stages, and that people (mostly men) involved in decisions regarding REDD+ were more likely to be satisfied with the distribution of benefits.

More than benefit preferences, there was a bigger gender difference when it came to having REDD+ information and being involved in the decision-making process on which benefits would be distributed and how, with men much more active. Mwangi presented some of her findings late last year at the IUFRO 125th World Congress. Here she talks about her work and findings in detail.

Read more: Are there differences between men and women in REDD+ benefit sharing schemes?

When you talk about non-cash benefits, what does that include?

Non-cash benefits are material awards other than direct monetary payments. These include construction of classrooms for primary school children, provisions of farming implements, provision of potable water, or even capacity-building in conservation farming.

In Peru, it was interesting to find that even these non-monetary benefits were differentiated by gender. Men preferred construction materials, technical assistance and training, legal assistance and seedlings of non-timber species. Women, on the other hand, preferred objects or utensils for the home, organic gardens, animals to raise, timber tree saplings, textiles and handicrafts. Therefore, even the preferred types of non-cash benefits are differentiated according to gender.

During a community feedback workshop in Tanzania, we asked men and women to tell us what they would want to see done differently if the REDD+ project were to resume in their village. While women wanted non-cash benefits prioritized, they also indicated that these non-cash benefits “touch women’s problems”.

What are some factors keeping women out of REDD+ decision-making?

Children play in the indigenous community of Callería in Peru. Photo by Juan Carlos Huayllapuma/CIFOR

We found that twice as many men as women were involved in REDD+ decision-making in Tanzania, four times as many men as women in Peru, and about equal proportions of men and women were involved in Indonesia.

Our definition of REDD+ decision-making covered issues such as whether they were involved in the initial decision on whether or not REDD+ should be implemented in their village, and whether they were involved in the design and implementation of REDD+ activities. Most women indicated that they did not know about these matters. For those who did know, they said they were not invited to meetings when those decisions were made.

The asymmetry between men’s and women’s participation in forestry decision-making is often rooted in two inter-related issues. First, forestry institutions and forest resources are generally male-dominated and second, village-level decision-making takes place in the public sphere. Women are traditionally associated with the private sphere of home and family life.

Was it surprising to find that when there was increased women’s participation, there was a more equitable distribution of benefits?

I personally wasn’t surprised, but still I thought it was an interesting result that probably jibes well with other results.

Work in India and Nepal shows that an increased number of women in decision-making roles has good outcomes for forest conditions. Even in the corporate world, research is starting to show that increasing the presence of women in boardrooms is correlated with greater corporate social responsibility and concern for equitable outcomes of investments.

Read more: ACM levels the playing field for women and men in forest-adjacent communities

Regardless of gender, there were pretty low rates of knowledge of REDD+ and involvement in related decisions. Can you tell us more about that?

Women prepare for a local culinary course in Kapuas Hulu, Indonesia. Photo by Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR

This is an interesting observation and speaks to the entry point chosen by NGOs, which, in most of the cases, happened to be village leaders. Village leaders are crucial and should always be approached when setting up projects and interventions in rural areas. However, more effort should be made to ensure greater inclusion, especially if women and others (including men) are frequently marginalized in decision-making. This extra effort should be made even if village leadership is widely respected and legitimate.

When asked what should happen differently if the REDD+ pilots were to be repeated, both men and women in Tanzania made clear that REDD+ education should be provided on a door-to-door basis. This would help raise awareness and widely disseminate information.

This is a reasonable demand and probably good for interventions, because if people don’t know what exactly REDD+ is and why it’s being implemented, (that is, make the connection between REDD+ benefits and forest conservation) it’s unlikely that these schemes will achieve their goals. Moreover, lack of involvement in decision-making weakens the legitimacy and sustainability of the schemes.

What are the next steps for work on this topic? 

Benefit-sharing arrangements should be designed with gendered differences in mind. This cannot be overemphasized, because these benefits constitute an important incentive for sustainable management and even conservation.

In previous work, we demonstrated that greater gender equity is possible in the forestry sector both in participation in decision-making and in the distribution of forestry benefits. Lessons from this work would be invaluable in informing the design and implementation of benefit-sharing arrangements.

Read more: Strengthening women’s tenure and rights to forests and trees and their participation in decision making

By Christi Hang, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News. 

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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Are there differences between men and women in REDD+ benefit sharing schemes?

23 February, 2018

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  • FTA and IUFRO highlight cooperation at Global Landscapes Forum 

FTA and IUFRO highlight cooperation at Global Landscapes Forum 


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Clouds pass over homes on the banks of the Belayan River in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Nanang Sujana/CIFOR

The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) are strengthening their collaboration to increase understanding and promote the role and value of forests and trees in landscapes. 

At the recent Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Germany, FTA, IUFRO and the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI) organized a Discussion Forum titled Rainfall Recycling as a Landscape Function: Connecting SDGs 6, 13 and 15.

The discussion aimed to shed new light on the role of forests and trees in the climate debate, building on a scientific review paper about the relationship between forests and water titled Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world, and an online symposium organized by FTA in May 2017.

It also discussed preliminary highlights of IUFRO’s current Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) on Forests and Water, which is expected to issue a policy relevant global assessment report in July 2018. At the GLF, participants discussed how these research findings should be reflected in policy making.

“We are going to discuss something that might have the potential to change the narrative […] about forests and trees in landscapes in relation to climate change, land management and other issues,” IUFRO Executive Director Alexander Buck said in opening the session.

“In many parts of the world, local people, if you ask them, are convinced that forests and trees not only depend on rainfall, but they also play a critical role in actually generating it,” Buck added.

He explained that science is increasingly generating insights that confirm this perception from local people, describing rainfall recycling as “a phenomenon in which forests […] and trees influence the transport of water over distant locations.”

“Experts will also present some emerging highlights from a global scientific assessment looking at the interactions between forests and water,” Buck added, referring to the GFEP, which is coordinated by IUFRO.

Audience members respond to questions during “Rainfall Recycling as a Landscape Function: Connecting SDGs 6, 13 and 15” at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany. Photo by Pilar Valbuena/GLF

The first section of the discussion, looking at scientific insights, was moderated by GFEP cochair Meine van Noordwijk, the lead author of Ecological rainfall infrastructure: investment in trees for sustainable development, who is also known for his work within FTA.

David Ellison, the lead author of the review article Trees, forests and water: cool insights for a hot world, spoke first on the concept of hydrological space. He addressed how water is transported across land, describing continental evapotranspiration as feeding an important share of terrestrial precipitation. Thus, increasing forest cover can lead to increased precipitation and runoff, and spatial organization also matters.

Describing water in the Blue Nile Basin, of which a large share originates in the West African rainforest, he explained why land use, forests and the large-scale water cycle are so important when it comes to rainfall.

Aster Gebrekirstos of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) then discussed tools and equipment that can be used to show how trees play a role in the water cycle.

By measuring isotopes in tree rings it is possible to understand how fast trees have grown in the past, and where the rain absorbed by trees comes from, Gebrekirstos explained. The Amazon was shown to be generating its own rainy season, while in Bolivia more than 50 percent of rain comes from evapotranspiration.

“If we plant trees in Ethiopia, it will have a positive influence in Burkina Faso,” she said, by way of example. “Trees are really contributing to the water cycle, but climate change is also influencing trees and forests.”

“Trees are history books when we are able to analyze their history of growth and isotopes,” Van Noordwijk agreed. “We can tell something about where their water has come from.”

Aida Bargues-Tobella of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, coauthor of Intermediate tree cover can maximize groundwater recharge in the seasonally dry tropics, discussed how, as an alternative to a prevailing paradigm, more trees can improve (and not diminish) groundwater recharge in seasonally dry areas.

Although there are tradeoffs in planting trees in dry areas, Bargues-Tobella showed how new theories enable the determination of an optimum level for tree cover with respect to groundwater recharge, as evidenced in Burkina Faso.

The discussion then progressed to implications that this new science might have for climate, land, water and related policies and actions, in a second part moderated by Paola Ovando Pol of Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, who is also a member of the GFEP on Forests and Water.

In this section, Van Noordwijk stated: “Within the world there’s a lot of debate about climate change, and the convention about climate change is, other than what people think, not a convention about climate. It’s a convention about greenhouse gases, one of the major things that changes climates.”

Panelists discuss forests, trees and the water cycle at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany. Photo by Pilar Valbuena/GLF

Greenhouse gases come from the use of fossil fuel, and also deforestation, he explained.

There is an elaborate framework on how climate change, because of increased greenhouse gases, leads to changes in ocean temperatures, which in turn leads to changes in how much moisture is around, leading to changes in rainfall, he suggested.

Van Noordwijk then explained that forests and trees outside forests also influence rainfall through several feedback loops, from local to continental levels, as evidenced in Latin America, the African continent and Southeast Asia.

With this new knowledge, the relation between climate, forests, water and people looks different, he said. It is not captured in current policy frameworks, but has important consequences.

The “missing middle — the relation between vegetation, forests and rainfall” shows there is a much more direct link between land-use change and rainfall than through the long route of climate change and ocean temperatures, he added. “Now our message to the policymakers is: we have enough evidence that it exists, we’re working on the details.”

Daniel Murdiyarso, principal scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), posed the question of what forests can do for water and climate. They can promote rain, transfer vapor, recharge groundwater, moderate flooding and cool air, he suggested.

The world needs a new way of governing forests, he said, citing watershed approaches, links to climate objectives such as REDD+, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), as well as sustainable forest management.

Rounding out the second part, senior researcher Holger Hoff of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said the link to policies was the new aspect of the work. He covered how to add to existing frameworks, targeting methods to audiences, triggering action, identifying win-wins and increasing complexity.

Finally, in the third and final part of the discussion, FTA Director Vincent Gitz asked the audience “who can do what” with this knowledge, in terms of optimizing the contribution of forests and trees to the regulation of the water cycle, increasing resilience and therefore providing ways for landscapes – and the people in them – to adapt to climate change.

In a lively audience discussion, various points were raised about the respective roles of different actors. Science and research have a special responsibility in terms of being clear about domains of uncertainty, especially when quantification of effects is concerned.

Research has a role in clearly explaining science, as well as its limits, to policymakers. Science also needs to be clear about knowledge gaps. These include, for instance, whether there are different effects for different tree species (especially indigenous species), and about the range of scale of these effects.

“It is all about better understanding these ecosystem services, giving them proper value, finding ways to account for them in current incentives and regulation schemes, and creating spaces for them in policy debates,” Gitz said following the forum.

The next step for this science-policy interaction will be the release of IUFRO’s GFEP report on forests and water in July, and upcoming discussions about the Sustainable Development Goals in New York.

Read more:

By Vincent Gitz, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), and Alexander Buck, Executive Director of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). 

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

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‘Rainfall recycling’ as a landscape function: Connecting SDGs 6, 13 and 15

12 January, 2018

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The ‘Rainfall recycling’ as a landscape function: Connecting SDGs 6, 13 and 15 Discussion Forum was held at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Bonn on Dec. 19, 2017.

Climate change is a reality and, for those most affected by it, it is often experienced as a change in the most basic commodity: water. Drawing on the insights of farmers and local communities, this session examines the role of forests in regulating the water cycle.

New research suggests that vegetation plays a critical role in the frequency and intensity of rainfall. This discussion forum will explore the implications on the many areas affected by these effects — land restoration, water management and climate change adaptation — toward an integrated approach for land/water and climate for the SDGs.

The discussion forum will build on a successful online symposium that took place in May 2017. The discussion will also discuss highlights of the current Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) on forests and water, which is expected to issue a policy relevant global assessment report in the first half of 2018.

The session was hosted by the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) with the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI).

This video was originally published by the GLF.

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  • Introducing students to the ‘Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forestry’

Introducing students to the ‘Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forestry’


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Women work a rice field in Nalma, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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Women work a rice field in Nalma, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

Indonesia’s future leaders in forestry and gender studies had the chance to make connections between their disciplines at the Bogor headquarters of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) recently.

Reaching out to the next generation of gender and forestry scholars, policymakers, civil society organizations and other stakeholders, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) researchers from CIFOR introduced the Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests to members of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB).

Read more: The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests

Launched earlier this year on the sidelines of 125th Anniversary Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), the reader is an accessible collection of theory, analysis, methodology, case studies and more, spanning 30 years of scholarship. It was edited by Carol J. Pierce Colfer and Bimbika Sijapati Basnett of CIFOR, Marlène Elias, gender specialist at Bioversity International, and Susan Stevens Hummel from the Forest Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.

Read more: FTA gender scientists to launch ‘The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests’ during IUFRO congress

Building on the positive reception at IUFRO, the CIFOR event and discussion introduced Indonesian students to the book, which covers the intersections between gender, forestry and natural resource management across disciplines, geographies and historical periods.

Dian Ekowati, a CIFOR senior research officer and a host of the event, noted that the majority of students attending came from a forestry background without a strong gender focus, so should find the reader particularly interesting and thought-provoking.

Read more: Focus on gender research and mainstreaming

A Nepali woman prepares rice for cooking. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

“We hope that the discussion will further the students’ aspirations, or inspire them to learn about and integrate gender when looking at forest management during their study, research, fieldwork, and interaction with communities, and for their future work — especially, but not only, for those working in forestry,” she says.

Moderated by Mia Siscawati, a senior lecturer in gender studies at UI, the discussion will feature noted academics discussing the need to consider and mainstream gender into forestry and natural resource management in Indonesia, and the role the reader can play as an important resource for scholars and students.

Originally published at CIFOR.org.

 For more information on this topic, please contact Dian Ekowati at d.ekowati@cgiar.org.

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

This research was supported by UK aid from the UK government.

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Introducing students to the ‘Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forestry’

08 December, 2017

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Women work a rice field in Nalma, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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Women work a rice field in Nalma, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

Indonesia’s future leaders in forestry and gender studies had the chance to make connections between their disciplines at the Bogor headquarters of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) recently.

Reaching out to the next generation of gender and forestry scholars, policymakers, civil society organizations and other stakeholders, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) researchers from CIFOR introduced the Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests to members of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) from Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB).

Read more: The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests

Launched earlier this year on the sidelines of 125th Anniversary Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), the reader is an accessible collection of theory, analysis, methodology, case studies and more, spanning 30 years of scholarship. It was edited by Carol J. Pierce Colfer and Bimbika Sijapati Basnett of CIFOR, Marlène Elias, gender specialist at Bioversity International, and Susan Stevens Hummel from the Forest Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.

Read more: FTA gender scientists to launch ‘The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests’ during IUFRO congress

Building on the positive reception at IUFRO, the CIFOR event and discussion introduced Indonesian students to the book, which covers the intersections between gender, forestry and natural resource management across disciplines, geographies and historical periods.

Dian Ekowati, a CIFOR senior research officer and a host of the event, noted that the majority of students attending came from a forestry background without a strong gender focus, so should find the reader particularly interesting and thought-provoking.

Read more: Focus on gender research and mainstreaming

A Nepali woman prepares rice for cooking. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

“We hope that the discussion will further the students’ aspirations, or inspire them to learn about and integrate gender when looking at forest management during their study, research, fieldwork, and interaction with communities, and for their future work — especially, but not only, for those working in forestry,” she says.

Moderated by Mia Siscawati, a senior lecturer in gender studies at UI, the discussion will feature noted academics discussing the need to consider and mainstream gender into forestry and natural resource management in Indonesia, and the role the reader can play as an important resource for scholars and students.

Originally published at CIFOR.org.

 For more information on this topic, please contact Dian Ekowati at d.ekowati@cgiar.org.

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

This research was supported by UK aid from the UK government.

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  • Sharing better, for better research

Sharing better, for better research


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In Nalma village, Nepal, land is used for rice fields, gardens and housing. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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A woman walks home from the fields in Nalma, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

For the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), a research for development (R4D) program, engaging in knowledge sharing fundamentally conditions the program’s effectiveness and impact, both in the policy environment and on the ground. Better sharing leads to better research.

That is why FTA, in recent months, has invested heavily in knowledge sharing. For us at FTA, knowledge sharing is never a one-way street, but an exchange. As we share our knowledge with stakeholders, we learn just as much, and we use that learning to set our next research priorities and better design the research that we do, to ensure greater legitimacy and relevance.

1. Knowledge sharing starts with better explaining the work we do, how we do it, with whom and for what.

FTA’s proposal for Phase 2 (2017-2022) amounts to over 500 pages. That’s the length needed to provide full details on a multimillion dollar six-year program as wide-ranging as FTA, with work from tree genetic resources to management, value chains, institutions and governance.

But not everyone can afford to spend a full week reading the whole thing. This is why we have created, with the program’s scientists, a set of brochures that explains in a nutshell the work being done and the work that we aim to develop across FTA. Six brochures have already been published and the last two will be released before the end of the year, including one on the brand new Flagship 2, which has just been rated “strong” by the Independent Science and Partner Council (ISPC) after a recent resubmission.

Read more: What is FTA?

To find the brochures, please take a look at our new webpage. We hope that in turn, resource partners will have clearer minds on what we do and what we bring on the ground, and will be even more keen to invest in FTA.

2. Knowledge sharing means engaging with key partner institutions with an aim to bridge the world of research with the world of development and people on the ground.

This means being able to understand, confront and match the various demands from development, and what research can supply and how. Three key events in September enabled us to put this into practice.

First, on Sept. 5-8 in Bern, Switzerland, FTA participated in the first International Conference on Research for Sustainable Development, in two panel sessions organized between the CGIAR and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

This provided a means to better understand Switzerland’s priorities in terms of development actions, as well as to test the interest in joint works with Swiss private sector actors on sustainable value chains and responsible finance, and on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

FTA Director Vincent Gitz speaks during the IUFRO subplenary session. Photo by Bethany Davies/CIFOR

The quality of the exchanges in Bern was very high and this provided a strong impetus for FTA to engage even more with Swiss upstream partners, in particular with universities such as the University of Bern and ETH Zurich, to downstream actors, and with SDC. As we will take this on board, this means working toward even more relevant and effective research in FTA.

Second, on Sept. 18-22 in Freiburg, Germany, more than 40 FTA scientists participated in some way in the historic International Union of Forest Research Organizations’ (IUFRO) 125th Anniversary Congress. At the congress, FTA and IUFRO cohosted a subplenary session on research priorities titled “Research for sustainable development: Forests, trees and agroforestry”. If you missed it, you will soon be able to watch it here.

The session enabled us to take the scientific forest research community out of its comfort zone, to put in question the priorities it should focus on, and look at how it should work in light of today’s development challenges. With research becoming increasingly specialized, the overarching challenge is to integrate the different dimensions of sustainable development and different objectives into the research questions, research methods and solutions we develop in practice. And to integrate research “in” development. This is easier said than done, but it will definitively serve as a guide for FTA’s internal priority setting, which will give primers to such integrated initiatives.

Read more: What are the priorities for relevant, legitimate and effective forest and tree research? Lessons from the IUFRO congress

In Nalma village, Nepal, land is used for rice fields, gardens and housing. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

Third, FTA participated in a three-day high-level conference on food security and nutrition in an era of climate change, coorganized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Quebec. The conference showed Quebec’s potential in terms of supporting international development, especially in francophone areas such as West Africa. One of the highlights was the participation of First Nations and Inuit representatives.

Food security challenges for people in northern Canada are already considerable, and climate change has important impacts, as it will have for many other indigenous groups worldwide. This is testimony to the immense systemic changes that are ongoing right now because of climate change. We need to properly consider social impacts and dimensions to enable positive and durable change.

We need to embed this in our research, and in fact reconsider the way we do research: doing research with indigenous peoples and marginalized groups, and considering them not as the object of research, but including them in research as generators of knowledge in their own right. Here, engagement is a synonym for better learning and more legitimacy.

3. Knowledge sharing means engaging with policy and multistakeholder platforms.

In November and December FTA will be mobilized in three multistakeholder platforms of global importance, each dealing with one key impact area of FTA: food security and nutrition, climate change, and sustainable landscapes.

First is the 44th plenary session of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the highest food security governance body on the planet, which runs from Oct. 9–13. FTA is coorganizing two side events: the first focuses on feminism, forests and food security, with key Swedish partners, and the second focuses on priorities along the R4D continuum for improving the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in food security and nutrition, with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Netherlands, the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI) and Tropenbos International.

FTA scientist Terry Sunderland discussed the HLPE report at the IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress. Photo by Bethany Davies/CIFOR

And after having heavily contributed to the High Level Panel of experts (HLPE) report providing the evidence base to the CFS negotiations on Sustainable Forestry For Food Security and Nutrition, FTA will participate in the policy round table itself, alongside governments and all actors gathered at CFS. This illustrates the double role of a R4D program like FTA: feeding multistakeholder discussions and decisions with evidence and knowledge (inclusively generated), and at the same time being an active stakeholder in the implementation of solutions, alongside all partners.

Then in November, FTA is set to engage further through several events with climate actors at the Fiji-led United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany. FTA will aim to provide, with partners, a focus on gender, on REDD+ and on finance for sustainable value chains.

Finally, in December, FTA will be in Bonn once again for the major global multistakeholder platform on landscapes, the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF). There FTA will aim to feed knowledge and organize discussions on forests and water, and on land restoration.

While knowledge generation remains the core of FTA’s work, we believe that it may not be effective without efficient knowledge sharing and stakeholder engagement. Such an investment is necessary for a R4D program, which aims at the uptake of solutions on the ground. It is also synergetic with the research itself. It confronts us daily with new questions, and with the various beliefs, views and expectations of stakeholders.

If we genuinely measure the implications of the feedback we receive, on the research we do and its very design, then knowledge sharing and engagement is not simply adding “feel-good moments” to research that has already been done: It is fundamental to the quality of the research that is to come.

By Vincent Gitz, FTA Director 

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What are the priorities for relevant, legitimate and effective forest and tree research? Lessons from the IUFRO congress


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A pisciculture research station is seen in Yaekama, DRC. Photo by A. Fassio/CIFOR
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A pisciculture research station is seen in Yaekama, DRC. Photo by A. Fassio/CIFOR

We can all agree that forests and trees play a vital role in sustaining life on earth. Addressing climate change – both mitigation and adaptation, something that few sectors can do simultaneously – ensuring food security and nutrition, and preserving biodiversity will not be possible without the full spectrum of solutions that forests, trees and agroforestry offer.

At the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) 125th Anniversary Congress, held on Sept. 18-22 in Freiburg, Germany, by one of the world’s oldest international scientific institutions, more than 40 scientists affiliated with the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) presented their latest results and findings.

Among them were Bimbika Sijapati Basnett from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Marlène Elias from Bioversity International, who launched the Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests, a major reference to ground future research, as well as to inform curricula worldwide.

FTA senior scientist Ramni Jamnadass of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) presented on safeguarding forest food tree diversity in a session on food trees in forests and farmlands, while her colleague Sonya Dewi presented about ICRAF’s work on combining remote sensing, crowdsourcing big data and multi-objective modelling to inform landscape approaches, during a session on forest restoration policy assessment in the tropics.

One of the major subplenary sessions – Changes in Forest Governance: Implications for Sustainable Forest Management – involved FTA scientists Pablo Pacheco and Paolo Cerutti of CIFOR, who presented on changes in forest governance in South America and Africa, respectively.

In a significant joint effort on the final day of the congress, IUFRO and FTA cohosted a subplenary session titled Research for sustainable development: Forests, trees and agroforestry, aimed at discussing main research and knowledge gaps in forest and tree science in relation to the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and how to address them.

The IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress took place in Freiburg, Germany, from Sept. 18-22. Photo © FVA.

Forest and trees are central to many of the challenges of our time. This raises new questions every day, as the IUFRO congress showcased. But this makes the prioritization of issues both more difficult and more necessary. What is needed most and where we should start? How should we, as researchers and research institutions, conduct research in order to best enable impact?

We faced the same issue when constructing the second phase of FTA, with a very long shortlist of 100 critical knowledge gaps and key research questions, from genetic resources to value chains and institutions.

I wonder if this centrality of forests and trees to so many challenges could not be an overarching guide to orient research prioritization. We need to fully embrace the fact that forest and tree research has to address a complex set of objectives, because forests and trees are not only concerned with SDG15 on life on land, but also with the 16 other goals. Integration is key. So the overarching issue might be how we can integrate the different dimensions of sustainable development and different objectives into the research questions, research methods and solutions we develop in practice.

For example, thanks to the integration of the work of very different scientific disciplines – tree biology, atmospheric biogeochemistry, climatology, hydrology and dendrology – there is now convincing convergent evidence on the role of forests in atmospheric water circulation, at continental scales. Forests enable rain to occur downwind at continental scales, and can help to preserve so-called bread baskets.

But we still need more work on the science base and, at the same time, on the types of institutions, policies and economic instruments to be developed so that action leads to outcomes for farmers in the field. This shows the need for integration between disciplines, scales and actors. In this particular domain, the Global Expert Panel on Forests and Water launched by IUFRO will be of tremendous use and I am particularly glad that it is being co-led by former FTA senior scientist Meine van Noordwijk, who recently retired but brought so much to FTA.

This question of the integration of objectives, of research domains and across scales, has important methodological implications, in terms of the solutions to be developed, how, with whom and for whom. It can, for a program as broad as FTA, lead to deciding to orient the priority support toward work that constructs linkages between research domains and system approaches.

The Rupa Lake cooperative improves farmers’ livelihoods and helps preserve the lake’s ecosystem. Photo by B. Saugat/Bioversity

There are two other critical dimensions to integrate:

First is the requirement to work on the full continuum from technical options to management, policy, governance and appropriate institutional arrangements. Looking at the enabling environment, such as institutional arrangements, incentive schemes and adapted business models, will facilitate upscaling and outscaling of technical options.

Second is the need to work on the “research for development” continuum, from upstream research to how the actors use this, and integrating stakeholders from the framing of questions to the development and implementation of solutions.

This implies, as spearheaded by Brian Belcher, FTA’s monitoring, evaluation and learning and impact assessment head, the need to revisit what we mean by “quality of research”, enlarging it to four dimensions. The traditional dimensions of relevance and scientific credibility need to be completed by legitimacy and effectiveness.

  • Legitimacy means that the research process is fair and ethical, and perceived as such, with consideration of the interests and perspectives of the intended users.
  • Effectiveness means that research has high potential to contribute to innovations and solutions. It implies that research is designed, implemented and positioned for use, which implies work along what we call a “theory of change”.

We can complement CGIAR by embracing this framework to define and measure the quality of research for development. This requires building appropriate partnerships, starting with development actors, and working on the enabling environment to translate knowledge to use. In FTA, for a substantial part of our research, we embed research in development projects. We aim at doing research “in” development, rather than research “for” development.

To enable this, FTA aims at playing the role of a boundary institution:

  • To understand the frontiers of science, working with universities, research institutions
  • To understand the need of beneficiaries, working with local stakeholders, governments
  • To understand the priorities of funders
  • To organize the dialogue between the three, and provide packages that bring them all together

This is a good reason why, in the future, we at FTA would like to further strengthen our relations with IUFRO.

By Vincent Gitz, FTA Director

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Gender and forestry gain increasing attention worldwide


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Nalma village is situated on a hillside near the Himalayas. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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A woman is pictured in the village of Nalma, Nepal, where gender has a strong influence on social roles. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

A new reader launched on Sept. 21 brings together 30 years of scholarship on a topic that is gaining increasing attention worldwide: gender and forestry. 

The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests brings together an accessible collection of theory, analysis, methodology and case studies, defining the position of gender and forestry in the social sciences, and laying out the ongoing debates in the field.

Launched on the sidelines of International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) 125th Anniversary Congress, the book is expected to find a wide audience, not least among the 2,100 researchers, practitioners and policymakers expected to attend the event, where the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) is also presenting a subplenary session.

Intended as a companion to last year’s Gender and Forests: Climate Change, Tenure, Value Chains and Emerging Issues, the collection of papers was compiled by three of the same editors – Carol Colfer and FTA’s Bimbika Sijapati Basnett from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and FTA’s Marlène Elias from Bioversity International. For the latest publication, they were also joined by Susan Stevens Hummel from the Forest Service at the United States Department of Agriculture.

The FTA Gender Integration Team caught up with Basnett and Elias before the book launch to find out more.

Why does the academic world need a book on gender and forestry?

Elias: Events such as climate change, market integration, large-scale land acquisitions, migration and other processes occurring across multiple scales are having big consequences for those living in and off the forests in rural areas worldwide. These transformations present risks, especially to groups that are already more vulnerable. But they can also open up opportunities for change toward greater gender equality.

Whichever way, positive or negative, the effects are not equal for women and men of different ages and socioeconomic or ethnic backgrounds in different regions of the world. This book highlights the accumulated knowledge on how gender influences these processes of change and the way they are being experienced by both women and men.

With women’s rights at the forefront of contemporary political struggles in many countries, both in the global South and North, we felt there was a need and interest among a wide group of people for more information on gender and forests. We think that especially those who are working to improve forests and the lives of rural women and men will find the knowledge shared in this reader useful.

Nalma village is situated on a hillside near the Himalayas. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

What is the value of compiling these papers in one volume?

Basnett: So much effort these days in research is focused on journal articles, which are more accessible online in the global North. However, many older articles are generally not in open access format, and are thus not available at all to students and researchers living in developing countries. Even if they were, not everyone who is interested in this topic has knowledge of, access to, and time available to search for information on the topic.

So we felt that putting these papers together in one volume, which we would make available initially in a printed book and later on for free through the CIFOR website, would provide a real service. A lot of work has been done on gender and forests, but there is no compilation that really takes a historical view on where we’ve been and how thinking in this area has developed. This is also part of the value of the book.

Read more: Gender analysis and research

Who do you think this book will be especially useful for?

Basnett: This book would be useful to a wide range of readers such as students, policymakers and practitioners, from those wanting an introduction to the topic to those looking to better grasp key issues, approaches and debates. It features a range of articles on the intersection between gender and forests/natural resource management across a spectrum of disciplines, geographies and historical periods from some of the leading scholars, and defining texts over the last 30 years.

For instance, it includes chapters on configurations of gender relations from household to macro levels; interactions between gender, race and other axes of social difference in defining access and command over resources; the interconnections and divisions in gender issues between the global North and the global South; discourses on gender within social movements; gendered politics surrounding citizenship and access to forest resources; and perspectives on men and masculinities in gender research.

What parts would you say are particularly useful for practitioners? 

Elias: Practitioners may find particular chapters useful that focus on the specific themes on which they work, such as tenure, migration, forest farming, and others. Readers interested in particular geographic or topical areas can go to those sections directly, for example the sections on North America, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

But the entire compilation is also useful, as it contextualizes the importance of each of the chapters in relation to our current understanding of gender and forests, and points out the key aspects each chapter has contributed to our current way of thinking. Some of the papers are more approach-oriented, which can help scholars and practitioners think through the use and appropriateness of certain methods and how their own position influences their research and practice.

A woman sits on the terrace of her home in Nalma, Nepal, which many adult males leave to find work, leaving behind children, women and the elderly. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

What are the main recommendations that practitioners can get from the book?

Basnett: Practitioners who are seeking practical guidance on how to integrate gender into their programs and projects on forests will come to understand that including gender in forestry is not easy, that there is no formula for doing it. Having said that, there are broader lessons that they may find to be useful. The chapters serve to demonstrate that ‘gender’ is not just about women; that gender relations constantly shift and change; and that there is a distinction between rationalizing gender for instrumental purposes and for intrinsic ones.

Ignoring gender issues might be detrimental for resource management and/or livelihood outcomes, but simply adding women to policies or interventions is not the answer. An understanding is needed of how gender relations are structured in societies, how these pre-define who has a voice in forest management, how benefits and costs are distributed across different social groups, and thereby, where to find openings for gender-inclusive changes.

What are some of the lessons you hope scholars and applied researchers will learn?

Elias: We hope that through the book’s different contributions (such as Andrea Nightingale’s chapter on research methods, for example), researchers and practitioners will understand that the tools they use to uncover the ‘truth’ about men, women, and gender inequality are always ‘partial’, and that they will remain reflexive when attempting to change the social realities of women and men. For some, this might be very unsettling, but for others, it will encourage them to constantly question what they do and be sensitive and innovative in their approaches.

Read more: FTA Focus on Gender newsletter

By Manon Koningstein, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News. 

For more information on this topic, please contact Bimbika Sijapati Basnett at B.Basnett@cgiar.orgor Marlène Elias at marlene.elias@cgiar.org.

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

This research was supported by UKAID.

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  • FTA gender scientists to launch 'The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests' during IUFRO congress

FTA gender scientists to launch ‘The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests’ during IUFRO congress


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A Nepali woman prepares rice for cooking. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR
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Clouds cover the hills in Nalma village, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

During the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) 125th Anniversary Congress, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientists Bimbika Sijapati Basnett of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Marlène Elias of Bioversity International will officially launch The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests. This reader has been edited by Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Elias, Sijapati Basnett and Susan Stevens Hummel.

“The reader gives an overview of a collection of key articles on gender and forests published over the last 30 years. This way, the collection makes it possible to easily access excellent forestry-relevant social science within an overarching gender analytical framework and demonstrates the leading debates in the field,” said Elias.

The IUFRO congress, which will be held from Sept. 18-22, is fully booked. With a total of 2,100 researchers, practitioners and policymakers present, launching the book – on Sept. 21 from 12:30pm to 1:15pm CEST – during the conference will attract many people interested in the topic of gender and forests.

Read more: FTA Focus on Gender newsletter

Why a book about gender and forests?

“As we have seen over the past years, there is currently much interest in, and an expressed need for, mainstreaming gender in natural resource management, including forestry,” said Sijapati Basnett.

The focus of the book is on the role of gender relations in people and forest interactions, as told through the collection of various studies from both developed and developing countries. It includes theoretical analyses, methodological pieces, case studies and cross-country comparisons, and forms a companion volume to Gender and Forests: Climate Change, Tenure, Value Chains and Emerging Issues (2016), also edited by Colfer, Sijapati Basnett and Elias.

Published earlier this year, the Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests has already been well received and is of great value to biophysical science and social science students, both seasoned professionals and professionals in training.

Read more: Material galore: FTA scientists working on a second book on gender and forests

Presentation during gender and climate policy session

A Nepali woman prepares rice for cooking. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

During the IUFRO conference, on Sept. 20, Sijapati Basnett will also give a presentation on the topic of “Gender norms and gendered impacts of oil palm conversion in Indonesia: Challenging private sector commitments to climate change mitigation.”

According to the abstract for the session, the ‘zero deforestation’ movement has received recognition across a wide spectrum of actors for bringing together private sector corporations to commit to climate change mitigation. This is particularly the case in Indonesia where lowland tropical forests continue to be converted to make way for oil palm production, and some state-led measures are considered to have failed in reducing and halting deforestation.

The abstract adds that although women in oil palm-dominated landscapes play integral roles as oil palm producers and workers, alongside their responsibility for household food security, critical questions about gender equality have thus far been absent from the zero deforestation policy agenda.

Sijapati Basnett will participate in the session to present on case studies that illustrate the role of gender norms in enabling particular kinds of oil palm investment on the one hand, and in shaping pathways to inclusion, exclusion and dispossession on the other.

Both the book launch and the lecture will be filmed and posted online, will details to be announced. FTA will also present a subplenary session at the same event, in cooperation with IUFRO, titled “Research for sustainable development: Forests, trees and agroforestry” to debate the key priorities for trees and forests in sustainable development, which will also be livestreamed.

By Manon Koningstein, FTA Gender Integration Team. 

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

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