Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Recognizing gender bias, restoring forests

Recognizing gender bias, restoring forests


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Women work in a tree nursery in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by CIFOR/A. Fassio

COP23 special: As global commitments gather momentum, gender equality and rights become urgent considerations.

One woman described the centuries-old, female-centered production of argan oil in Morocco and the recent degradation of the country’s forests. Another spoke of the gender disparities in experiences at REDD+ sites. And yet another talked of women in eastern India who cultivate up to 60 different crops in one shifting cultivation cycle, working from a base of rich traditional wisdom.

At the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) session “Gender equality, rights and ancestral knowledge in the context of forest landscape restoration” on the sidelines of the recent COP23, a diverse set of panelists stood at a frontier – bringing gender equality and women’s rights to the forest landscape restoration (FLR) conversation.

With international commitments to restoring forests and landscapes now almost de rigueur, there is a need to ensure gender considerations are incorporated from the start, lest inequalities be perpetuated, women excluded or rights wrested away.

On a gray morning in Bonn, a majority-female set of speakers – refreshing amid the number of all-male panels at COP23 – proffered insights ranging from the importance of community forests for women’s rights to the need for active and informed female participation in decision-making and the necessity that all of us confront our unseen biases.

Forest rights advocate Madhu Sarin talked of her experiences with forests and communities in India, and the trial-and-error process of reconciling top-down processes with moves toward equality for women in some forested areas, all while interrogating assumptions about rights.

“It’s only movements that can lead to transformative change. Community people working on the ground. The problem is that grassroots movements are like a drop in the ocean. We don’t have so many movements and we don’t have widespread movements – they are in certain pockets, but not all over. And not all movements are gender sensitive,” she said.

Read also: The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests

Tea plantations are seen beside the Mau Forest in Kenya. Photo by P. Shepherd/CIFOR

SHIFTING PARADIGMS

But clearly lack of gender sensitivity is not only a developing world problem.

Panelist Nigel Crawhall of UNESCO talked of the need to harmonize forms of knowledge, bringing local, indigenous, Western and other kinds of understandings together when thinking about forests and restoration, and the need to bring real interactions to the table amid issues of race, power, gender and identity. And, that table may already be steeped in a bias we may not recognize.

“[You] have to ask questions about the cultural framework in which you’re working … If there’s already a gender bias in the Western science framework, that’s what you’re bringing indigenous people into … You must shape the platform so you create a safer, more inclusive space so different paradigms can be in that space together,” he said.

For panelist Lorena Aguilar of IUCN, participation in FLR needs to be inclusive and built on a strong knowledge base with everyone, including indigenous women, informed and aware. “It’s not about applying a standard, like saying indigenous people need to participate. REDD is not a color, and FLR is not a powder you put in the water.”

Many of the panelists addressed this concern – that international commitments just may neglect the perspectives of communities who will then live in the midst of land others demarcate for restoration.

The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) Markus Ihalainen of CIFOR, who moderated the session, said in a later interview, “A key aspect of FLR is bringing stakeholders together to voice issues or concerns and to negotiate compromises, but not all stakeholders are equally powerful and not all voices are equally heard.”

Read also: FTA at COP23

ON THE CASE

A number of panelists drilled down to specific geographies and restoration experiences.

Jamila Idbourrous, Union des Cooperatives Féminines de l’Argan (UCFA) Director, spoke of Morocco’s forests and the practice of producing argan oil, traditionally dominated by women.

“The women of the Berber indigenous people of south Morocco have customarily supported themselves through the production of argan oil. Women’s cooperatives protect their rights and preserve their knowledge, but there is desertification now in the argan forests and that is a big challenge,” she said.

An elderly woman sits on the terrace of her home in Nalma Village, Lamjung, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

“With argan oil, there is no frontier between protecting forests and protecting ancestral knowledge; it is important to recognize the connection is there,” she added.

Looking at gender and restoration from the policy-in-practice side, FTA’s Anne Larson of CIFOR presented the results of a series of studies of women and men’s experiences of REDD+. In the early phase of the global emissions reduction mechanism, interviews in intervention villages found that only 38 percent of women’s focus groups had heard of REDD+, in comparison to 60 percent of village focus groups, which were about 70 percent male.

More recent preliminary analysis of results three years later in phase two of the research was even starker, with 18 percent of women’s focus groups demonstrating a decline in women’s well-being relative to the first phase. In comparison, control sites showed no change over the same period. A regression analysis suggests that REDD+ is a significant factor in these differences.

Larson said, “The combination of these two sets of data suggests that the failure to address gender early on may have something to do with poor performance for women’s well-being under REDD+ initiatives, although more analysis is required. That said, it is not particularly surprising: research by IUCN and others has shown that gender is still far too rarely addressed in forest-related projects.

“One of my concerns with FLR is that its advocates are trying to move faster than REDD+, but we need to move better, not faster.”

In her presentation, Aguilar offered one example of positive gender incorporation in the Government of Malawi’s work on restoration, which was supported by IUCN, saying “Gender has been embroidered [into it], you cannot de-link it, it’s not an annex, it’s not an add-in component, it is an integral part.”

Read also: Gender and forestry gain increasing attention worldwide

INTERSECTIONS

For panelist Eva Müller of FAO, “FLR is not a simple process of putting trees into the ground … FLR is all about balance at different scales.”

Striking that balance amid the intersecting issues of gender, rights, conservation and livelihoods will help forge the path to success, if all are on board.

Anne Barre of Women Engage for a Common Future works to connect on-the-ground processes and the experiences of communities and indigenous groups to the larger discussions at COP.

In an interview after the panel, she said, “We are starting to understand how important these knowledges passed down from generation to generation are to protecting our environment, biodiversity and climate.

So for us working as observers in the UNFCC process we are trying to make the link between people who work at the local level and the different international processes, or even national processes … These knowledges not only need to be recognized and protected but also these knowledges can be used to make responsible and relevant climate adaptation or climate mitigation actions.”

Referring to the pathbreaking Forests Rights Act in India, which ensures women’s and community forestry rights, Sarin said, “You have the law now that provides the facilitative framework, but in practice how do you deal with age-old systems that are biased against women? No matter how good manuals and procedures and methodologies are, we need to ask, ‘Who is going to put this all into practice?’”

And that, as they say, is the question.

By Deanna Ramsay, 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.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Recognizing gender bias, restoring forests

Recognizing gender bias, restoring forests


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Women work in a tree nursery in Yangambi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by CIFOR/A. Fassio

COP23 special: As global commitments gather momentum, gender equality and rights become urgent considerations.

One woman described the centuries-old, female-centered production of argan oil in Morocco and the recent degradation of the country’s forests. Another spoke of the gender disparities in experiences at REDD+ sites. And yet another talked of women in eastern India who cultivate up to 60 different crops in one shifting cultivation cycle, working from a base of rich traditional wisdom.

At the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) session “Gender equality, rights and ancestral knowledge in the context of forest landscape restoration” on the sidelines of the recent COP23, a diverse set of panelists stood at a frontier – bringing gender equality and women’s rights to the forest landscape restoration (FLR) conversation.

With international commitments to restoring forests and landscapes now almost de rigueur, there is a need to ensure gender considerations are incorporated from the start, lest inequalities be perpetuated, women excluded or rights wrested away.

On a gray morning in Bonn, a majority-female set of speakers – refreshing amid the number of all-male panels at COP23 – proffered insights ranging from the importance of community forests for women’s rights to the need for active and informed female participation in decision-making and the necessity that all of us confront our unseen biases.

Forest rights advocate Madhu Sarin talked of her experiences with forests and communities in India, and the trial-and-error process of reconciling top-down processes with moves toward equality for women in some forested areas, all while interrogating assumptions about rights.

“It’s only movements that can lead to transformative change. Community people working on the ground. The problem is that grassroots movements are like a drop in the ocean. We don’t have so many movements and we don’t have widespread movements – they are in certain pockets, but not all over. And not all movements are gender sensitive,” she said.

Read also: The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests

Tea plantations are seen beside the Mau Forest in Kenya. Photo by P. Shepherd/CIFOR

SHIFTING PARADIGMS

But clearly lack of gender sensitivity is not only a developing world problem.

Panelist Nigel Crawhall of UNESCO talked of the need to harmonize forms of knowledge, bringing local, indigenous, Western and other kinds of understandings together when thinking about forests and restoration, and the need to bring real interactions to the table amid issues of race, power, gender and identity. And, that table may already be steeped in a bias we may not recognize.

“[You] have to ask questions about the cultural framework in which you’re working … If there’s already a gender bias in the Western science framework, that’s what you’re bringing indigenous people into … You must shape the platform so you create a safer, more inclusive space so different paradigms can be in that space together,” he said.

For panelist Lorena Aguilar of IUCN, participation in FLR needs to be inclusive and built on a strong knowledge base with everyone, including indigenous women, informed and aware. “It’s not about applying a standard, like saying indigenous people need to participate. REDD is not a color, and FLR is not a powder you put in the water.”

Many of the panelists addressed this concern – that international commitments just may neglect the perspectives of communities who will then live in the midst of land others demarcate for restoration.

The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) Markus Ihalainen of CIFOR, who moderated the session, said in a later interview, “A key aspect of FLR is bringing stakeholders together to voice issues or concerns and to negotiate compromises, but not all stakeholders are equally powerful and not all voices are equally heard.”

Read also: FTA at COP23

ON THE CASE

A number of panelists drilled down to specific geographies and restoration experiences.

Jamila Idbourrous, Union des Cooperatives Féminines de l’Argan (UCFA) Director, spoke of Morocco’s forests and the practice of producing argan oil, traditionally dominated by women.

“The women of the Berber indigenous people of south Morocco have customarily supported themselves through the production of argan oil. Women’s cooperatives protect their rights and preserve their knowledge, but there is desertification now in the argan forests and that is a big challenge,” she said.

An elderly woman sits on the terrace of her home in Nalma Village, Lamjung, Nepal. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

“With argan oil, there is no frontier between protecting forests and protecting ancestral knowledge; it is important to recognize the connection is there,” she added.

Looking at gender and restoration from the policy-in-practice side, FTA’s Anne Larson of CIFOR presented the results of a series of studies of women and men’s experiences of REDD+. In the early phase of the global emissions reduction mechanism, interviews in intervention villages found that only 38 percent of women’s focus groups had heard of REDD+, in comparison to 60 percent of village focus groups, which were about 70 percent male.

More recent preliminary analysis of results three years later in phase two of the research was even starker, with 18 percent of women’s focus groups demonstrating a decline in women’s well-being relative to the first phase. In comparison, control sites showed no change over the same period. A regression analysis suggests that REDD+ is a significant factor in these differences.

Larson said, “The combination of these two sets of data suggests that the failure to address gender early on may have something to do with poor performance for women’s well-being under REDD+ initiatives, although more analysis is required. That said, it is not particularly surprising: research by IUCN and others has shown that gender is still far too rarely addressed in forest-related projects.

“One of my concerns with FLR is that its advocates are trying to move faster than REDD+, but we need to move better, not faster.”

In her presentation, Aguilar offered one example of positive gender incorporation in the Government of Malawi’s work on restoration, which was supported by IUCN, saying “Gender has been embroidered [into it], you cannot de-link it, it’s not an annex, it’s not an add-in component, it is an integral part.”

Read also: Gender and forestry gain increasing attention worldwide

INTERSECTIONS

For panelist Eva Müller of FAO, “FLR is not a simple process of putting trees into the ground … FLR is all about balance at different scales.”

Striking that balance amid the intersecting issues of gender, rights, conservation and livelihoods will help forge the path to success, if all are on board.

Anne Barre of Women Engage for a Common Future works to connect on-the-ground processes and the experiences of communities and indigenous groups to the larger discussions at COP.

In an interview after the panel, she said, “We are starting to understand how important these knowledges passed down from generation to generation are to protecting our environment, biodiversity and climate.

So for us working as observers in the UNFCC process we are trying to make the link between people who work at the local level and the different international processes, or even national processes … These knowledges not only need to be recognized and protected but also these knowledges can be used to make responsible and relevant climate adaptation or climate mitigation actions.”

Referring to the pathbreaking Forests Rights Act in India, which ensures women’s and community forestry rights, Sarin said, “You have the law now that provides the facilitative framework, but in practice how do you deal with age-old systems that are biased against women? No matter how good manuals and procedures and methodologies are, we need to ask, ‘Who is going to put this all into practice?’”

And that, as they say, is the question.

By Deanna Ramsay, 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.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Unpacking 'gender' in India's Joint Forest Management Program: lessons from two Indian states

Unpacking ‘gender’ in India’s Joint Forest Management Program: lessons from two Indian states


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme is among the first and largest initiatives for collaborative forest governance worldwide. In JFM, the state, represented by the Forest Department (FD), and the village community share responsibilities and benefits of jointly protecting and managing forests adjoining villages. The agreement is operationalized through JFM Committees (JFMCs) – referred to as Village Forest Committees (VFCs) in some states – where elected community representatives and a FD official make forest-related decisions in a supposedly collaborative manner. In an effort to promote gender equity and social inclusion, seats are reserved on these committees for women and marginalized groups, such as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Schedule Tribes (STs). Yet, despite reservations, the ability of these groups to actively engage in JFM processes remains limited.

This study addresses two primary questions: 1) Do local people perceive JFM, as implemented in two Indian landscapes, as equitable and inclusive?; 2) How can gender equity and social inclusion be improved in India’s JFM Program? Our research shows continued social exclusions from JFM processes on the basis of gender and ethnicity. Gender and ethnicity do not operate independently of each other to influence active participation in JFM. Participation is shaped at the intersection of gender and ethnicity, such that women and men from different ethnic groups have distinct experiences with JFM. Our findings underscore the need to reframe the issue of ‘women’s participation’ to capture inequalities among women from different ethnic groups. We conclude with recommendations for enhancing gender equality and social inclusion in JFM.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Shaping a stronger global agenda for forests, trees and agroforestry at CFS44

Shaping a stronger global agenda for forests, trees and agroforestry at CFS44


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
A farmer fertilizes his rice field in Rammang-rammang village, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo by T. Saputro/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA communications

Trees and forests play critical roles in landscapes and value chains, contributing to sustainable agricultural development. They are also key to achieving food security and nutrition, and thus the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At the recent Committee on World Food Security (CFS) 44, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) coorganized two side events: one on feminism, forests and food security and one on sustainable forestry for food security and nutrition, where panelists discussed how to move forward on the implementation of the recent High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) report on sustainable forestry for food security and nutrition and CFS policy recommendations.

Read more: High Level Panel of Experts launches landmark report on sustainable forestry

The latter side event, organized with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the government of the Netherlands, Tropenbos International, the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative (SIANI) and MARS, Incorporated, honed in on priorities relating to research for development.

Titled Forests, trees and agroforestry for food security, nutrition and the SDGs: Research and partners, toward a joint action agenda, the discussion on Oct. 11 contributed to CFS44’s discussions on sustainable forestry for food security and nutrition, and aimed to shape a stronger global agenda for forests, trees and agroforestry.

A village in Mount Halimun Salak National Park, West Java, Indonesia. Photo by A. Erlangga/CIFOR

In particular, the event sought to show how major initiatives intend to position themselves, enhance their synergies, and better work with all stakeholders to implement the CFS recommendations on sustainable forestry for food security and nutrition. The discussion also aimed to contribute to knowledge sharing and clarifying stakeholder expectations in terms of priority demands toward research and development partners. Furthermore, FTA hoped to identify ways and means for better articulation between major international initiatives, and identify priority demands as the program continues in its second phase.

The well-attended talk illustrated how key research for development points will be used in FTA’s prioritization process, with FTA considered well-placed to address the implications of the HLPE report. After introductions by FAO’s Eva Muller and myself, a number of panelists discussed the topics at hand, while audience members both in the room and online also had the opportunity to participate in the discussion.

Of the many key points to emerge was the need for responsible investments in value chains, including the fundamental role of the private sector. The panelists agreed upon the need for knowledge about how to incentivize responsible business models, and for reviews and guidelines on different inclusive business models.

Actors must quantify the constraints involved in integrating trees into farms and landscapes, despite a lack of information on successful examples, new techniques, seeds and sourcing. Social inclusiveness and gender are also vital facets of finding solutions, including the need to facilitate women’s participation and empowerment in rural development as well as food security and nutrition.

Ambassador Hans Hoogeveen of the Netherlands, who sat on the panel, outlined the need for a forward-looking perspective and cited agriculture as among the drivers of deforestation. He asked what agriculture can do for forests, and what land use can do for forests. Hoogeveen suggested that actors should focus on the private sector rather than governments. Getting a company like IKEA on board, for example, could create a transformational change, he said.

Muller then followed up on what agriculture and land use can do for forests, stating that an upcoming conference organized by FAO would look at Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 on sustainably managing forests, combating desertification, halting and reversing land degradation and halting biodiversity loss, as well as the more ambitious goal of increasing forests by 3 percent by 2030. FAO will disseminate knowledge and provide technical support, she said, adding that countries would need support, data, knowledge and innovative governance solutions.

In my role in the discussion, I described the HLPE as a stocktake mechanism, which has presented us with questions about how to move forward. We need to look at the role of trees to address food security and nutrition, climate change and the SDGs. Indeed there is a need for an integrated approach to agriculture and forestry, including the restoration of land and looking at sustainable value chains. FTA aims to inform and support stakeholders from a research perspective.

Read more: Forests as food: New report highlights important relationship between forest landscapes and healthy diets

Moderating the side event, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Director General Peter Holmgren highlighted the need to work on rights, inclusiveness, value chain connections, entrepreneurship, investments, livelihoods and food security. That is where forestry should move, he said, adding that FTA’s partners could act as a coalition in this manner.

Cecile Ndjebet, President of the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF), highlighted the role of women in particular, saying they were key actors to combat hunger, poverty and climate change. Other priorities include investing in underutilized nutritious foods, and linking non-timber forest products to markets.

Rene Boot, Director of Tropenbos International, focused on inclusive business development and business models, as smallholders produce 75 percent of food worldwide. There is clearly a need for inclusive and responsible investments, he said, adding that how to best connect investors was an issue.

A woman picks maize near Yangambi, DRC. Photo by A. Fassio/CIFOR

Kerstin Cisse of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) said agroforestry was a recognized technology and was economically viable. She also highlighted women’s central roles in rural development and food security and nutrition. One challenge was how to make research results available and usable, especially for small-scale farms, she said. Youth and women hold untapped potential that needs to be developed, she added, before outlining the need for new thinking and new questions. 

Additionally, Agusdin Pulungan, President of the Indonesian Farmer and Fisher Society Organization (WAMTI), highlighted challenges for farmers including a lack of information on successful examples, information on new techniques, competing land uses, a lack of equipment, insufficient land availability, and a lack of seeds. It can be difficult for farmers to invest without reserves, he explained, and they need incentives to introduce trees. The role of research for development should be to provide information on incentive schemes, while farmers could be more motivated through good examples and discussion, he said.

The panelists and audience members thus helped to outline a range of issues that will help to prioritize research – relating to integration, protecting forests, intensifying agriculture and working on drivers of land-use change, most of which are outside forests. Demand is growing for agriculture products and the renewable material of wood, so we need to understand how plantations can be sustainable and we need to fight institutional boundaries. 

Indeed, as Holmgren mentioned, this involves the involvement of all stakeholders – from private sector and civil society to communities, as well as governments.

Read more: Sharing better, for better research

The other major messages gained from the side event included that there is a need to invest in underutilized nutritious food crops. Meanwhile, plantations are needed to ensure the growing supply of wood and other products. There is an overall need for integration, as most drivers of change, such as land-use change, exist outside forests.

To devise solutions, actors must integrate agriculture and forestry. A key challenge in this light is how to make research results available and usable, especially for small-scale farms, in light of knowledge and development gaps.

Ultimately, to implement the CFS agenda and achieve global food security, the panelists agreed that countries will need support, data, knowledge and innovative governance solutions, with the involvement of all partners. 

By Vincent Gitz, FTA Director.


The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (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, ICRAF, INBAR and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Integration is name of the game that forests and agriculture need to play

Integration is name of the game that forests and agriculture need to play


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Banyan trees beside a river. Photo by FAO Forestry Mediabase
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Banyan trees. Photo by FAO Forestry Mediabase

Sustainable development of agriculture cannot be reached without acknowledging the important role forests have in landscapes and in value chains.

Agroforestry systems include not only traditional but also modern land-use systems where trees are managed together with crops and/or animal production systems in agricultural settings.

Whenever trees can be kept intact rather than be cleared for the purposes of agricultural production and forest ecosystems can thrive alongside crops, the more benefits are reaped. Considering this there is a need to facilitate the integration of agriculture and forestry relevant policies, allowing them to play better, together.

However, what is needed is a forward-looking focus on research, knowledge-generation and scaling-up with development of strong partnership among many different stakeholders. This is exactly what a side event at this year’s CFS 44 entitled “Forests, trees and agroforestry for food security and nutrition and the SDGs: Research and partners, toward a joint action agenda” aimed to debate.

The event itself was organized in a partnership between a large number of different stakeholders, including the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The Netherlands Government, Tropenbos International and SIANI.

A strong case has been made for scaling up agroforestry in order to address the need for more productive and sustainable use of the land while assuring livelihoods and quality nutrition for the growing world population. In fact, as stated by FAO in their presentation on agroforestry, there is a constantly growing body of scientific literature that clearly demonstrates the gains accruing from agroforestry adoption, especially in regards to the improvement of the environment and people’s lives.

Continuing to invest in research is therefore essential. As FAO outlines “the agroforestry systems are dynamic, ecologically based, natural resource management systems that diversify and sustain production in order to increase social, economic and environmental benefits for land users at all scales.”

Click here to read the full story on the CFS website, by #CFS44 Social Reporter Ksenija Simovic.

As part of the live coverage during CFS44, this post covers the Forests, trees and agroforestry for food security and nutrition and the SDGs side event.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Getting down to business: Seminar promotes shift toward inclusive investment

Getting down to business: Seminar promotes shift toward inclusive investment


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Carpenter Hervé Bougar makes a living from doors and furniture in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Photo by O. Girard/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Tropenbos International Director Rene Boot speaks during the seminar on inclusive investments and business models. Photo by Nguyen Phuong Ha/Tropenbos International

A growing number of investors want to have a greater positive impact on people’s rights and livelihoods in areas where they do business. 

Tropenbos International (TBI), one of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s (FTA) partner institutions, held on Sept. 14 a workshop titled Towards inclusive investment and business models for improved land governance and livelihoods: Are we on the right track? in Ede, the Netherlands.

Part of a broader series of annual seminars on sustainable forest management in the tropics, the event brought together finance, business, land use and development experts to address how to work with smallholders and learn from existing business cases.

Amid cases in which large-scale agricultural investments have damaged local livelihoods and ignored biodiversity and traditions, international organizations have established guidelines to help mitigate the adverse effects of investments. However, a growing number of businesses and investors want to exceed such guidelines, aiming for a positive impact on local communities’ livelihoods and tenure rights through their investments.

Carpenter Hervé Bougar earns a living from making doors and furniture in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Photo by O. Girard/CIFOR

“A growing number of investors aspire to make the transition from ‘doing no harm’ toward ‘doing good’,” TBI director René Boot said in opening the seminar. “The positive news is that this can be done.”

The discussions not only raised awareness on the importance of moving from the do-no-harm to the do-good approach in investing in smallholder land management, but also provided evidence of the feasibility and scaling-up opportunities from such an approach.

Participants shared experiences on best practices and made recommendations on strategies, mechanisms and follow-up actions to enhance investment in inclusive business models that improve the livelihoods, land security and entrepreneurial potential of smallholders.

Read more: Attention to detail is necessary for zero deforestation intentions to succeed, say scientists

Furthermore, the seminar contributed to the improvement of a working paper titled “Improving the positive impacts of investments on smallholder livelihoods and the landscapes they live in.”

Discussions on the paper covered ways for investors to improve the positive benefits of their investments, namely recognizing rights, effectively engaging, and the need to “think landscape.”

The findings of the seminar indicated that by recognizing local practices, as well as working with local communities, investors can benefit from greater local support. The findings also stated that understanding on a landscape scale could lead to production diversification and improved local food security.

The seminar, which was organized by TBI and other organizations working in the Netherlands, can be seen as a precursor to future work that TBI will carry out as part of FTA’s research theme on sustainable value chains and investments to support forest conservation and equitable development.

Timber is piled outside a building as part of the Kanoppi Project in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Photo by A. Erlangga/CIFOR

Key scientists intend to build upon the body of work under FTA in order to make explicit the connections between responsible financing schemes and the development of inclusive business models, as part of the conditions needed to support more sustainable landscapes.

“The approach undertaken by TBI constitutes a key piece in building financing schemes that can contribute more positively to business models that work for the environment and smallholders, supporting broader agendas on sustainability and inclusivity,” said FTA Flagship 3 leader Pablo Pacheco.

“The research on value chains and finance in FTA will continue building in these innovative approaches,” he added.

Read more: Sustainable value chains and investments

“At TBI, we see the report and the seminar – and all the preliminary work – as an important contribution to FTA research and engagement work, in advancing the agenda for it, and on which to base further collaborative activities, particularly in the field of inclusive business and finance,” said TBI program coordinator Herman Savenije.

“We see this topic of inclusive finance and business as an important one in which we can learn a lot by actively engaging with those worlds. In the Netherlands I feel the thinking in the finance and business worlds on inclusiveness has advanced somewhat, though still with some frontrunners, and we have started building networks with them,” he added.

The day of presentations from nine speakers yielded numerous insights and ideas – including that scaling up is easier if one can show clear profits; that there is a clear ‘missing middle’ between small and large investments; and that transparency is vital – many of which are contained in the summary report.

Evidently, research on investments for improved land governance and livelihoods, which will be built upon by TBI and other institutions as part of FTA, is indeed on the right track.

By Hannah Maddison-Harris, FTA Editorial and Communication Coordinator


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


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Training a new generation of Congolese forestry researchers

Training a new generation of Congolese forestry researchers


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
A young man studies in the botanical gardens at the University of Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Axel Fassio/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

A young man studies in the botanical gardens at the University of Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Axel Fassio/CIFOR

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), education initiatives are transforming the classroom experiences of aspiring researchers.

Among the innumerable casualties of the decades-long series of conflicts and instability in the DRC, education is one of the most overlooked. Even now, the amount of research into the wartime impact on the country’s education system is very limited — but one thing is certain. If, for decades, going to school posed more safety risks for children than staying at home or in hiding, achieving further degrees was out of the question.

As the fourth most populous country in Africa (and second largest by size), the DRC is now making its way toward recovering its social and economic health, and educating its people is an increasingly crucial component to success. Only with empowerment through knowledge and capacity development can the Congolese, and the research and development organizations and businesses that employ them, impact the growth of the country — and the sustainable use of its natural resources and landscapes.

Making up for lost time

The DRC has the world’s second-largest area of contiguous tropical forests after Brazil, and those forests are distinguished by their rich biodiversity. But, there has long been a lack of trained personnel to care for and manage them properly. In 2005, the country’s entire forestry research cadre comprised just six people with Master’s degrees; in comparison, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) employs more than 8,500 PhD holders. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), has since trained 115 Master’s students and 15 PhDs.

Goods are seen for sale on the banks of the River Congo between Kinshasa and Lukolela, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Ollivier Girard/CIFOR

Learning tools

University of Kisangani (UNIKIS) Rector Prof. Dr. Toengaho Faustin Toengaho says his vision is “to serve the needs of the Congolese society.” To accomplish this, he has proved an exemplary policy champion of the curricula reforms, such as an innovative Master’s-level natural and social science curriculum and an international PhD program. Both programs align capacity-building efforts with the national License, Maîtrise, Doctorat initiative (Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD program, shortened to LMD) in a bid to improve land governance in the future.

UNIKIS now has partnerships with universities and research organizations in France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Belgium, and in-classroom innovations and novel teaching methods continue to heighten the impact of these programs. There’s now an electronic library, joint local and international supervision of students, UNIKIS staff trainings, article-based thesis requirements and an annual Science Week event. The Ministry of Higher Education has since adopted a similar model to Science Week and all the universities and faculties in the country promote scientific research and innovation.

To further aid student growth, a local “accompanying committee” has tracked student progress and helped students develop scientific writing skills, public speaking skills and the confidence to submit their research to publications. Since 2013, students have submitted 31 articles to international peer-reviewed journals. Perhaps the work of Congolese students will influence not just their own country, but others as well.

By D. Andrew Wardell and Gabrielle Lipton, originally published at CIFOR.org

Further Reading

  • Molinario, G., Hansen, M.C. and Potapov, P.V., 2015. Forest cover dynamics of shifting cultivation in the Democratic Republic of Congo: a remote sensing assessment. Environmental Research Letters 10
  • Nackoney, J., Molinario, G, Potapov, P., Turubanova, S., Hansen, M.C. and Furuichi, T., 2014. Impacts of civil conflict on primary forest habitat in northern Democractic Republic of Congo, 1990-2010. Biological Conservation (2014) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.12.033
  • Zhuravleva, I., Rurubanova, S., Potapov, P., Hansen, M., Tyukavina, A., Minnemeyer, S., Laporte, N., Goetz, S., Verbelen, F. and Thies, C., 2013. Satellite-based primary forestry degradation assessment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2000-2010 Environmental Research Letters 8 (2013) http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024034

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and was supported by the European Commission, Global Climate Change Alliance (Forests and Climate Change in the Congo) and European Commission Delegation-Kinshasa (11th European Development Fund, DRC).


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • On the critical role of soil organic carbon in landscapes

On the critical role of soil organic carbon in landscapes


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Presentation by World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) scientist Tor-Gunnar Vågen, who is also part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

On June 19, 30 CGIAR scientists, representing seven CGIAR Centers and six CGIAR Research Programs, exchanged recent research findings and identified priorities for a future research agenda on soil carbon and climate change. The meeting was hosted by the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) and Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

 


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Strength in numbers: How the Global Landscapes Forum connects the land use community

Strength in numbers: How the Global Landscapes Forum connects the land use community


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA

The idea… sounded simple

Why don’t we bring together the key actors in land use to address urgent challenges and find solutions?

The starting point…was complicated

From 2007 to 2012, there was a stark division between the forest and the agricultural community. This found its expression in two separate special days, held on the sidelines of the UNFCCC COPs over several years.

Forest Day, was launched in 2007 at COP 13 in Bali, Indonesia, and Agriculture and Rural Development Day at COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark.


The next Global Landscapes Forum: Peatlands Matter will take place on 18 May in Jakarta, Indonesia. Click here for more information


The solution… had to be promoted

Advocates on both sides of the—imaginary—trench started to harness the growing acceptance of integrated landscape approaches to merge the two into one bigger event. The landscape approach has been recognized as a useful framework for integrating measures to boost agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods, and the protection of forests, water and biodiversity. Landscape approaches embrace compromise amongst competing social, environmental, political and economic demands to produce multiple benefits from limited resources.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) leveraged its role as the lead center of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) to drive this concerted effort.

A first effort was made during COP 18 in Doha, when Forest Day was held back-to-back with the first ALL Day, under the shared theme of “Living Landscapes.”

The outcome… was impressive

The first Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Warsaw 2013 succeeded in introducing the landscapes approach to more than 1,200 climate and development policy makers. By focusing on breaking the silos that continue to exist between land use sectors, the Forum brought together more than 60 international organizations working in forestry, agriculture, mountains and watershed management, land use planning and human development.

After four years, the GLF, a well-known acronym among the hundreds of partners, has been established “as the global platform leading the debate on sustainable land use and forestry.”

FTA has co-financed all GLFs. FTA partners such as CIFOR, the World Agroforestry Centre, CIAT, CIRAD, CATIE and Bioversity International have been key actors throughout the years, hosting discussion forums and side events as well as sharing information and advocating in their communities of practice.

The reward… international recognition

In November 2016 at the UNFCCC COP 22 in Marrakesh, the German government committed to host the GLF for the next four years.

In Marrakesh, more than 5,500 people from 95 countries connected in person and online to forge solutions to the planet’s greatest climate and development challenges through sustainable land use.

The high point of the event was the commitment by the German government and GLF partners to support the long-term future of the Forum and its vision of reaching one billion people.

The history

Before this, the GLFs in Warsaw (2013), Lima (2014) and Paris (2015) had created strong momentum for productive cooperation between different sectors, agencies, governments and private businesses. The GLF is usually structured around five themes: Restoration; Financing; Rights; Measuring Progress; and Food and Livelihoods.

In 2015 and 2016 a second GLF, called The Investment Case, was held in London to focus on how to finance sustainable land use and landscapes.

The Investment Case brought together experts from the financial services industry with leaders from the corporate sector, government and academia to take investments into sustainable landscapes “to the next level”. It is meant to be a platform for experts to explore the role of private finance in enhancing livelihoods and landscapes across the globe. FTA is one of three supporters of this event.

Presenting FTA research…

In principle, practically all that was discussed at the GLFs pointed directly to FTA research, and many scientists presented FTA research:

… and more

From the start, GLF was conceived as a platform and avoided monopolizing the agenda for core FTA research coming from CIFOR as the lead Center. More and more partners outside of the research arena were encouraged to collaborate and bring in their issues and solutions: governments, business, civil society and development agencies.

Many CGIAR Centers outside of FTA (e.g. ILRI, IFPRI, CIP), and CGIAR Research Programs (CCAFS, WLE) participated in the GLF to drive home their message of integrated solutions to issues such as deforestation, global warming, sustainable and inclusive value chains, food security, water, indigenous people’s rights, gender and a greener economy.

And now?

Today, the GLF has become the world’s largest and only science-led multi-sectoral platform designed to produce and disseminate knowledge and accelerate action to build more resilient, climate friendly, diverse, equitable and productive landscapes. Its platforms connect diverse stakeholders; provide learning opportunities; allows people to gather and share knowledge; and accelerate action to produce sustainable solutions to complicated problems.

For 2017, four GLF events are planned: A Peatlands Matter conference in Jakarta on 18 May, a Restoration conference in Cameroon in September, an Investment Case conference in New York in October, and a Global Forum in Bonn in December.

By Kerstin Reisdorf, FTA Communications. 


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Altitude Matters: How elevation affects carbon and biodiversity in a warming world

Altitude Matters: How elevation affects carbon and biodiversity in a warming world


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Drenched in rain and humidity, the massif is around 1,000 meters high and covered in an ancient forest that ranges from lowland to submontane cloud forest. Photo by: Christelle Gonmadje/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM

Environmental conditions vary with altitude, affecting temperature, soil type, rainfall and humidity. Photo credit: Ollivier Girard/Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

By Kate Evans, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Cameroon – In the south of Cameroon where the Congo Basin meets the Atlantic Ocean, there is a range of hills called the Ngovayang Massif.

Drenched in rain and humidity, the massif is around 1,000 meters high and covered in an ancient forest that ranges from lowland to submontane cloud forest. It is home to gorillas, chimpanzees, panthers, giant pangolins, and porcupines, as well as various rare bird species.

Very little was known about Ngovayang’s plant life until Christelle Gonmadje from the University of Yaounde and the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD) spent five months per year there over the span of her three-year PhD research, listening to gorillas growl and monkeys hoot as she set out 15 one-hectare permanent plots.

Across the Ngovayang Massif, Gonmadje identified 1,491 plant species, including 224 of high conservation value. She found 18 species endemic to this range of hills, which are found nowhere else.

“It is one of the biodiversity hotspots of the world,” she says. “In terms of species richness, it’s very important – perhaps one of the most important sites in Central Africa.”

In collaboration with scientists from a handful of other institutions, including the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Gonmadje also measured the above-ground biomass in the forest and analyzed its variation with altitude.

Drenched in rain and humidity, the massif is around 1,000 meters high and covered in an ancient forest that ranges from lowland to submontane cloud forest. Photo by: Christelle Gonmadje/CIFOR

Above-ground biomass refers to the total quantity of living matter found in the trees (but not in their roots or the soil). Biomass is crucial to helping scientists and policy makers determine how much carbon is stored in a particular forest.

Gonmadje and colleagues found that in Ngovayang, the above-ground biomass decreases at higher altitudes, driven by a change in the kinds of plants found at different heights.

FORESTS CHANGE WITH ALTITUDE

The study is important, says Terry Sunderland, a senior scientist at CIFOR who also worked on the paper. This is because permanent plot studies in tropical forests have tended to focus on the lowlands.

“What Christelle’s research has shown, is that you can’t make huge generalizations about biomass in tropical rainforest without taking into account the contribution of altitude,” he says.

Environmental conditions vary with altitude – temperature, soil type, rainfall, humidity – and this influences what grows there.

“When you walk from the lowland to the high altitude, some species disappear, because they are not adapted to those conditions,” Gonmadje says. “So the bigger tree species disappear, and you have a shift in species composition.”

Fewer big tree species means less biomass and less carbon – at least above ground. A few other studies have found that at higher altitudes, a higher proportion of a tree’s biomass is stored underground.

Having accurate data on how carbon is stored in forests of different kinds is important for countries like Cameroon that hope to benefit from international efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing deforestation, such as REDD+.

Christelle Gonmadje and her team in the field doing research. Photo credit: Christelle Gonmadje/CIFOR

“To be competitive in carbon trading markets or REDD+ initiatives, countries which have tropical forests need to demonstrate that they have reduced their carbon emissions, and that means they need accurate knowledge of the quantity of carbon stock in their forests to start with,” says Gonmadje.

“With this information, policy makers can develop greenhouse gas management and mitigation plans and identify the steps they can take to maintain or increase carbon stocks. You cannot have these benefits if you do not have good, quality data on the biomass and carbon stocks.”

KILLING THE COFFEE

The research also highlights the importance of paying attention to altitude in a warming world.

“As global temperatures change and things get hotter, the altitudinal aspect of tropical ecology is going to play a huge role,” Sunderland says. “What Christelle is showing is basically the importance of plant composition with altitude and how that changes.”

“Coffee, for example, requires a very specific altitudinal and temperature range to grow, and soon it’s going to be too darn hot in the 600 to 1,000-meter range that it is currently grown in, so it’s going to move upward to higher altitudes.”

Many species requiring cooler temperatures will also need to make this shift, he adds. Some, however, won’t be able to adapt and might be lost.

“This will start affecting people everywhere when the price of their coffee goes from the average USD $3 a cup to USD $6. And in the long run, we don’t know which species can adapt, and which will die. It’s going to be a huge problem for many of our agricultural crops. Economically, it’s going to affect us enormously.”


For more information on this topic, please contact Christelle Gonmadje at cgonmadje@yahoo.fr or Terry Sunderland at t.sunderland@cgiar.org

This research was supported by USAID, CIRAD, French Embassy (SCAC)

Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • What stories can a pixel tell?: monitoring landscape changes through remote sensing

What stories can a pixel tell?: monitoring landscape changes through remote sensing


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
A bird’s-eye view shows patterns and changes not so easily apparent from the ground. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/Yudi Noviandi
Posted by

FTA

A bird’s-eye view shows patterns and changes not so easily apparent from the ground. Photo: World Agroforestry Centre/Yudi Noviandi

By Amy Cruz, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World Blog

A monitoring system has the potential to help governments, research organizations and other groups detect changes in landscapes, such as deforestation and establishment of oil palm plantations.

Representatives from government agencies, research organizations and academe in the Philippines attended a forum on the near real-time monitoring of forest landscapes through the Terra-i Remote Sensing System. The event provided the participants a platform for discussing potential uses of the Terra-i system in the country.

Two sessions were jointly organized by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and ICRAF The World Agroforestry Centre at the Diliman and Los Baños campuses of the University of the Philippines in October 2016. Louis Reymondin of CIAT explained the system, after which the participants discussed potential collaboration and uses in the country.

Robustly used in Latin America, the Terra-i system has recently gained interest in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Viet Nam as a near real-time monitoring system for habitat loss and landscape changes. The goal of the system is to detect as soon as possible changes in a landscape but not to exactly measure forest loss in hectares because of the limitations of the satellite sensor.

Terra-i leverages remote sensing and advanced machine-learning techniques to detect changes in a landscape. According to Reymondin, a team of researchers developed the system based on the premise that natural vegetation follows a predictable pattern of changes in greenness over time. These changes are based on site-specific characteristics and the climatic conditions of preceding days.


Read also: Terra-i, new data – new look for the website


The system predicts how green a pixel should be, given a unit of rainfall, and compares that specific pixel with satellite images. Any anomalies in the time series, which could be due to human activities, can be identified. The time series are produced in 250 m spatial resolution every 16 days to reduce the effects of cloud cover. Although it sounds complicated, Terra-i was designed to be implemented even with limited hardware and financial resources.

Such a system would help improve forest management, reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and contribute to climate-change adaptation and mitigation. Some of the possible applications include detecting mining activities and new oil-palm plantations; assessing the effectiveness of protected areas; and developing potential deforestation scenarios from trends.

Other activities in the pipeline for Terra-i include:

  1. development of 30 m-resolution time series through combining pictures from different satellite systems;
  2. identification and characterization of degradation through combining images from satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles; and
  3. analyses of time series to tell ‘the story of the pixel’, for example, how are the changes spatially distributed and what happens after deforestation.

The team hope that later the system can be modified to monitor other types of ecosystems in the tropics. To achieve this, they will need local knowledge and data to calibrate pan-tropical data available from open-access satellite imagery.

This work is linked to the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • 2017 brings reorientation in landscapes research

2017 brings reorientation in landscapes research


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Photo: Kate Evans/CIFOR
Posted by

FTA

Photo: Kate Evans/CIFOR

By Meine van Noordwijk, Chief Science Advisor and Co-Leader Environmental Services, World Agroforestry Centre, Coordinator Flagship 4

In Flagship 4 Landscapes dynamics, productivity and resilience we will invest in 2017 in a few change of theory topics. The first is an event on March 21 and 22 on new insights in the role of forests, trees and agroforestry in the hydroclimate. We all know forests and trees are ‘cool’, but with the new insights and evidence this term gets new meaning, visit the event page and register soon.

We will also see the completion of a book full of case studies and perspectives on payment for ecosystem services. The introductory chapters are already online, further work is added regularly. It may change your idea on what PES is, how it can be used and what can go wrong. Its message is a change of theory, from a focus on economic efficiency to a more socially balanced co-investment.

A similar reorientation is coming out of the analysis of certification schemes across five major tropical commodities. Again a few papers are already online, others will be added as they have completed the external peer review trajectory. Further syntheses are expected to emerge this year that will argue that forest and trees are relevant for nutritional diversity.


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


The currently dominant theory of change is based on landscapes as social-ecological systems, in which change is part of learning loops in which evidence, logic, innovation, political platforms and trade-offs all play their role. With the multi-layer reality of polycentric governance this is complex, with breakthroughs requiring considerable investment in social capital–plus a bit of luck. We engage in many places, and cannot yet be sure what the 2017 success stories will be–although our planners and funders are eager to find out.

Further synthesis of findings on qualitative and quantitative tree cover transitions will support the definition of theories of place within land-use systems typologies. These will serve to delineate extrapolation domains that are key to the generation of international public goods from place-based research.

The FTA Sentinel Landscape portfolio will be managed as part of FP4 and provide a 5% sample of area across the tropics, and 8% of people, 9% of tree cover and 10-12% of potential tree crop presence, with quantified biases across ecological zones, forest-transition stages and Human Development Index classification.

We have learned that coffee expansion in the water tower landscapes highlights contested ecosystem services that will deserve further attention.

We expect that a more systematic approach to the current policy interest in restoration will bring new progress, and will invest some time in 2017 in that type of learning by doing.

 


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Mapping bamboo forest resources in East Africa

Mapping bamboo forest resources in East Africa


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Training is an essential part of improved natural resources management. INBAR staff alongside some of the participants in land mapping training, East Africa. Photo: INBAR
Posted by

FTA

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • Harnessing multi-purpose productive landscapes for integrated climate and development goals

Harnessing multi-purpose productive landscapes for integrated climate and development goals


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Posted by

FTA

30944562611_9b85a44e19_z

By Peter Holmgren, originally published on CIFOR’s Forests News

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) welcomes the ratification and early entry into force of the Paris Agreement. This is a major step towards effective global climate action. We also welcome the recent progress on REDD+ results based payments at the Green Climate Fund.

The land sector will be key in achieving the well below 2 or 1.5 degree goal agreed in Paris and this is clearly reflected in the long term goal of net zero emissions, Article 5 and the Preamble of the Agreement. This role however is not limited to that of forests or agriculture in isolation, but across the landscape. It will be the actions that are taken on the ground by smallholder farmers, local communities, small to medium business and other non-state as well as State actors that will drive the outcomes concerning climate. Climate mitigation and adaptation will inevitably be a co benefit of the actions taken across the landscape.

We urge world leaders to emphasize integrated solutions that harness ecosystem services derived from intact, productive and adaptive landscapes, and to move away from the business-as-usual rhetoric of forest (or ecosystem) conversion for development. Integrating these objectives harmoniously in a complex world requires approaches that are based in science, are socially, culturally and environmentally responsible, and take the needs of all stakeholders into account through open, fair and equitable participation, and that are rooted in recognition of rights.

Uganda, 2008. ©Center For International Forestry Research/Douglas Sheil
©Center For International Forestry Research/Douglas Sheil

Our experience studying REDD+ over 6 years shows that there are no lasting climate solutions involving tropical forests if the livelihoods of the people in those forests are not sustained or improved – global environmental sustainability requires local economic sustainability. While action at the international level is important, international climate action meets the requirements of the world’s forest dependent communities when implemented on the ground.

Turning to the negotiations in Marrakesh, we are concerned that the international climate community was unable to come to an agreement on concrete next steps related to the agriculture agenda item. It is essential that moving forward, to implement the Paris Agreement and achieve the much needed transformational change, an approach that addresses agriculture as a major driver of deforestation, whilst putting in place measures at the international level to ensure food security and protect rights will be essential.

We welcome the road map that has been agreed in Marrakesh as an important step forward in terms of developing the rule-book to ensure the Paris Agreement is implemented. We hope to see the completion of this important work by 2018, in particular on topics concerning accounting for nationally determined contributions, adaptation communications, transparency and compliance. We hope this work will encourage parties to put in place the much-needed steps to increase their ambition. In this work, world leaders should place importance on the use of science and evidence as key to assessing and monitoring the performance of NDCs in policy and practice, across multiple sectors and levels of government.

We encourage countries to revise their NDCs to enhance ambition and address the operationalization of the agreed climate objectives, and doing so within multifunctional landscape objectives, clear strategy plans and actionable roadmaps, unambiguous designation of accountability, and effective participation of all sectors and levels of governments. This will require collaboration with non-state actors (from the corporate sectors to civil society) across those sectors, with enhanced transparency arrangements, while striving to avoid negative social and environmental impacts, especially on smallholder farmers and rural and indigenous communities.


Notice: Undefined index: id in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 3
  • Home
  • FTA event coverage: Gaining traction on climate goals

FTA event coverage: Gaining traction on climate goals


Notice: Undefined variable: id_overview in /home/ft4user/foreststreesagroforestry.org/wp-content/themes/FTA/template-parts/content.php on line 64
Deforestation in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Asep Ayat for 2014 Global Landscapes Forum Photo Competition
Posted by

FTA

Deforestation in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Asep Ayat for 2014 Global Landscapes Forum Photo Competition
Deforestation in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Asep Ayat for 2014 Global Landscapes Forum Photo Competition

By Catriona Croft-Cusworth, originally posted at CIFOR’s Forests News

An increasing number of states are embracing commitments made under the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise. But how do these grand ambitions play out in reality?

In practice, climate action gains traction at the ground level — ‘where the rubber hits the road’, so to speak — and that requires collaboration among a whole range of different stakeholders.

Besides national governments, subnational governments are increasingly involved in action on climate change in the land use and forestry sectors. Non-state actors, including indigenous groups (which sometimes own and manage important territories), non-governmental organizations and the private sector, are also playing a growing role.

So how can the efforts of these various groups be best coordinated to meet national and international pledges, bringing real action on climate change?

A political world

Anne Larson, a Principal Scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), has led research on this issue in five countries as part of the Global Comparative Study on REDD+ under the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, including two national studies on systems of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV).

Planting Mangroves. Photo: Putu Budhiadnya for 2016 Global Landscapes Forum Photo Competition
Planting Mangroves. Photo: Putu Budhiadnya for 2016 Global Landscapes Forum Photo Competition

She says that even with apparently technical issues like MRV, political tensions tend to emerge both horizontally and vertically among stakeholder groups when trying to turn ideas into reality. This shouldn’t discourage efforts to take action but suggests that we need to take a different approach.

“We can’t ignore political realities,” she says. “We have many great ideas, but no matter how great they might sound technically, we always bump into reality when we hit the ground and try to start implementing.”


Also read: FTA project update: Understanding REDD+ across the globe


“Politics is not necessarily good or bad, it just is. We need to embrace this and learn to work in this reality.”

Pham Thu Thuy, another CIFOR scientist involved in the study, says her research in Vietnam found that politics not only influenced coordination, but also shaped perceptions of goals and challenges among different levels of governance.

“Different levels perceive different problems. But also how they actually define the problem is based on their own perception and their political interest,” Thuy says.

The answer to coordinating those differences, she says, is to take a landscape approach.

Click to read: Exploring the agency of Africa in climate change negotiations: the case of REDD+
Click to read: Exploring the agency of Africa in climate change negotiations: the case of REDD+

You have to be aware of these politics and think about how you can bring together every piece of information and every active group to make a policy work,” she says.

“And I think that for the land-use system, if you want something to work, basically it has to be at the landscape level.”

A landscape view

At the Global Landscapes Forum in Marrakesh, subnational and non-state actors were invited to share their perspectives on the matter of catalyzing action on the ground.

The term ‘non-state actors’ includes researchers, civil society and other community-level groups, but via global climate negotiations in recent years has become shorthand for the private sector.


Also read: COP22 Special: REDD+ monitoring is a technical and political balancing act


Bruce Cabarle, Team Leader of Partnerships for Forests, an initiative for investment in sustainable use of land and forests, said in discussion at GLF that public-private-people partnerships were key to applying lessons learned into the future.

“The more interesting question is: How do we get synergies and complementarity between voluntary certification schemes and government regulations so that they are mutually reinforcing?” he asked.

Christoph Thies, a forest campaigner for Greenpeace, welcomed cooperative efforts among sectors, but maintained that states should take the lead.

“The private sector should never replace the roles and responsibilities of governments,” he said.

For Thies, the answer lies in understanding political factors as both challenges and opportunities for change.

“Technical barriers can be overcome,” he said. “To really address the landscape requires political will.”

On the ground

Fernando Sampaio, Executive Director of the PCI (Produce, Conserve and Include) Strategy State Committee in Mato Grosso, Brazil, acknowledged the importance of both private-sector and civil society involvement in ground-level efforts, from a subnational government perspective.

“The private sector is an important part of the process, but we also need to include other stakeholders who are excluded from the process,” he said.

Excluded groups often include indigenous peoples, whose land rights are not always recognized. Norvin Goff, President of MASTA, an indigenous federation that represents the Miskitus of the Honduran Mosquitia, said that blueprint approaches to land and forest use rarely work at the ground level for indigenous communities.

“We don’t need a set formula that has been used in the past, we need to create an approach together,” Goff said.

He urged closer partnerships between government and indigenous groups.

“Instead of an enemy, they should consider us as part of the solution,” he said.


Back to top

Sign up to our monthly newsletter

Connect with us