Approaches and tools for assessing mountain forest ecosystem services
Approaches and tools for assessing mountain forest ecosystem services
12 February, 2018
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Mountain forest ecosystems provide a wide range of direct and indirect contributions to the people who live in the mountains and surrounding areas. Occupying steep slopes at high elevation, these ecosystems provide services such as stabilizing slopes, regulating hydrological cycles, maintaining rich biodiversity and supporting the livelihoods of those who are diverse in culture but vulnerable to poverty and food security. This paper (i) reviews several tools for assessing the sociocultural, economic and ecological values of mountain forest ecosystem services, (ii) demonstrates case studies of tool applications from several countries namely, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Iran and Nepal, and (iii) discusses assessment challenges that should be considered in the application of these tools.
In Bhutan, an application of benefit transfer showed that the average total value of forest ecosystem services was over USD 14.5 billion per year. In India, an application of stakeholder and household analyses indicated that a total of 29 different ecosystem services are available and sustain livelihoods of local communities near the Maguri Mottapung wetland. In Indonesia, an application of Q methodology identified anticipated benefits and concerns of forest watershed stakeholders related to certification applications for a payment for ecosystem services. In Iran, an application of the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs Tool showed that the regulation of ecosystem services has been declining in Hyrcanian forests despite the forests critical roles in the region. In Nepal, an application of a spatial analytical approach and participatory assessment techniques identified key mountain ecosystem services for community forests at the Charnawolti sub-watershed of Dolakha, and demonstrated forest restoration on degraded lands over the last two decades. Several challenges exist for the assessment of mountain forest ecosystem services and these must be reflected in assessment design. These challenges include the complexity of defining and classifying ecosystem services; limited availability of data on ecosystem services; uncertainties associated with climate change; complex relationships among services including trade-offs and synergies; and limitation of assessments to build successful payments for ecosystem services.
Inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals, the session focused on the accomplishments and future of agroforestry as a path toward sustainable landscape restoration. By offering a route to reconciliation between the frequently competing claims of agriculture and reforestation, agroforestry is playing an increasingly central role in policy-making.
The session aimed to achieve a vital exchange of knowledge on ecosystem functionality, biodiversity, livelihoods and climate change, among other topics. The forum demonstrated the potential dividends for human wellbeing offered by landscape restoration in developing countries.
The extent and management of tree and forest cover on farms and across landscapes impacts the resilience, productivity and income of smallholders. This research theme harnesses the transformative power of trees, through developing and promoting innovations in management, markets and policies to reduce poverty, and increases the food and nutrition security of smallholders. Better tree management contributes to these livelihood goals while protecting the environment, enhancing natural capital and strengthening peoples capacity to adapt to climate change.
Farm-forestry in the Peruvian Amazon and the feasibility of its regulation through forest policy reform
Farm-forestry in the Peruvian Amazon and the feasibility of its regulation through forest policy reform
08 December, 2017
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
In 2015 the Peruvian government launched a new set of regulations associated with the forest law aimed to increase competiveness of the timber sector, ensure the conservation and sustainable production of timber on public and private forestlands, and improve rural livelihoods. Small-scale timber producers have been marginalized in the sector in the past, and the new regulations claim to provide pathways to formalization for these actors. We draw on policy analysis and field research in the central Amazon region of Peru using mixed methods to characterize smallholder on-farm timber production and evaluate the feasibility of the new regulatory mechanisms for formalizing small-scale timber producers. Through examining a case study on the production and sale of the fast-growing pioneer timber species Guazuma crinita, locally known as bolaina, we found a diversity of management practices, with the strongest reliance on natural regeneration in agricultural fallows, an informal supply chain, and no case of formal documentation at time of sale. We assessed that none of the new regulatory mechanisms will accommodate the sale of timber produced in agricultural fallow stands. We recommend the inclusion of fallow timber in the new forest plantation registry, which could result in the formalization of the supply chain and create an incentive to increase production by small-scale producers.
Social Forestry – why and for whom? A comparison of policies in Vietnam and Indonesia
Social Forestry – why and for whom? A comparison of policies in Vietnam and Indonesia
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Community forestry or social forestry (henceforth referred collectively as SF) programs have become new modes of forest management empowering local managers and hence, allowing integration of diverse local practices and support of local livelihoods. Implementation of these initiatives, however, face multiple challenges. State-prescribed community programs, for example, will remain isolated efforts if changes in the overall economic and social governance frameworks, including the devolution of rights to local users is lacking. Financial sustainability of these measures remains often uncertain and equity issues inherent to groups and communities formed for SF, can be exacerbated.
In this article, we pose the question: Whose interests do SF policies serve? The effectiveness of SF would depend on the motivations and aims for a decentralization of forest governance to the community. In order to understand the underlying motivations behind the governments push for SF, we examine national policies in Vietnam and Indonesia, changes in their policies over time and the shift in discourses influencing how SF has evolved. Vietnam and Indonesia are at different sides of the spectrum in democratic ambitions and forest abundance, and present an intriguing comparison in the recent regional push towards SF in Southeast Asia. We discuss the different interpretations of SF in these two countries and how SF programs are implemented. Our results show that governments, influenced by global discourse, are attempting to regulate SF through formal definitions and regulations. Communities on the other hand, might resist by adopting, adapting or rejecting formal schemes. In this tension, SF, in general adopted to serve the interest of local people, in practice SF has not fulfilled its promise.
Diverse and invisible: Understanding rural young people
Diverse and invisible: Understanding rural young people
A young woman displays a product at a food fair in Luwingu, Zambia. Photo by J. Nkadaani/CIFOR
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
A young woman displays a product at a food fair in Luwingu, Zambia. Photo by J. Nkadaani/CIFOR
Globally, there are an estimated 1.8 billion young people between 10 to 24 years old. Of these, approximately 90 percent live in the developing world, and mostly in rural areas. Yet often, rural young people are poorly understood in research compared to more ‘visible’ groups, such as urban youth, particularly in Western countries.
This is of special concern to research partnerships such as CGIAR, because young people play critical roles in rural households and environmental transformations, but their interests are often inadequately addressed in programs and policies. However, as a significant social group now and in the future, their aspirations, dreams, opportunities and the particular challenges they face in rural areas deserve to be studied and understood in their own right.
Click hereto listen to the webinar recording or download the presentation.
FTA and the CGIAR gender platform hosted the hour-long webinar with key thinkers and practitioners working in youth and development studies in Latin America, Asia and Africa, to address key issues affecting today’s young people, as well as the role of institutions such as CGIAR in supporting the livelihoods of rural youth.
Children play in the La Roya community of the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by J. Carlos Huayllapuma/CIFOR
Rural young people’s challenges and opportunities
Jim Sumberg, a Research Fellow in the Rural Futures research cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), began by problematizing the idea of “the challenges and opportunities for rural young people.” He stressed the need to recognize the diversity within ‘youth’ based on gender, geography, and other factors of social differentiation, and the necessity of considering the specific social and political contexts where they live.
He highlighted the differences between the challenges that rural people face in general, because of, for example, systemic failures or structural issues; challenges that specifically affect rural young people primarily because they are young, have fewer resources, less life experience, and less developed networks, among other factors; and the challenges that affect young people because they are discriminated against or ‘invisible’ to other social groups and decision-makers.
For example, webinar panelist Daniela Rivas, the Peruvian country representative of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD), explained that in Peru, young people make up 27 percent of the total population, and 22 percent of the population is specifically composed of rural youth. However, government policy focuses on urban youth. This demonstrates how many indigenous and rural young people face challenges in simply having their voices heard, and therefore remain invisible to rural development initiatives.
Though many rural young men and women face challenges, they also have new opportunities. Jessica Clendenning, a PhD Candidate in Human Geography with the National University of Singapore, explained that as urban centers across the Global South continue to expand, the shape and nature of rural areas also change. New opportunities in rural and urban areas pertaining to forests and agricultural production, marketing and value chains are some such opportunities.
Critical, then, is that young people have access to education and training to gain the skills needed to capitalize on those opportunities, and to enable young people to pursue the types of work that interest them besides primary production.
High school students pose pose in Empangao village, Indonesia. Photo by L. McHugh/CIFOR
Role of CGIAR
What roles can CGIAR and FTA play in researching and working with rural youth? Fraser Sugden, a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham, and outgoing coordinator of the Gender, Youth and Inclusion theme in the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land, and Ecosystems (WLE), suggested that the CGIAR research community could play an important role in engaging with youth on the ground.
This does not necessarily mean encouraging young people to be farmers, but providing them with opportunities in agrobased enterprises and agricultural support services and investments, such as through extension services, research and investment in young agroentrepreneurs.
More broadly, Clendenning explained that CGIAR can use its research and action to address the large knowledge gaps surrounding youth issues in tree and agroforestry environments. For example, little is known about the effects that rural economic diversification, via remittances and migration, has on labor and changing land use dynamics, or about whether, why or when young migrants actually do return to live and work in their natal village areas.
The interests rural young women and men have in the forestry or agroforestry sectors, and the types of related schooling that is offered to them, also require attention. These questions demonstrate that longer term studies are needed to understand rural young men and women, and the ways they are embedded within their families, communities and broader social contexts.
The main takeaway message was the need for CGIAR and partners to see young women and men as a diverse social group that faces different challenges and opportunities. Research methods must recognize their particular experiences, and the intersecting factors of social difference, such as gender, class and ethnicity, all of which influence and shape their choices.
This means integrating young people into program design and development, and researching with young women and men, instead of simply about them.
By Manon Koningstein, FTA Gender Integration Team; Marlène Elias, FTA Gender Research Coordinator; and Jessica Clendenning, PhD candidate.
This work forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
Diverse and invisible: Understanding rural young people
Diverse and invisible: Understanding rural young people
23 November, 2017
A young woman displays a product at a food fair in Luwingu, Zambia. Photo by J. Nkadaani/CIFOR
Posted by
FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
A young woman displays a product at a food fair in Luwingu, Zambia. Photo by J. Nkadaani/CIFOR
Globally, there are an estimated 1.8 billion young people between 10 to 24 years old. Of these, approximately 90 percent live in the developing world, and mostly in rural areas. Yet often, rural young people are poorly understood in research compared to more ‘visible’ groups, such as urban youth, particularly in Western countries.
This is of special concern to research partnerships such as CGIAR, because young people play critical roles in rural households and environmental transformations, but their interests are often inadequately addressed in programs and policies. However, as a significant social group now and in the future, their aspirations, dreams, opportunities and the particular challenges they face in rural areas deserve to be studied and understood in their own right.
Click hereto listen to the webinar recording or download the presentation.
FTA and the CGIAR gender platform hosted the hour-long webinar with key thinkers and practitioners working in youth and development studies in Latin America, Asia and Africa, to address key issues affecting today’s young people, as well as the role of institutions such as CGIAR in supporting the livelihoods of rural youth.
Children play in the La Roya community of the Peruvian Amazon. Photo by J. Carlos Huayllapuma/CIFOR
Rural young people’s challenges and opportunities
Jim Sumberg, a Research Fellow in the Rural Futures research cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), began by problematizing the idea of “the challenges and opportunities for rural young people.” He stressed the need to recognize the diversity within ‘youth’ based on gender, geography, and other factors of social differentiation, and the necessity of considering the specific social and political contexts where they live.
He highlighted the differences between the challenges that rural people face in general, because of, for example, systemic failures or structural issues; challenges that specifically affect rural young people primarily because they are young, have fewer resources, less life experience, and less developed networks, among other factors; and the challenges that affect young people because they are discriminated against or ‘invisible’ to other social groups and decision-makers.
For example, webinar panelist Daniela Rivas, the Peruvian country representative of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD), explained that in Peru, young people make up 27 percent of the total population, and 22 percent of the population is specifically composed of rural youth. However, government policy focuses on urban youth. This demonstrates how many indigenous and rural young people face challenges in simply having their voices heard, and therefore remain invisible to rural development initiatives.
Though many rural young men and women face challenges, they also have new opportunities. Jessica Clendenning, a PhD Candidate in Human Geography with the National University of Singapore, explained that as urban centers across the Global South continue to expand, the shape and nature of rural areas also change. New opportunities in rural and urban areas pertaining to forests and agricultural production, marketing and value chains are some such opportunities.
Critical, then, is that young people have access to education and training to gain the skills needed to capitalize on those opportunities, and to enable young people to pursue the types of work that interest them besides primary production.
High school students pose pose in Empangao village, Indonesia. Photo by L. McHugh/CIFOR
Role of CGIAR
What roles can CGIAR and FTA play in researching and working with rural youth? Fraser Sugden, a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham, and outgoing coordinator of the Gender, Youth and Inclusion theme in the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land, and Ecosystems (WLE), suggested that the CGIAR research community could play an important role in engaging with youth on the ground.
This does not necessarily mean encouraging young people to be farmers, but providing them with opportunities in agrobased enterprises and agricultural support services and investments, such as through extension services, research and investment in young agroentrepreneurs.
More broadly, Clendenning explained that CGIAR can use its research and action to address the large knowledge gaps surrounding youth issues in tree and agroforestry environments. For example, little is known about the effects that rural economic diversification, via remittances and migration, has on labor and changing land use dynamics, or about whether, why or when young migrants actually do return to live and work in their natal village areas.
The interests rural young women and men have in the forestry or agroforestry sectors, and the types of related schooling that is offered to them, also require attention. These questions demonstrate that longer term studies are needed to understand rural young men and women, and the ways they are embedded within their families, communities and broader social contexts.
The main takeaway message was the need for CGIAR and partners to see young women and men as a diverse social group that faces different challenges and opportunities. Research methods must recognize their particular experiences, and the intersecting factors of social difference, such as gender, class and ethnicity, all of which influence and shape their choices.
This means integrating young people into program design and development, and researching with young women and men, instead of simply about them.
By Manon Koningstein, FTA Gender Integration Team; Marlène Elias, FTA Gender Research Coordinator; and Jessica Clendenning, PhD candidate.
This work forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development
Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development
Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D.Stoian/Bioversity International
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International
Recent findings evidenced that when forests are in the hands of local communities, governance, conservation and livelihoods improve.
Reform advocates claim that local communities are better stewards of forests than the state, particularly in settings where understaffing and other limitations do not allow government agencies to live up to their mandate.
There is increasing evidence that the devolution of rights to forest communities leads to a decrease in deforestation rates, better protection of biodiversity, and significant livelihood benefits of community members, especially if linked to the development of community forest enterprises.
Bioversity International and partners are contributing to this evidence base through large-scale socioeconomic surveys in the Petén region of Guatemala where 25-year forest concessions have been granted to the communities in the late 1990s.
CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientist Dietmar Stoian of Bioversity International, who has led this research since 2014 says: “For the first time there is a complete socioeconomic data set across the nine active concessions, which show that, if carefully managed, the community concessions allow local people to move out of poverty while conserving the forest and its inherent biodiversity.”
“While we observe significant variation across and within the concessions, community stewardship of the forest resources has proven to be a viable model for forest conservation and livelihoods development,” he adds.
Members of a community forest enterprise grade leaves of the Chamaedorea palm for export. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International
Over 40 researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, attended the workshop to take stock of existing evidence of the concessions’ environmental and socioeconomic performance and to discuss options going forward.
CIFOR scientist Steven Lawry explained in an interview with Forests News that the approach has produced positive results: “Deforestation rates within the concessions are markedly lower than in surrounding areas. Employment has increased, and community members receive dividends from timber sales.”
What is more, the resident forest communities are now able to make an income also from regulated hunting, collecting non-timber forest products, farming, and working off-farm. The diversification of their income sources contributes to their improved livelihoods by providing greater stability and food security.
“The community forest concession model has informed other ongoing processes for rights devolution in forest regions,” said Iliana Monterroso, co-organizer of the workshop on behalf of CIFOR. In fact, Indonesia, China and Colombia are looking at how the forest concession model might benefit their countries.
Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development
Community concessions bring newfound hope for forest conservation and socioeconomic development
10 November, 2017
Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D.Stoian/Bioversity International
Posted by
FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Men in a community forest enterprise in Petén, Guatemala, involved in milling precious woods. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International
Recent findings evidenced that when forests are in the hands of local communities, governance, conservation and livelihoods improve.
Reform advocates claim that local communities are better stewards of forests than the state, particularly in settings where understaffing and other limitations do not allow government agencies to live up to their mandate.
There is increasing evidence that the devolution of rights to forest communities leads to a decrease in deforestation rates, better protection of biodiversity, and significant livelihood benefits of community members, especially if linked to the development of community forest enterprises.
Bioversity International and partners are contributing to this evidence base through large-scale socioeconomic surveys in the Petén region of Guatemala where 25-year forest concessions have been granted to the communities in the late 1990s.
CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientist Dietmar Stoian of Bioversity International, who has led this research since 2014 says: “For the first time there is a complete socioeconomic data set across the nine active concessions, which show that, if carefully managed, the community concessions allow local people to move out of poverty while conserving the forest and its inherent biodiversity.”
“While we observe significant variation across and within the concessions, community stewardship of the forest resources has proven to be a viable model for forest conservation and livelihoods development,” he adds.
Members of a community forest enterprise grade leaves of the Chamaedorea palm for export. Photo by D. Stoian/Bioversity International
Over 40 researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, attended the workshop to take stock of existing evidence of the concessions’ environmental and socioeconomic performance and to discuss options going forward.
CIFOR scientist Steven Lawry explained in an interview with Forests News that the approach has produced positive results: “Deforestation rates within the concessions are markedly lower than in surrounding areas. Employment has increased, and community members receive dividends from timber sales.”
What is more, the resident forest communities are now able to make an income also from regulated hunting, collecting non-timber forest products, farming, and working off-farm. The diversification of their income sources contributes to their improved livelihoods by providing greater stability and food security.
“The community forest concession model has informed other ongoing processes for rights devolution in forest regions,” said Iliana Monterroso, co-organizer of the workshop on behalf of CIFOR. In fact, Indonesia, China and Colombia are looking at how the forest concession model might benefit their countries.
Gender-responsive methodology for value chain development
Gender-responsive methodology for value chain development
Testing the 5Capitals-G methodology in India. Photo by Shrinivas Hegde
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Testing the 5Capitals-G methodology in India. Photo by Shrinivas Hegde
Over the past decade, value chain development has been widely promoted as a catalyst for rural economic growth.
As smallholder farmers become increasingly integrated into value chains, how can scholars and development practitioners ensure that the benefits of participation accrue equitably to both women and men? This was the topic of a workshop hosted by Bioversity International and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) at the recent Tropentag 2017 conference.
The workshop centered around insights resulting from the testing of 5Capitals-G, a gender-responsive methodology building on the 5Capitals toolkit for assessing the poverty impacts of value chain development. It addresses the principal gaps identified in existing guides for gender-equitable value chain development. These gaps include limited coverage of the way norms influence gender relations, gender-equitable opportunities in collective enterprises, and how value chain development can effectively transform inequitable gender relations.
For this reason, 5Capitals-G examines gender-differentiated asset endowments at the level of both smallholder households and the collective enterprises they are often linked with, and by identifying gender-based constraints shaped by cultural norms and values.
“We started with an overview of strengths and weaknesses of common guides for gender-equitable value chain development designed by international organizations” said Dietmar Stoian, Senior Scientist for Value Chains and Private Sector Engagement at Bioversity, and a coorganizer of the workshop.
“With these in mind, we presented findings from our recent validation of 5Capitals-G as to how women and men have access to, control, and build assets at household and collective enterprise level. Based on this, we can determine the extent to which asset endowments and asset building are gender equitable and adjust value chain interventions accordingly.”
Assessing the poverty impacts of value chain development
Addressing the principal gaps identified in existing guides for gender-equitable value chain development, Bioversity International and ICRAF have joined forces to strengthen the gender dimension of 5Capitals. This new version of the methodology allows for the establishment of gender-responsive baselines and the assessment of gender-differentiated impacts of value chain development among smallholders and other resource-poor groups involved in value chains.
“Two interrelated ideas underpin the design of 5Capitals-G: the poor’s access to assets is a critical entry point for their effective participation in value chains, and the poor’s capacity to build assets through value chain engagement can provide a viable pathway out of poverty,” explained Jason Donovan, Leader for Value Chains and Transformational Change at ICRAF.
“5Capitals-G provides insight into what assets are available in households and collective enterprises, which of these are more controlled by men or women, and which are managed jointly. We are particularly interested in understanding positive feedback loops between asset building at household and asset building at enterprise level.”
Insights from Asia and Latin America
5Capitals-G has been tested across diverse settings in Guatemala, India and Peru, providing valuable insights for improving the design of the tool and guidance for the interpretation of results. These adjustments ensure that practioners will be able to count on a validated methodology for enhancing the design, implementation and assessment of gender-equitable value chain development initiatives.
Panelists at the workshop on gender equitable value chains held at Tropentag 2017 included Ana Maria Paez-Valencia (left to right), Trent Blare, Jason Donovan, Dietmar Stoian, Gennifer Meldrum and Hugo Lamers. Photo by Susan Onyango/ICRAF
Hugo Lamers, Associate Scientist in Socioeconomics and Marketing at Bioversity International, used the methodology in the value chains of non-timber forest products such as mango, murugulu (Garcinia indica) and uppage (Garcinia gummigatta) in Karnataka, India.
“Besides taking care of domestic activities, women contributed substantially to income generation through wage labour, farming and collection of forest products,” said Lamers. “We learned that the major bottleneck for women’s participation in local cooperatives is the rule of ‘one member per household’, resulting in a largely male-dominated member base of most cooperatives.”
Gennifer Meldrum, Research Fellow in Nutrition, Marketing and Diversity at Bioversity International, tested the methodology with local partners in millet value chains in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, India.
“The collective enterprise we studied has contributed to asset building across all the five capitals. Women’s participation in cooperative leadership and millet value chain activities are strongly encouraged by the Federation,” she said. “However, a male bias remains due to women’s limitations in terms of time and mobility. Physical assets households have acquired through value chain participation are very rarely controlled by women alone, but often benefit the household as a whole.”
Further testing of 5Capitals-G was done in the cocoa value chain in Peru. “In addition to the important role women play in the production of cocoa, we were surprised to discover the strong influence they had in production and marketing decisions,” said Trent Blair, Markets and Value Chain Specialist at ICRAF.
“We realized that a stronger role of women in cocoa and other value chains in Peru is hampered by their limited access to information, technical assistance and training. This requires specific efforts for targeted value chain development interventions to ensure equitable capacity development.”
Interviewing smallholder households in Peru. Photo by Trent Blare/ICRAF
Stoian, together with local partners in Petén, Guatemala, tested 5Capitals-G in value chains of valuable woods including mahogany and tropical walnut, and non-timber forest products such as Chamaedorea palm and Maya nut (Brosimum alicastrum).
“We found evidence that under given conditions income derived from forest products can help people move out of poverty. In terms of reinvestment of forest-based income we learned that decision making at household level was rather equitable with regard to building human and social capitals, while investment decisions on natural, physical and financial capitals were more skewed toward men,” he shared.
“At the level of community forest enterprises, women have recently assumed stronger roles in production and decision making, particularly as regards non-timber forest products, but timber activities and related decisions continue to be largely a male domain.”
Implications for gender-equitable value chain development
“Gender dimensions of access to and control over assets and other resources have an important impact on the opportunities and constraints that women and men face when participating in value chain development initiatives,” said Ana María Paez Valencia, Gender Social Scientist at ICRAF, who moderated the workshop.
In synthesizing the discussion, she pointed out that differential access and control over assets has implications on women’s bargaining position within households to make strategic household and life decisions, as well as their ability to assume new roles or opportunities resulting from value chain initiatives.
“Looking forward, it would be interesting to use 5Capitals-G for insights into the impact of the gender asset gap on household livelihood outcomes in the context of value chain development; and to better understand the trade-offs between increased value chain engagement of women and the time they invest in other activities including those related to household care,” she added.
Outlook
Participants at the workshop expressed interest in 5Capitals-G, which will be available in early 2018, along with the documented findings of the case studies. As Stoian and Donovan summarized at the end of the workshop: “5Capitals-G will be a key methodology for all practitioners interested in asset-based approaches to value chain development with a gender lens.”
This work was supported by the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and CGIAR Research Programs Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), which are supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
Bioversity International and ICRAF thank Lutheran World Relief, Rainforest Alliance and USAID for funding this work.
Guiding the conservation of food tree species in Burkina Faso with a threat-mapping approach
Guiding the conservation of food tree species in Burkina Faso with a threat-mapping approach
Shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) in agroforestry parkland. Photo by H. Gaisberger/Bioversity International
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
A shea tree in agroforestry parkland. Photo by H. Gaisberger/Bioversity International
Agroforestry parklands are among the most widespread traditional land-use systems in sub-Saharan Africa, where scattered individual trees occur on cultivated fields. Over the last decades, agroforestry parklands in Burkina Faso have come under increasing demographic and climatic pressures, which are threatening indigenous tree species that contribute to rural households’ income and nutrition.
In a paper published in PLOS ONE, FTA researchers from Bioversity International and the World Agroforestry Centre analyzed 16 important food tree species in Burkina Faso and six key threats to them: overexploitation, overgrazing, fire, cotton production, mining and climate change. This analysis is crucial to plan for timely and more selective and efficient conservation actions.
Figure 2: Combined threat magnitude levels ‘high’ and ‘very high’ for all species across all threats and protected areas. Photo by H. Gaisberger/Bioversity International
Our species-specific threat model, developed with national and international partners, combines freely accessible datasets, species distribution models (SDMs), climate models and expert survey results. The model is able to predict, at a fine-scale, where multiple threats are likely to have a negative impact on the availability of suitable habitat in the present and near future. This approach helps to determine which threat contributes most to high-threat levels in certain areas of the country. This is fundamental to guide specific conservation actions such as ex situ conservation, active regeneration and tree planting.
We have found that all 16 species face serious threats throughout much of their distribution in Burkina Faso, and that climate change is predicted to be the most prevalent threat in the long term, whereas overexploitation and cotton production are the most important in the short term.
More than 55% of the distribution of ten of the species is under high or very high threat (Figure 2). Conservation plans – prioritizing the species and if possible, the populations, that are most important to local people – should be urgently developed.
For example, Vitellaria paradoxa, a multipurpose tree with a wide range of food and medicinal uses, is very highly threatened by climate change along its northern margin (Figure 3). Valuable seed sources in this area may be lost unless seed is collected for planting in more suitable climate and/or for ex situ conservation. Populations highly threatened by overexploitation in the central part of Burkina Faso should be prioritized for assisted regeneration as they grow in areas where predicted future climate would produce suitable habitat.
Figure 3: Threat magnitude levels of ‘Climate change’ for shea tree. Photo by H. Gaisberger/Bioversity International
Knowing the regions where threats are most serious allows decision-makers to plan actions at the population level to maintain the genetic diversity across the species’ distribution range. High genetic diversity is important to ensure growth and resilience to site conditions now and in the future.
In the same way, recommendations can be derived from threat maps of the other selected food tree species such as Parkia biglobosa,Adansonia digitata,Boscia senegalensis and Detarium microcarpum.
This approach can be easily used with other species and in other countries, and applied at different scales, from local to continental level, as long as appropriate spatial data and knowledgeable experts are available.
Using maps to visualize threats and their predicted impact is very powerful – it makes results easily accessible and understandable to decision-makers from private and public agencies, who can take action to conserve vulnerable species.
The GIS threat layers to create the threat maps are accessible on Dataverse.
This study was carried out within the framework of the project ‘Threats to priority food tree species in Burkina Faso: Drivers of resource losses and mitigation measures’, financed by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and through contributions from the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA), which is supported by CGIAR Fund Donors.
Spatially explicit multi-threat assessment of food tree species in Burkina Faso: A fine-scale approach
Spatially explicit multi-threat assessment of food tree species in Burkina Faso: A fine-scale approach
26 September, 2017
Posted by
FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Abstract
Over the last decades agroforestry parklands in Burkina Faso have come under increasing demographic as well as climatic pressures, which are threatening indigenous tree species that contribute substantially to income generation and nutrition in rural households. Analyzing the threats as well as the species vulnerability to them is fundamental for priority setting in conservation planning.
Guided by literature and local experts we selected 16 important food tree species (Acacia macrostachya, Acacia senegal, Adansonia digitata, Annona senegalensis, Balanites aegyptiaca, Bombax costatum, Boscia senegalensis, Detarium microcarpum, Lannea microcarpa, Parkia biglobosa, Sclerocarya birrea, Strychnos spinosa, Tamarindus indica, Vitellaria paradoxa, Ximenia americana, Ziziphus mauritiana) and six key threats to them (overexploitation, overgrazing, fire, cotton production, mining and climate change).
We developed a species-specific and spatially explicit approach combining freely accessible datasets, species distribution models (SDMs), climate models and expert survey results to predict, at fine scale, where these threats are likely to have the greatest impact. We find that all species face serious threats throughout much of their distribution in Burkina Faso and that climate change is predicted to be the most prevalent threat in the long term, whereas overexploitation and cotton production are the most important short-term threats. Tree populations growing in areas designated as ‘highly threatened’ due to climate change should be used as seed sources for ex situ conservation and planting in areas where future climate is predicting suitable habitats. Assisted regeneration is suggested for populations in areas where suitable habitat under future climate conditions coincides with high threat levels due to short-term threats.
In the case of Vitellaria paradoxa, we suggest collecting seed along the northern margins of its distribution and considering assisted regeneration in the central part where the current threat level is high due to overexploitation. In the same way, population-specific recommendations can be derived from the individual and combined threat maps of the other 15 food tree species. The approach can be easily transferred to other countries and can be used to analyze general and species specific threats at finer and more local as well as at broader (continental) scales in order to plan more selective and efficient conservation actions in time. The concept can be applied anywhere as long as appropriate spatial data are available as well as knowledgeable experts.
Why should China include a gender perspective in its climate change policies?
Why should China include a gender perspective in its climate change policies?
A Tibetan woman waters barley and vegetables. Photo by ICRAF
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
A Tibetan woman waters barley and vegetables. Photo by ICRAF
Women are playing a leading role in coping with and adapting to climate change in the mountainous rural areas of China’s Yunnan province, where disruptions in weather patterns and increasingly extreme events are expected to impact agricultural livelihoods.
However, while women are assuming more responsibility than men, their voices are mostly excluded from the policy-making processes that affect their daily lives.
A study on adaptation to water related hazards and climate change conducted in this southwestern province by researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences demonstrates the importance of gender inclusion in responses to climate change in the region and warns that the lack of a gender perspective in Chinese policy-making could undermine climate adaptation efforts. The study was part of an international research project under the Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme (HICAP).
“Women in the region have important responsibilities as managers of natural and household resources and are therefore well positioned to contribute to adaptation strategies. But they are more vulnerable than men to climate change as they face more social, economic, and political barriers limiting their adaptive capacity,” said Su Yufang, ICRAF China’s deputy director and the lead author of the study.
“HICAP is generating knowledge of climate change impacts on natural resources, ecosystem services and the communities that depend on them, contributing to policy and practice for enhanced adaptation.”
Based on surveys undertaken during a record-breaking drought in 2012, the study explores how women and men in Haitang, a village in Yunnan’s Baoshan Prefecture, perceive and respond to drought and how the changing roles of women and men in the home and the community are influencing water management at the village level.
A woman and child cross a river, in an area where poverty is often caused by physical inaccessibility for mountain people. Photo by ICRAF
In Haitang, off-farm wage labor outside the community has for some years been an important income-generating strategy. As the drought continued, increasing numbers of men as well as some younger women migrated, and the remaining women assumed more responsibility for agricultural production. However, traditional social norms continue to limit women’s decision-making power in household farming enterprises and in community resource management.
Water management and gender
One of the important findings from the study was that men and women use strikingly different approaches when faced with water shortages and their consequences on agriculture. Less than half of the men in the village reported simply waiting for the rain, while less than a fifth reported transporting water to their crops.
The preferences for women, however, were reversed, with just under half reporting that they transported water to their crops, and less than one fifth claiming to simply wait for rain. In addition, the women actively pursued more immediate responses to drought than men by, for example, decreasing the cultivated area or adjusting the timing of planting. And as the drought continued, men and women showed further differences, with women being more likely to consider shifting into forestry and animal husbandry after successive low yields.
Another interesting finding related to the definition of “collecting water”. Men understood gathering water as looking for new sources of water when old sources dried up, which is their main responsibility, but the actual carrying was primarily women’s responsibility. But while the men believed they were responsible for coping with the water shortage in the household, it was actually women’s daily workload that was more significantly increased.
A Tibetan girl holds a baby yak, a animal that helps to provide energy for heating and cooking in rural areas. Photo by ICRAF
At the community level the study observed that although technically possible, no woman has ever been appointed as a water manager. The managers are selected by the village committee and approved by a meeting of the villagers’ representatives. They are responsible for water tank and pipe maintenance and for domestic water allocation at the village level.
Both men and women said that this was due to the skills and physical strength needed to repair pipes and water infrastructure, as well as a perception that it fell outside women’s traditional domestic roles. However, as water scarcity continued, conflicts over water allocation became more frequent, and both men and women acknowledged that women have become increasingly active in monitoring water allocation along with water managers in order to reduce the risk of fights among the men. Women are seen as able to solve these conflicts and ensure equal distribution through negotiation rather than physical fighting.
A socioeconomic focus for China’s climate change adaptation policies
As the effects of climate change become more tangible, national and provincial governments have announced new policies and governance mechanisms for drought response and climate change adaptation, but none of these policies address gender issues.
The case for more attention to the gender dimensions and impacts of climate change becomes critical as agricultural production becomes increasingly feminized and women take on multiple and non-traditional roles. The study’s findings indicate that women are taking on an increasingly active role in managing water during droughts but they are still excluded from formal decision-making about water management at the community level.
Based on these findings, the study recommends the adoption of new climate change policies that:
Consider gendered differences in vulnerability and value women’s traditional knowledge and practical experience.
Provide local communities, and particularly women, with climate change information and technologies to improve their adaptive capacity.
Ensure women’s participation in the planning and construction of drinking water and irrigation facilities to ensure these facilities meet women’s needs.
Support women’s participation in community-based water management bodies, and promote the development of women’s organizations.
The lack of information and meaningful engagement with gender issues could lead to unfit government-supported adaptation responses that may not address the different priorities and needs of rural women, further marginalizing them, and will hinder the opportunity to benefit from women’s active contribution to water management.
By Ana Maria Paez-Valencia and Manon Koningstein, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World.
This research is part of the Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme (HICAP), which is supported by the governments of Norway and Sweden and jointly implemented by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research at Oslo (CICERO) and GRID-Arendal in collaboration with local partners. Additional funding was provided by the gender cross-cutting component of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).
Gendered Responses to Drought in Yunnan Province, China
Gendered Responses to Drought in Yunnan Province, China
21 August, 2017
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
Vulnerability to and perceptions of climate change may be significantly affected by gender. However, in China, gender is rarely addressed in climate adaption or resource management strategies. This paper demonstrates the relevance of gender in responses to climate change in the mountainous province of Yunnan in southwest China.
Based on surveys undertaken during a record-breaking drought, the paper explores how women and men in a village in Baoshan Prefecture differ in their perceptions of and responses to drought, and how the changing roles of women and men in the home and the community are influencing water management at the village level.
Our results show that despite the increasingly active role of women in managing water during the drought, they are excluded from community-level decision-making about water. The paper argues that given the importance of gender differences in perceptions of and responses to drought, the lack of a gender perspective in Chinese policy may undermine efforts to support local resource management and climate adaptation.
For secure land rights, indigenous forest communities need more than just titles
For secure land rights, indigenous forest communities need more than just titles
The native lands of the Tres Islas community are seen in Peru. Photo by CIFOR Photo/Juan Carlos Huay llapuma
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FTA COMMUNICATIONS TEAM
The native lands of the Tres Islas community are seen in Peru. Photo by CIFOR/Juan Carlos Huay llapuma
While securing a land title may be a key step for forest-dependent communities, it is not sufficient to ensure legal rights and improve livelihoods, study highlights.
Under Peruvian law, a title gives traditional forest communities rights over land, but resources on that land, such as forests, formally remain the property of the state. In order to use these resources, communities are required to follow additional procedures to obtain permits and authorizations.
This was the case faced by the indigenous community of Tres Islas in the Amazonian region of Madre de Dios – despite securing a land title more than 20 years ago, non-governmental organizations working in the region have reported that a large portion of the community’s territory is overlapped by mining permits.
The law states that indigenous communities may be granted communal titles over agrarian lands, but rights over forests are limited to usufruct contracts – that is, the right to use, but not own, the resources found there.
Furthermore, while the government recognizes indigenous communities’ long-term-use rights over forestlands, it reserves the right to grant time-limited concessions to companies and individuals, for example for extractive activities such as timber or mining, often within the same territory. This inevitably leads to overlapping land rights and, sometimes, conflict.
In 2010, the people of Tres Islas decided to build a fence to keep out miners and loggers who had been granted permits to use land under their title without the community’s authorization. Community leaders thought that they were exercising their rights when they decided to limit access by outsiders, but instead their fence was destroyed, and they were sued and incarcerated.
After years of conflict, the community took their case to the Peruvian Constitutional Court and won, establishing a legal precedent that ensures protection of indigenous territorial autonomy and requires community consultation in any case that directly affects indigenous territory.
“The case in Tres Islas shows the challenges that many traditional communities face across the globe, where titles or formal recognition don’t fully ensure rights, tenure security or the improvement of livelihoods,” says Iliana Monterroso, a researcher who leads the Centre for International Forestry Research’s (CIFOR) Global Comparative Study on Forest Tenure Reform in Peru.
An historical analysis performed as part of the study also shows that while governments continue to discuss reforms to simplify regulations, it is indigenous movements and non-profit organizations that have been instrumental in ensuring that communities receive technical support to comply with norms and establish a better position from which to benefit from the resources available in their forestlands.
“The findings suggest that continued support is needed to ensure that communities can develop the skills to take advantage of acquired rights. While a title or certification is very important, there are other things to consider as part of these reform processes,” Monterroso says.
By Yoly Gutierrez, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News.
Restoration 
Plantations and tree crop commodities 
Enhanced nutrition and food security 
Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation 
Nationally determined contributions 
Bioenergy and biomaterials 
Blue carbon and peatlands 
Climate change adaptation 
Landscape governance 
Gender 
Silvopastoral systems 
Market-based agroforestry-forestry 
Farm-forest policy interface 
Agroecology 
Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment 
Inclusive finance and business models 
Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes 
Public and private commitments to zero deforestation 
Orphan tree crops 
Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply 
Quality of FTA research for development 
Sentinel landscapes 
Foresight 
Seeds and seedlings delivery systems 
Smallholder tree-crop commodities 
