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Just Launched! Diversity of agroforestry practices in Viet Nam, report by ICRAF


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Originally posted on World Agroforestry’s website.

In Southeast Asia, Viet Nam is a leader in characterisation and classification of agroforestry systems for various eco agricultural zones. The book pushes the country further into the lead.

A new book, Diversity of agroforestry practices in Viet Nam, was launched on 21 March 2021 on the International Day of Forests and Trees by World Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Viet Nam.

Diversity of agroforestry practices in Viet Nam [PDF]
“This publication describes the high diversity of agroforestry practices in Viet Nam,” said Rachmat Mulia, agroforestry researcher with ICRAF Viet Nam and one of the editors of the book, “and supports a wider development of agroforestry.”

“We provide information about the main characteristics of the systems, such as plant components and common design, including their distribution across the country,’ added Nguyen Mai Phuong, agroforestry researcher with ICRAF Viet Nam and the other editor of the book. ‘In addition, for most of the systems presented, we provide photos for better illustration.”

Agroforestry has been practised in Viet Nam for decades in the form of traditional models, such as forest–garden– fishpond–livestock systems in the lowlands and fruit or timber tree-based models in the uplands. According to the Spatially Characterized Agroforestry online database, the total area of agroforestry in the country had reached about 900,000 hectares during 2013–2014.

Owing to agroforestry’s potential for addressing the global challenges of food insecurity and the climate crisis, enhanced knowledge of its scope, diversity and potential benefits are considered necessary for the authorities, agricultural practitioners, and the research and development sectors. In addition, knowledge of, and work towards, removing barriers to agroforestry adoption at national and sub-national levels will help accelerate agroforestry development and help meet its fullest potential.

Docynia indica is considered as one of Viet Nam’s special fruits. Here, it is growing with upland rice in Son La Province, North West Region. Photo: World Agroforestry/Nguyen Mai Phuong

Agroforestry development can also support Viet Nam in achieving targets of several national policies. The country has included agroforestry in its 2020 Nationally Determined Contributions as a measure for land conservation to maintain food production and for carbon sequestration to combat the climate crisis.

“This book will become one of the most important publications by ICRAF Viet Nam,” said Nguyen Quang Tan, country representative for ICRAF Viet Nam. “It can generate longer-term and broader positive impact for the country, in particular, and for research in development of agroforestry worldwide. We purposely selected 21 March 2021 as the day to launch the book, that is, the International Day of Forests and Trees, to signify that agroforestry, through its capacity to generate various products and services, can also contribute to forest conservation.”

The book is divided into three parts. First, it provides main characteristics of 48 agroforestry systems spread across 42 provinces in Viet Nam during 2013–2014, as found in the Spatially Characterized Agroforestry database. Second, it presents agroforestry systems documented in different projects and studies implemented by ICRAF Viet Nam. And the third part is other agroforestry systems in Viet Nam documented in the literature.

 

Download the book

Mulia R, Nguyen MP, eds. 2021. Diversity of agroforestry practices in Viet Nam. Ha Noi, Viet Nam: World Agroforestry (ICRAF).

This article was produced by World Agroforestry.

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 ICRAF, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CATIE, CIRAD, INBAR and TBI. FTA’s work is supported by the CGIAR Trust Fund.

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  • New FTA typology of interventions for guiding land restoration

New FTA typology of interventions for guiding land restoration


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Restored corridor in Itapu. Photo by Yoly Guterrez/CIFOR
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Originally published on the World Agroforestry website.

Restoration of degraded forests and landscapes is becoming increasingly important thanks to major commitments, such as the Bonn Challenge, the New York Declaration on Forests and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Restoration work is now underway around the world, including through the 15 agricultural research centres that make up the CGIAR, a global science partnership for a food-secure future.

To assess effectiveness and assist with speeding restoration, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) made restoration one of its research priorities. FTA teamed up with two other research programs — Policies, Institutions and Markets; and Water, Land and Ecosystems — to undertake a joint stocktake of the work on forest and landscape restoration of several of the CGIAR’s member centres. The synthesis study was published on 3 August 2020.

The three research programs agreed on a broad scope of restoration, focused on the restoration of ‘ecological functions’ and efforts to halt ongoing and reverse past degradation by aiming for increased functionality but not necessarily recovering past system states.

Building upon this work, a team of FTA researchers worked on a typology of the different approaches to restoration, now published in the journal, Land.

‘We identified the need to uncover the diverse understanding and perspectives about “restoration” and to construct a typology that can help to clarify contrasts, similarities and possible synergies,’ said Meine van Noordwijk, distinguished research fellow with World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and lead author of the study. ‘The aims of the typology are to better describe the links between evolving knowledge, stakeholder-driven action, and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.’

This is important because with the goal of reversing centuries of damage to forests, wetlands and other ecosystems, getting it right is key to putting the planet back on a sustainable course. However, despite the high level of political engagement and the number and diversity of people and institutions involved from the public and private sectors, civil society and local communities, research and academia, restoration is not happening at a wide scale across the globe.

The key to this problem is whether restoration goals and means are aligned with the priorities of the people who live in, and gain their long-term livelihoods from, the landscapes to be restored.

The typology has three main components. First, it distinguishes four levels of restoration, ranging from the lowest level of intensity of intervention to the highest:

  1. Ecological intensification;
  2. Recovery and regeneration;
  3. Reparation and recuperation; and
  4. Remediation.

Second, the huge diversity of interventions possible in this range can be broadly classified into

  1. Leave alone;
  2. Assisted or managed natural regeneration; and
  3. Tree and grass planting.

The third component is a typology of contexts, which is fundamental to understanding the suitability and effectiveness of an intervention. The typology of contexts is based on the forest transition concept: 1) forest fraction; 2) forest configuration (core, edge and mosaic); and 3) human population density, with the addition of six ‘special places’ because of their specific importance in interactions between ecosystem functions and human activities: 1) watertowers; 2) riparian zones and wetlands; 3) peat landscapes; 4) small islands and mangroves in coastal zones; 5) mining scars; and 6) transport infrastructure. Further descriptors of context that are relevant for restoration are the climatic zones and soil properties.

‘The typology will be useful in view of the lack of such structured interpretations,’ said van Noordwijk. ‘It can support further studies on the effectiveness of interventions in different contexts.’

The complete typology can be found in the open-access article, People-centric nature-based land restoration through agroforestry: a typology, in the journal Land.

 

Learn more about the typology
Van Noordwijk M, Gitz V, Minang PA, Dewi S, Leimona B, Duguma LA, Pingault N, Meybeck A. 2020. People-centric nature-based land restoration through agroforestry: a typology. Land 9(8). https://doi.org/10.3390/land9080251

Read about the joint stocktaking work on forest and landscape restoration
Gitz V, Place F, Koziell I, Pingault N, van Noordwijk M, Meybeck A, Minang P. 2020. A joint stocktaking of CGIAR work on forest and landscape restoration. Working Paper 4. Bogor, Indonesia: CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

About World Agroforestry (ICRAF)
World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.

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

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  • Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success

Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success

25 February, 2019

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This collection of 12 stories from women and men in nine countries in different parts of Africa shines a light on the efforts of communities, some of them decades-long, in restoring degraded forests and landscapes. The stories are not generated through any rigorous scientific process, but are nonetheless illustrative of the opportunities communities create as they solve their own problems, and of the many entry points we have for supporting and accelerating community effort. The stories show that leadership, social capital and cooperation, clear property rights/tenure, and supportive governance are important for successful community-based restoration. From the perspectives of communities, “success” is not only about the number of trees planted and standing over a certain terrain: it is also about the ability to secure and enhance livelihoods; to strengthen existing community relationships and to build new ones with other actors; to develop a conservation ethic among younger generations; and, in some cases, to expand the rights of excluded individuals and groups. This collection is about amplifying the voices of local people in global policy debates.

Foreword. Communities restoring landscapes: Stories of resilience and success

Story 1. Holding back the desert: One farmer’s story of restoring degraded land in the Sahel region in Burkina Faso

Story 2. Women gaining ground through reforestation on the Cameroonian coast

Story 3. Building resilience to climate change through community forest restoration in Ghana

Story 4. Thinking in tomorrow: Women leading forest restoration in Mt Kenya and beyond

Story 5. Mikoko Pamoja: Carbon credits and community-based reforestation in Kenya’s mangroves

Story 6. Rights, responsibilities and collaboration: The Ogiek and tree growing in the Mau

Story 7. Restoring Madagascar’s mangroves: Community-led conservation makes for multiple benefits

Story 8. Flood recovery, livelihood protection and mangrove reforestation in the Limpopo River Estuary, Mozambique

Story 9. Regaining their lost paradise: Communities rehabilitating mangrove forests in the drought-affected Saloum Delta, Senegal

Story 10. From the grass roots to the corridors of power: Scaling up efforts for conservation and reforestation in Senegal

Story 11. Taming the rising tide: Keeping the ocean at bay through community reforestation on Kisiwa Panza island, Tanzania

Story 12. Shaking the tree: Challenging gender, tenure and leadership norms through collaborative reforestation in Central Uganda

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  • Creating blue carbon opportunities in the maritime archipelago Indonesia

Creating blue carbon opportunities in the maritime archipelago Indonesia

17 December, 2018

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Key messages

  • Preserving intact ecosystems is financially more effective than restoring degraded ones. We therefore propose a moratorium on further conversion of mangroves. By doing so, there is the potential to generate $3 billion (USD) in abatement costs annually.
  • A science-backed plan, including mapping, for restoring priority degraded blue carbon ecosystems will build climate change resilience and improve livelihoods.
  • Activating the existing regulatory framework and its governance at provincial level is essential to meet national low carbon development goals and align with global agenda.
  • Opportunities for funding restoration include public and private partnerships, and new innovative finance solutions. Income from the blue economy (fishing, shipping and eco-tourism) in productive zones could also contribute to restoration.

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  • Seagrass meadows: Underutilized and over-damaged carbon sinks

Seagrass meadows: Underutilized and over-damaged carbon sinks

30 July, 2018

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Fishing boats rest on the shore at a research site in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

As global conservation awareness about mangroves, salt marshes and other coastal ecosystems continues to grow, seagrass meadows are being left at the bottom.

Hidden underwater, seagrass meadows may cover less than .2% of the ocean floor, but they are responsible for an estimated 10% or more of the ‘blue’ carbon sequestered by the ocean each year – storing only slightly less carbon per hectare than well-known mangrove ecosystems. And unlike forests, which rerelease the carbon they store after decades or centuries, seagrass meadows can hold onto their carbon stocks for millennia.

Lung-like in function, 1 square meter of seagrass can generate 10 liters of oxygen daily to its surrounding waters while filtering out pollutants and adding in nutrients that feed its inhabitant manatees, turtles, seahorses, sharks and dugong – as well as fisheries. A recent study says seagrass meadows are grounds for a fifth of the world’s top 25 fisheries, making them crucial to global food security and livelihoods.

Yet, these ecosystems are rapidly deteriorating, their rate of decline increasing from .9% before 1940 to 7% since 1990. In total, an estimated 29% of all seagrass meadows have vanished. Scientists say this rate is equal to the loss of a football field’s worth of seagrass every half hour.

In consequence, seagrass carbon stocks can be – and often are – released in an instant. Warmer waters from climate change, or the drop of an anchor, can unearth carbon that has been stored for thousands of years.

At the recent Blue Carbon Summit in Jakarta, researchers examining seagrass in Indonesia shared findings on these under-researched ecosystems, and what needs to be done to ensure their longevity going forward.

Read also: Failure to manage blue carbon ecosystems could break the internet

A patch of mangroves leans against the wind and waves in Rio Tumbes, Peru. Photo by B. Locatelli/CIFOR

FROM THE LAND TO THE SEA

About 100 million years ago, species of flowering plants migrated from terrestrial to aquatic environments, maintaining their roots, veins, and ability to produce flowers and seeds as they went. More closely related to palms and lilies than their much-simpler seaweed doppelgangers, seagrass reproduces via hydrophilic pollination and exchanges nutrients and gases with water through its leaves.

Now, some 72 species of seagrass exist around the world, varying in adaptation across different latitudes, water temperatures, tides, wave exposure and sediment substrate types of the sea floor. They can make their home in sub-tidal depths of up to 40 meters, in mud and silt, in sand coarse or fine, in coral alive and dead, and in areas with other competing species.

Subsequently, the way seagrass stores carbon also varies from place to place, dependent on similar factors. If a meadow is composed of one or many seagrass species, the carbon storage is affected. If the species are big or small, the carbon storage is affected. If the water gets warmer, or size of sand particles gets larger, or a migratory species comes passing through, the carbon storage is affected.

Protecting, managing and restoring seagrass meadows, then, begins with knowing the site-specificity of species and carbon storage. Off the south coast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, for instance, Rohani Ambo-Rappe, Faculty of Marine and Fisheries at Hasanuddin University, found that meadows with high exposure to waves stored more carbon in the aboveground biomass of its seagrass, while low-exposure zones saw more carbon stored in roots below the sediment surface.

Meanwhile, in West and East Java, Dr. Devi Choesin from the Bandung Institute of Technology found that most carbon was stored below the sediment across the board, though with a great degree of variability. Given the wide number of contingencies at play, research methods for seagrass, she said, are difficult to standardize, contributing in part to the relative lack of data on seagrass so far.

“How much seagrass is left in Indonesia? If you ask 10 people, you’ll get 10 different answers,” said Tonny Wagey, Executive Director of the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund.

Read also: Governing mangroves: From Tanzania to Indonesia

FACTORING IN THE INVISIBLE

The reasons for the decline of seagrass range from the usual suspects – water pollution, plastic waste, eutrophication, tourism development – to the less obvious, such as overgrazing of sea turtles, waves and water currents.

But because of the extant lack of attention and scientific focus on these ecosystems, they have yet to be formally included in major global initiatives and platforms, such as REDD+ and the UNFCCC agenda.

Within the agenda of Indonesia – which has the second-largest seagrass landscape globally, after Australia – the ambitious national goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 26% by 2020 could use the help of seagrass, speakers at the Summit said, rather than putting all of the pressure on land-based ecosystems.

Sustainable management and development of seagrass in sectors such as fisheries can also contribute to the country’s Low Carbon Development initiative, as well as local enterprises making use of seagrass in its more traditional purposes: for fertilizer, furniture and building materials, and medical bandages and supplies. To meet President Joko Widodo’s bid to reduce plastic waste 70% by 2025, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources said that seagrass along with cassava can be used in lieu of plastic in drinking water bottles.

In the ‘white papers’ being developed by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and partners to inform future Indonesian policy – a foremost outcome of the Summit – seagrass is included in the first recommendation, highlighting its crucial role in keeping pace with sea level rise, an important step toward changing the tide for these ecosystems.

Watch: Protecting North Sumatran mangroves, supporting biodiversity, people and the world

By Gabrielle Lipton, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News. 

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

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Seagrass meadows: Underutilized and over-damaged carbon sinks


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Fishing boats rest on the shore at a research site in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by M. Edliadi/CIFOR

As global conservation awareness about mangroves, salt marshes and other coastal ecosystems continues to grow, seagrass meadows are being left at the bottom.

Hidden underwater, seagrass meadows may cover less than .2% of the ocean floor, but they are responsible for an estimated 10% or more of the ‘blue’ carbon sequestered by the ocean each year – storing only slightly less carbon per hectare than well-known mangrove ecosystems. And unlike forests, which rerelease the carbon they store after decades or centuries, seagrass meadows can hold onto their carbon stocks for millennia.

Lung-like in function, 1 square meter of seagrass can generate 10 liters of oxygen daily to its surrounding waters while filtering out pollutants and adding in nutrients that feed its inhabitant manatees, turtles, seahorses, sharks and dugong – as well as fisheries. A recent study says seagrass meadows are grounds for a fifth of the world’s top 25 fisheries, making them crucial to global food security and livelihoods.

Yet, these ecosystems are rapidly deteriorating, their rate of decline increasing from .9% before 1940 to 7% since 1990. In total, an estimated 29% of all seagrass meadows have vanished. Scientists say this rate is equal to the loss of a football field’s worth of seagrass every half hour.

In consequence, seagrass carbon stocks can be – and often are – released in an instant. Warmer waters from climate change, or the drop of an anchor, can unearth carbon that has been stored for thousands of years.

At the recent Blue Carbon Summit in Jakarta, researchers examining seagrass in Indonesia shared findings on these under-researched ecosystems, and what needs to be done to ensure their longevity going forward.

Read also: Failure to manage blue carbon ecosystems could break the internet

A patch of mangroves leans against the wind and waves in Rio Tumbes, Peru. Photo by B. Locatelli/CIFOR

FROM THE LAND TO THE SEA

About 100 million years ago, species of flowering plants migrated from terrestrial to aquatic environments, maintaining their roots, veins, and ability to produce flowers and seeds as they went. More closely related to palms and lilies than their much-simpler seaweed doppelgangers, seagrass reproduces via hydrophilic pollination and exchanges nutrients and gases with water through its leaves.

Now, some 72 species of seagrass exist around the world, varying in adaptation across different latitudes, water temperatures, tides, wave exposure and sediment substrate types of the sea floor. They can make their home in sub-tidal depths of up to 40 meters, in mud and silt, in sand coarse or fine, in coral alive and dead, and in areas with other competing species.

Subsequently, the way seagrass stores carbon also varies from place to place, dependent on similar factors. If a meadow is composed of one or many seagrass species, the carbon storage is affected. If the species are big or small, the carbon storage is affected. If the water gets warmer, or size of sand particles gets larger, or a migratory species comes passing through, the carbon storage is affected.

Protecting, managing and restoring seagrass meadows, then, begins with knowing the site-specificity of species and carbon storage. Off the south coast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, for instance, Rohani Ambo-Rappe, Faculty of Marine and Fisheries at Hasanuddin University, found that meadows with high exposure to waves stored more carbon in the aboveground biomass of its seagrass, while low-exposure zones saw more carbon stored in roots below the sediment surface.

Meanwhile, in West and East Java, Dr. Devi Choesin from the Bandung Institute of Technology found that most carbon was stored below the sediment across the board, though with a great degree of variability. Given the wide number of contingencies at play, research methods for seagrass, she said, are difficult to standardize, contributing in part to the relative lack of data on seagrass so far.

“How much seagrass is left in Indonesia? If you ask 10 people, you’ll get 10 different answers,” said Tonny Wagey, Executive Director of the Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund.

Read also: Governing mangroves: From Tanzania to Indonesia

FACTORING IN THE INVISIBLE

The reasons for the decline of seagrass range from the usual suspects – water pollution, plastic waste, eutrophication, tourism development – to the less obvious, such as overgrazing of sea turtles, waves and water currents.

But because of the extant lack of attention and scientific focus on these ecosystems, they have yet to be formally included in major global initiatives and platforms, such as REDD+ and the UNFCCC agenda.

Within the agenda of Indonesia – which has the second-largest seagrass landscape globally, after Australia – the ambitious national goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 26% by 2020 could use the help of seagrass, speakers at the Summit said, rather than putting all of the pressure on land-based ecosystems.

Sustainable management and development of seagrass in sectors such as fisheries can also contribute to the country’s Low Carbon Development initiative, as well as local enterprises making use of seagrass in its more traditional purposes: for fertilizer, furniture and building materials, and medical bandages and supplies. To meet President Joko Widodo’s bid to reduce plastic waste 70% by 2025, Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources said that seagrass along with cassava can be used in lieu of plastic in drinking water bottles.

In the ‘white papers’ being developed by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and partners to inform future Indonesian policy – a foremost outcome of the Summit – seagrass is included in the first recommendation, highlighting its crucial role in keeping pace with sea level rise, an important step toward changing the tide for these ecosystems.

Watch: Protecting North Sumatran mangroves, supporting biodiversity, people and the world

By Gabrielle Lipton, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News. 

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

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  • Calls for greater momentum on forest initiatives, from REDD+ to ecotourism, at APRS 2018

Calls for greater momentum on forest initiatives, from REDD+ to ecotourism, at APRS 2018


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Tribudi Syukur village in Lampung, Indonesia, is seen from above. Photo by N. Sujana/CIFOR
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Tribudi Syukur village in Lampung, Indonesia, is seen from above. Photo by N. Sujana/CIFOR

Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region on earth, and home to the world’s three largest cities. Yet it also contains 740 million hectares of forests, accounting for 26 percent of the region’s land area and 18 percent of forest cover globally.

More than 450 million people depend on these forests for their livelihoods.

Through the theme “Protecting forests and people, supporting economic growth,” the third Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit (APRS) examined how the region’s economic and social development can better integrate with climate change and carbon emissions reduction goals.

Following the first APRS held in Sydney in 2014 and the second in Brunei Darussalam in 2016, this year’s was the largest yet, held in the Javanese cultural center of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. From April 23–25, more than 1,200 representatives from academia, civil society, business, government and research institutions gathered for panels, discussions, workshops and field trips.

Regional leaders formed the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Partnership (APRP) and its biannual Summit to help realize the global goal of ending rainforest loss by 2030, as well as reduce poverty through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), carbon emissions through REDD+, and climate change through the Paris Agreement – as discussed in the Summit’s first day of high-level panels.

Read also: FTA at the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit

“Since the summit in Brunei, I am happy to see substantial progress on REDD+ both regionally and globally,” said Australian Minister for the Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg in the opening ceremony. “We need to maintain this momentum and step up the pace of change if we are going to protect our forests and our people while securing economic growth.”

As the host country – supported the Australian Government, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) – Indonesia highlighted its recent environmental achievements.

“In the last three years, we have managed to reduce the [annual] deforestation rate from 1.09 million hectares to 610,000 hectares, and 480,000 million hectares in 2017,” said Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya.

“We realize that forests are a major contributor to carbon emissions, mainly due to forest fires – especially in peatlands. Forests represent 18% of our national emissions reduction targets and are expected to contribute to over half of our [Paris Agreement] targets.”

CIFOR’s Daniel Murdiyarso speaks during a session on restoration and sustainable management of peatlands at the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit 2018. Photo by U. Ifansasti/CIFOR

Minister Nurbaya also pointed to community and social forestry as a major theme of the Summit. Indonesia has set a target to allocate some 12.7 million hectares of land for use by communities partaking in five social forestry schemes. Nurbaya said she hopes other countries are similarly prioritizing community-based forestry management.

Community forestry was one of the sub-themes highlighted in the second day’s expert panels, alongside restoration and sustainable management of peatlands, mangroves and blue carbon, ecotourism and conservation of biodiversity, production forests, and forest finance, investment and trade. Issues in focus are detailed below.

PRIVATE FINANCE

Speakers throughout the Summit echoed the need for increased private-sector support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions – and policies that help enable this.

Companies need more incentives – and assurance of profitability – if they are to balance their business activities with ecological protection and support to local communities. Similarly, there needs to be proof of returns in order to increase private investment in environmental efforts.

The commitment of USD 500 million by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was highlighted as a best-practice example. Announced in May 2017, the pledge is now being used to back select business proposals that creatively address climate change.

Juan Chang, a GCF senior specialist in forest and land use and panel speaker at the Summit, said the Fund’s forestry and land use portfolio of 10 funded projects around the world so far includes 2 REDD+ projects.

Within GCF’s portfolio as a whole, around a third of its USD 3.7 billion goes to projects in the Asia-Pacific region.

REDD+ AND FORESTS

This year’s APRS comes roughly a decade after the UNFCCC COP13 in Bali gave birth to REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), an initiative that – much as its name says – seeks to lower global carbon emissions by preserving tropical forests.

As its goals broadened to give more attention to sustainable forest management and carbon stocks, REDD became REDD+, which now has numerous development and research projects running throughout the region.

Indonesia’s Minister of Environment and Forestry, HE Siti Nurbaya, opens the 3rd Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit. Photo by U. Ifansasti/CIFOR

Around 2 billion hectares of Asia-Pacific forests are degraded, and research experts expressed that production forests – such as those used for bioenergy – hold new opportunities for REDD+ implementation.

Contrasting this, however, was the difficulty some countries’ delegates said they’re facing in setting the many pieces in place required to uphold such a detailed effort as REDD+.

While Indonesia and Papua New Guinea now have much of the REDD+ architecture up and running, both countries have met roadblocks in implementing emissions measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems as well as results-based payments mechanisms.

Emma Rachmawaty, Director of Climate Change at Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said, “We are in the process of establishing a financial institution to manage financing for REDD+. [Until then] we cannot implement results-based payments for REDD+.”

Danae Maniatis from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) analogized REDD+ framework construction with that of a building.

“Pillars for REDD+ need to be really strong at the readiness phase,” she said. “If you have a house that has a roof but nothing else, would you use it? No. You need it to be functional. So, the challenge that we face is: how do you take these elements and make them functional?”

Read also: Social forestry impacts local livelihoods in Indonesia

NEW WAYS TO MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE

Mangroves and blue carbon – carbon captured and stored in oceans and coastal areas – have been hot topics of late.

“There is one ecosystem that has been close to my heart for a long time, that encompasses all the issues you can think of for forests: peatlands and mangroves,” said CIFOR Director General Dr. Robert Nasi.

“Although they represent a small percentage of forests, they are probably the richest and most carbon-rich ecosystems in the world – and the most threatened. I can only encourage and commend Indonesia for all the efforts they’re doing in terms of restoring and rehabilitating peatlands and mangroves.”

Comparatively little research has been done on these ecosystems so far. But the vast carbon sinks of Indonesia’s mangroves – the largest in the world, spanning 3.5 million hectares – have begun to make their way onto the archipelago’s national agenda, potentially contributing to the country’s commitments to the Paris Agreement and becoming grounds for financial support to local communities through payment for ecosystem services (PES).

Another way to link local communities to financial institutions and global markets? Ecotourism – responsible recreational activities that encourage conservation and preserve biodiversity.

Panelists called for philanthropic foundations and development organizations to give this growing sector more attention. In the realm of sustainable development business ventures, ecotourism is an on-the-ground way to aid land rehabilitation and biodiversity conservation while still turning a profit – however small that profit may be.

This echoed Dr. Nasi’s opening ceremony statement that the Asia-Pacific region is “a region of superlatives and a region of many contrasts,” with a vast array of businesses, landscapes, socioeconomic levels and governments.

Yet, everyone attending the summit “comes together for one reason: because forests matter.”

By Nabiha Shahab, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News.

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

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Protecting North Sumatran mangroves, supporting biodiversity, people and the world

07 July, 2017

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Mangroves are a massive storehouse of carbon. The mangroves of Indonesia, with its vast expanse of islands and coastlines, cover an area of around 3 million hectares. These tangled trees and the swampy soil they grow in store approximately 3.14 billion tons of carbon, hence they play an important role in climate change mitigation.

Indonesia is home to about one-third of the global storage of mangroves, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) scientist Daniel Murdiyarso says. In North Sumatra, scientists measured the amount of carbon in both protected and degraded mangrove forests lining the province.

Originally published at CIFOR.org.

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The jumbo carbon footprint of shrimp


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Mangroves grow along the coast of West Bali National Park, Bali, Indonesia. Photo by Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR
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A mangrove ecosystem is seen in Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Sigit Deni Sasmito/CIFOR

Is eating a kilogram of shrimp worth 1600 kilos of greenhouse emissions?

You’re having dinner with your date. You both order the ‘surf and turf’ special: a shrimp appetizer and a steak. You might not know it, but the carbon footprint of your meal is mind-boggling massive.

If the beef and seafood came from the tropics, where mangroves once grew, the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the two dinners alone would be roughly equivalent to driving from Los Angeles to New York City and back – a massive 1632 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

Or, to put it another way, those greenhouse gas emissions would weigh about as much as the car you drove to the restaurant.

To come up with these numbers, scientists – including some CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) – spent seven years working in muddy mangrove forests from Southeast Asia to Central America.

Across the tropics, mangrove forests are being cleared to make way for agriculture and aquaculture. Found on the frontier of land and sea, their seaward sides are converted to shrimp ponds, while their drier edges are claimed and drained to become rice fields or cattle pastures.

The scientists examined 55 sites where that conversion is happening, in Indonesia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. It’s the first time that a carbon-footprint study has taken into account the greenhouse gas emissions that result from deforestation.

When the researchers made their final calculations, even they were surprised.

Read also: The jumbo carbon footprint of a shrimp: carbon losses from mangrove deforestation

For every kilogram of beef produced on land that was converted from mangrove forest, 1440 kilograms of climate-altering greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere. For shrimp (more widely known as ‘prawns’ in the U.K. and Australia), it’s even worse: 1603 kg of emissions per kilo of crustacean.

“We were astounded that the carbon footprints were as high as they were,” says lead author Boone Kauffman, a mangrove expert from Oregon State University.

A Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) researcher stands in a research site for the Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP), in Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Sigit Deni Sasmito/CIFOR

OUT-SIZED EMISSIONS

So why the out-sized emissions?

Mangrove forests store a lot more carbon than terrestrial tropical forests, because they sequester a huge amount in the soil – in some cases up to 98 percent of the carbon stocks in a mangrove ecosystem can be underground.

When those forests are cut and drained, carbon isn’t just lost through the breakdown of leaves, twigs and branches. All that carbon in the soil is also released – and not just at the surface. The study found that deforestation could release carbon stored up to three meters below ground.

Read also: Focus on mangroves: Blue carbon science for sustainable development

That’s why mangroves may account for as much as 12 percent of the total emissions for all tropical deforestation, Kauffman says, even though they only make up 0.6 percent of the land area occupied by tropical forests.

“You’re losing centuries of carbon sequestration in just a few years of land use,” says Kauffman.

That’s the other big problem with these conversions – shrimp ponds in particular have very short life spans. Disease, soil acidification, pollution, and market conditions tend to limit their use to just three to nine years (the scientists assumed a conservative nine years for the purposes of the study, meaning that the actual carbon footprint of some shrimp may be even higher).

Once the area is exhausted, the ponds are abandoned – and the farmers move on to next patch of mangroves. 

A SIMPLE QUESTION

CIFOR Principal Scientist Daniel Murdiyarso’s research in Indonesia has shown just how much carbon mangrove ecosystems can lock away.

“They store twice as much carbon per hectare compared with terrestrial forests – and in some cases five to six times as much,” he says.

New research is showing that emissions can be reduced during mangrove conversion by limiting the exposure of excavated soil to the air, but finding ways to reduce rampant mangrove deforestation is even more important.

Murdiyarso helped to conceptualise the carbon footprint study with Kauffman.

They wanted to find a way to make the climate impact of mangrove deforestation more easily understood.

“When scientists talk about the role that deforestation plays in climate change, scientists tend to talk about the global picture – petagrams, gigatons, a billion metric tonnes of carbon – and the public can’t really grasp that,” Kauffman says.

“So instead of scaling up to the global, we decided we would try to scale it down to an individual dinner – to report the influences of deforestation at the personal scale.”

Watch: Is your shrimp cocktail destroying the planet?

Mangroves grow along the coast of West Bali National Park, Bali, Indonesia. Photo by Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR

To make the calculations, the researchers compared the carbon stocks in shrimp ponds or cattle pastures with nearby patches of intact mangrove forest.

That was harder than it sounds – they had to clamber through aerial mangrove roots to measure trees, gather every stick of downed wood, and collect muddy soil samples to take back to the lab.

“It brings the child out in you if you like being in the mud,” jokes Kauffman.

But that hard work had a very serious objective.

“We spent seven years on this project to make sure that we got it right,” Kauffman says.

“We are faced with such unprecedented environmental problems, particularly the threats of climate change and its possible environmental and social ramifications.”

“So it’s really important that we convey our science in a way in which the public can comprehend, so they can see how their daily activities affect climate change, and they can manage their lives accordingly.”

The result is a study that uses solid, real-world data from a broad range of sites across the tropics, with the aim of making people think about one simple question: Is a kilogram of shrimp worth 1600 kilos of greenhouse emissions?

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

For more information on this topic, please contact Boone Kauffman at boone.kauffman@oregonstate.edu or Daniel Murdiyarso at D.Murdiyarso@cgiar.org.

This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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Focus on mangroves: Blue carbon science for sustainable development


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Working on the study on Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Sigit Deni Sasmito for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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CIFOR scientists collect mangrove leaves to assess the above-ground carbon stock. Photo credit: Kate Evans/CIFOR

By Leona Liu, originally published at CIFOR’s Forests News

Mangrove forests have been recognized for a variety of important functions, such as buffering coastal zones from tropical storms and inundation, providing nutrients to coral reefs, and serving as rich habitats for fish and wildlife.

With three million hectares of mangrove forests lining its 95,000-kilometer coastline, Indonesia is a key battlefield when it comes to raising awareness about the potential of ‘blue carbon.’

The world’s archipelago harbors nearly a quarter of the world’s mangroves. But Indonesia, like most of the world, is losing its coastal forests at an alarming rate. The country lost 40 percent of its mangroves in the past three decades.

‘Coastal blue carbon’ is known as the carbon stored in tidal wetland ecosystems, which includes tidally influenced forests, mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows. It is kept within soil, living biomass and non-living biomass carbon pools. ‘Coastal blue carbon’ is a subset of ‘blue carbon’, which also includes ocean blue carbon that represents carbon stored in open ocean carbon pools.

“Indonesia is losing 52,000 hectares of mangroves per year, or the equivalent of three football fields of mangroves per week,” said Daniel Murdiyarso, Principal Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Working on the study on Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Sigit Deni Sasmito for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Murdiyarso was one of three speakers at the recent event titled, Mangrove ecosystems in Indonesia: A strategic resource for local sustainable economy and adaptation to climate change, held on the occasion of World Wetlands Day. The event was hosted at the Italian Cultural Institute in Jakarta with the support of the Embassy of Italy.

Carbon powerhouses

Coastal blue carbon ecosystems are the planet’s greatest carbon storehouses. They are capable of capturing and storing excessive atmospheric carbon with burial rates 20 times greater than any other terrestrial ecosystem, including boreal and tropical forests.

But when cleared or degraded, blue carbon ecosystems can transform into worrisome emission sources. Currently, global greenhouse gas emissions from unsustainable coastal development amount to one billion per year.

One-fifth of that (200 million tons CO2-eq) is produced by the country of Indonesia alone- the equivalent of 40 million fewer cars on the roads, according to Murdiyarso.

“The rate of conversion in Indonesia is very high at 2 percent,” he said. “And recent findings show that the loss of mangroves is not only caused by fish, shrimp and aquaculture development, but also by oil palm plantation development.”
Mangrove forests on Lake Tabarisia. Mamberamo Raya, Papua. Photo by Mokhammad Edliadi for Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

This finding is surprising, as the saline environment of mangrove ecosystems is hardly conducive to growing palm oil. But that hasn’t stopped the trend.

“This is now happening in North Sumatra and on the east coast of Riau near Pekanbaru,” said fellow event speaker Nyoman N. Suryadiputra who heads the Indonesian arm of the NGO Wetland International.

“My worry is that they will do the same in Papua and West Papua. This province has the most mangrove forests in Indonesia, with a shallow layer of peat underneath. It’s a very dangerous situation because many big oil palm companies are invading the area. If they drain the forests, the peat will subside, the sea level will rise, and it cause significant inundations for the local communities.”

The value of blue carbon

Given its large carbon stocks, mangroves hold high potential economic value under climate adaptation and mitigation schemes like the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.

“If the price of one ton of carbon is valued at $5 USD, and if Indonesia could halt the current emissions from degrading coastal blue carbon ecosystems, this would represent $6 billion USD in gains from the carbon market”, said Murdiyarso.

“Compare this to the current revenue generated by Indonesia’s shrimp export industry ($1.2 billion USD). The conversion of mangrove forests to shrimp ponds brings only a fraction of the income that could be earned from the carbon market. Policymakers should consider this and realize the value of coastal ecosystems,” he further explained.

Co-benefits derived from the restoration and protection of mangroves, such as biodiversity, ecotourism, non-timber forest products and watershed protection, are additional financial incentives for policymakers to consider.

Read also: Indonesia’s blue carbon: a globally significant and vulnerable sink for seagrass and mangrove carbon

According to Murdiyarso, adaptation to the impacts of climate change should be mainstreamed into the political and economic development planning and implementation process.

“In Indonesia, there is a lack of national guidelines on how to conserve and restore mangroves. The only regulation [Presidential Regulation No. 73/2012] on the national mangrove ecosystem management strategy is insufficient because it is merely coordinative. Within the regulation, it specifies who should do what but it doesn’t say anything about how,” he said.

More science and initiatives are needed

More research on blue carbon is needed to meet the targets outlined by the global development agenda. According to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Report, oceans and wetlands remain extremely vulnerable to environmental degradation, overfishing, climate change and pollution.

SDG 14, “Life below water”, aims to conserve and use marine resources for sustainable development. One of its targets is that by 2020, marine and coastal ecosystems should be sustainably managed, protected and restored.

The recent Paris Agreement, which required all parties to put forward their best efforts through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), represents a rare and important window of opportunity to include blue carbon in national climate strategies.

Today, only 50 countries have recognized the value of blue carbon in their NDCs. To much surprise, Indonesia- the world’s largest archipelago – has not recognized mangrove conservation in its National Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation (RAN-API).

“We need to focus on blue carbon science to support policymakers with credible scientific information to make better decisions about the sustainable use of coastal and marine resources,” said Murdiyarso, in representing CIFOR, one of the founding members of the International Partnership for Blue Carbon (IPBC).

Launched at the 2015 Global Landscapes Forum at the COP21 in Paris, the partnership aims to connect the efforts of governments, research organizations and non-government organizations on integrating blue carbon into climate policies and agendas.

Read alsoAnalysis: Why should we care about coastal blue carbon?

It was created by the governments of Australia, Indonesia and Costa Rica, alongside various partners such as the Blue Carbon Initiative, GRID-Arendal, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and Office of the Pacific Oceanscape Commissioner, the Global Change Institute, and CIFOR.

For more information on this topic, please contact Daniel Murdiyarso at d.murdiyarso@cgiar.org.
This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
This research was supported by USAID

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Protecting Tanzania’s mangroves


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Photo: Jean-Marc Liotier/CIFOR
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Photo: Jean-Marc Liotier/CIFOR
Photo: Jean-Marc Liotier/CIFOR

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

Lush mangrove forests line the meandering channels of the Rufiji River Delta, south of the commercial capital Dar es Salaam on the east coast of Tanzania.

It’s one of the largest mangrove areas in Africa, and like mangroves everywhere, they’re under threat. Mangrove trunks are being cut for timber, poles and burned for charcoal; meanwhile, trees are being cleared to make way for rice paddies.

Tanzanian law strictly protects mangroves given that they are the property of the State. Though the government initially encouraged people to settle in the Delta in the early 1970s, strict protection means local women aren’t supposed to collect firewood from the forest (though they often do) and every December through January since the 1990s, agents from the Tanzanian Forest Service (TFS) have burned farmers’ temporary stilt huts (madungu) and new rice farms, in an attempt to discourage further deforestation.

But this conservation model isn’t optimal, say scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR.)

Rufiji’s population is growing. Locals increasingly rely on mangrove products for their livelihoods, and allow outsiders to come in and illegally harvest timber and charcoal to sell in the capital. Massive flooding in the 1990s changed the river’s course, expanding the area suitable for rice farming – while immigration into the delta has simultaneously increased demand for agricultural land.

“The threats are increasing and the government alone cannot deal with all these threats,” says CIFOR’s Baruani Mshale. Even if the enforcement budget was vastly improved, it would still be a battle, he says.

“People will always come up with creative ways on how they can access and use the mangroves, regardless of how much protection the government imposes.”

Read also: The Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP)

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

But that doesn’t mean the mangroves are doomed.

The solution, says Mshale, is to give locals a reason to defend them from outsiders and manage them sustainably. This can be done by granting communities more rights and responsibilities, and involving them in the protection and rehabilitation of the forests while ensuring that they generate livelihood benefits from doing so.

The Tanzanian government has begun to acknowledge that strict protection doesn’t work, and experiments are currently unfolding in the Rufiji River Delta.

Three different models of community engagement are being trialled – with varying degrees of success. Mshale is the lead author of a new report for USAID conducted by researchers from CIFOR and the University of Dar es Salaam that compares and analyses these approaches.

MODEL 1: INDIVIDUAL FARMING PERMITS

The first is a system of individual farming permits between villagers and TFS.

Farmers apply for renewable one-year licenses allowing them to continue farming rice in exchange for facilitating the natural regeneration of mangrove trees on their plots. Once the trees reach a certain height, their shade renders rice paddies less productive, and farmers must move elsewhere to repeat the process.

This scheme has not been a success, says Mshale. It is one-sided – imposing a lot of conservation responsibility on farmers in exchange for few rewards. It also creates insecurity.

“People know that once the mangroves regrow, they’ll be kicked out,” he says – so there is a perverse incentive for farmers to intentionally prevent mangrove recovery.

The written contracts have also been problematic.

“Many people in the delta are illiterate, and they fear anything that is signed. They felt like they are getting tricked – perhaps there is something written there that they do not understand, and they’ll be made to pay fines later.”

After so many years of harsh policies, the people don’t always trust the government’s intentions. Unsurprisingly, many communities refused to sign these contracts.

MODEL 2: GROUP REHABILITATION

Group rehabilitation of mangroves is another approach that is being pioneered in the Rufiji River Delta, with the support of the UNDP and UNEP.

Local collectives of 15-30 men and women are assigned areas of mangrove forest to restore, and are paid for each day they spend replanting or weeding.

Communities initially embraced the project, but Mshale says some villagers complained to his team about favouritism, saying they felt excluded from the scheme – even though TFS says it would be expanded to ensure benefits are shared.

More importantly, the program doesn’t give people a sense of ownership over the forest.

“These people are providing casual labour, but they don’t have any other rights over the areas that they are replanting. So the moment you stop paying them, they won’t be able to come and work for you.”

What’s more, its future is uncertain because the program relies heavily upon financial support from UNEP and UNDP. Once the funds dry up, it won’t be able to be sustained, says Mshale.

MODEL 3: JOINT FOREST MANAGEMENT

The most promising approach, according to CIFOR research, is the Joint Forest Management scheme currently being trialled in the delta as part of the Tanzanian participatory forest management program.

In four Rufiji villages, TFS has negotiated with individual communities to draw up plans for sharing the costs and benefits of managing the mangrove forest. Though the state retains ultimate ownership of the mangroves, this is the only scheme that transfers some decision-making power to local people – and that means it’s the one most likely to succeed compared to the others, says Mshale.

So far, the communities have embraced it.

“It’s in its infancy, so they have not seen any benefits yet – but they are very hopeful” – and TFS is committed to making it work, says Mshale.

“They’re not old-school forestry technocrats who view local people as a threat to conservation – they see that they can work with the communities and achieve conservation goals. They realise that strict protection alone is not going to work.”

EMPOWERING LOCAL WOMEN

“What’s needed now is proper management and making sure that the benefits and costs are equitably and fairly distributed among community members.”

In particular, that means ensuring women’s meaningful participation in decision-making in a culture where women traditionally are meant to defer to men and tend to stay silent during group meetings.

That could mean providing a space for women to meet alone to debate ideas among themselves, before bringing their concerns to the broader community.

Women often spend more time in the mangroves than men, and have detailed knowledge about their biology and uses, says Mshale.

“Women need to benefit from the schemes that are being implemented, and have their voices and concerns taken into account – without being dominated and bullied by men.”

For more information on this topic, please contact Baruani Mshale at b.mshale@cgiar.org or Esther Mwangi at e.mwangi@cgiar.org.
This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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Blue carbon science for sustainable coastal development

07 February, 2017

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Where the land meets the sea: Governing mangrove forests


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Mangroves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Sigit Deni Sasmito/CIFOR
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Mangroves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Sigit Deni Sasmito/CIFOR
Mangroves in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Sigit Deni Sasmito/CIFOR

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

On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra, Indonesia, swept a massive tsunami across the Indian Ocean. The wave forged two kilometers inland in some places, and wiped out towns, crops, lives and livelihoods. In Indonesia’s Aceh province alone, 167,000 people died.

Could anything have reduced its devastating impact? In the tsunami’s wake, global attention fell on the potential of mangroves. Many of Indonesia’s mangrove forests had been cleared prior to 2004 to make way for shrimp farms – and subsequent research showed that mangroves and other forests can help protect coastlines and people from the force of tsunamis, hurricanes, and rising sea levels.

The indigenous people of Pahawang Island already knew that, though. In the 1980s and 1990s, the mangrove forests fringing their island – a speck in a bay at the eastern end of Sumatra – were over-exploited. They were turned into charcoal by Korean companies, cut down for timber, and converted to fish-ponds by migrants from East Java.

By the early 2000s, coastal erosion had become a huge problem for the islanders. Houses, agricultural land and fish-ponds were swept away in storms; fish no longer bred amongst the looping mangrove roots; and malaria and dengue outbreaks became more common.

So village leaders got together and pioneered their own, innovative governance system for their mangroves. They developed an organizational structure, and divided the mangrove area into three territories – a strict protection zone, an area where only non-timber products like firewood could be gathered, and a ‘utilization zone’ where limited timber harvesting was allowed. They also identified areas for reforesting, and secured seedlings and funding.

There’s much to be learned from local experiences like these, say scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research, who have just released a new global study on mangrove governance, involving both a review of international literature and case studies in Indonesia and Tanzania.

Read also: Global Review of Governance and Tenure Dimensions of Coastal Mangrove Forests

BENEFITS OF A BOTTOM-UP APPROACH

“In Indonesia they were very clear: they managed their mangroves to protect their lives, livelihoods and assets from storm surges, from the sea,” says Esther Mwangi, who helped lead the overarching study. “The mangroves are an important buffer against the energy and the strength of the ocean.”

Mani Ram Banjade led the on-the-ground research in Indonesia, focusing on three villages in Lampung province.

 

A researcher measures the diameter of mangrove trees in Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Kate Evans
A researcher measures the diameter of mangrove trees in Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Kate Evans

In Pahawang especially, mangrove protection was a very bottom-up affair.

“The local community leaders took the initiative and developed their own rules, regulations and governance mechanisms. Then they got the approval from the local government as well, and from their personal and political connections they also got some resources from outside.”

It worked so well in Pahawang, he says, because the local government recognised the islanders’ rights over the land and supported their efforts – and because strong leaders harnessed community awareness of the role of mangroves in coastal protection.

“Even if they’re not getting a direct economic benefit from the mangrove, they still value its conservation,” says Banjade.

“It’s a good model,” says Steven Lawry, CIFOR’s Director of Forests and Governance Research, who also worked on the report. “This is an example of how strong leadership and persistence have led to good outcomes with respect to local mangrove conservation. People are out there up to their waists in water, planting mangroves, because they see the importance to their livelihoods.”

BREAKING THE SILOS

In many places worldwide, these kinds of bottom up approaches to governance are necessary, because mangroves often fall through the cracks at the national level, says Mwangi.

Washed by the tides, simultaneously of the land and of the sea, mangroves don’t neatly fit into governance structures. Globally, it’s rare for countries to have specific rules for mangroves. They’re either governed under a hodgepodge of two or three ministries, or they fall under the forestry department.

That isn’t a perfect match, says Mwangi.

“In mangrove forests, the timber is not the biggest thing – the value is in coastal protection, fisheries, carbon sequestration – things that are not forestry. And yet this resource has been placed in the hands of forestry departments. So there is a bit of a tension.”

Where governance is spread among multiple ministries, coordination is a problem. And many efforts to improve it have failed. Indonesia put together a mangrove management and coordination plan in 2012 – but it hasn’t yet been fully implemented.

Even more telling is the case of Tanzania. In 1991 it was one of the first countries to create an integrated management plan for mangroves – and yet to date, 25 years on, it too has not been implemented.

The reasons behind these failures is a prime area for future research, says Mwangi – but perhaps a better approach, she suggests, would be to bring in new legislation that is specific to mangroves, like the rules pioneered on Pahawang.

“One could easily say the village regulations are substituting for a national, mangrove-specific regulation that is missing,” says Mwangi.

GENDER DYNAMICS IN CONSERVATION

Something that’s lacking at all levels – from fishing village to academia – is an appreciation of gender dynamics.

“In the literature review there was hardly anything on gender, and then when we looked at the ground level we saw exactly the same thing – a widespread gender blindness in mangrove management.”

People’s relationships to mangroves are gender-differentiated, Mwangi says. Women might gather firewood, while men harvest timber and fish.

Yet in both Tanzania and Indonesia, women rarely sat on management committees, and their participation in decision-making was curtailed in a number of ways.

In Tanzania, researchers found that meetings were often organized in the late afternoon, when most women were fetching firewood and water to cook the evening meal. When women were present, social customs dictated they sit behind the men and ‘say yes to everything’, even when they disagreed.

“Not only as a matter of right, but also in terms of being effective, it makes sense to have women on governance committees,” says Mwangi. “They too have knowledge and use the resource, so their presence and input in decision-making is important.”

Gender aside, there’s a lot national governments can learn from the innovative ways local communities are managing their mangroves. And it’s crucial those villages receive support and assistance to do that from regional and national bodies, Mwangi says.

“With good local leadership and support from others at different levels of government, communities can organise, develop rules and can work together to conserve their mangroves.”

The study found that a transition is underway in a few countries towards increased community participation in mangrove management. Though Latin America has been most enthusiastic, Tanzania’s government is also starting to experiment with community-based approaches in some mangrove areas, says Lawry.

That is encouraging, he says, because the traditional model of mangrove governance – strict top-down regimes that try to protect mangroves by locking local people out – hasn’t worked very well, in Tanzania, Indonesia and elsewhere.

“Despite government intentions to manage them sustainably, governance regimes are generally ineffective at conserving mangroves. They generally fail to involve communities, and at the some time they don’t effectively regulate large-scale commercial users of mangroves, with a result that mangrove loss is accelerating,” he says.

“Where we do see progress towards sustainable mangrove management, it’s in places where communities have clear rights, and they enjoy clear benefits.”

*This research was supported by USAID

For more information on this topic, please contact Esther Mwangi at e.mwangi@cgiar.org or Steven Lawry at s.lawry@cgiar.org.
This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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  • Where Land Meets the Sea: A Global Review of the Governance and Tenure Dimensions of Coastal Mangrove Forests

Where Land Meets the Sea: A Global Review of the Governance and Tenure Dimensions of Coastal Mangrove Forests

03 February, 2017

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Authors: Rotich, B.; Mwangi, E.; Lawry, S.

This report provides a synoptic analysis of the legal and governance frameworks that relate to the use and management of mangrove forests globally. It highlights the range of challenges typically encountered in the governance and tenure dimensions of mangrove forest management. This assessment forms part of a broader study that includes national-level assessments in Indonesia and Tanzania. It was carried out under the USAID-funded Tenure and Global Climate Change Program. The report provides information on the challenges for mangrove rehabilitation and restoration, legal frameworks for the governance of mangroves, mangrove governance and tenure in practice, and lessons in mangrove governance for policy and practice. Primary findings from this assessment show that authority over mangrove forest management is overwhelmingly vested in state institutions and that mangrove protection is a central objective. Given the ambiguous role of mangroves situated between the land and sea, the configuration of state authority for mangrove management is quite complex. In some countries, there is fragmentation of responsibilities across two or more agencies such as forests, fisheries, environment, and wildlife. This contributes to a high level of segmentation and jurisdictional ambiguity. Frameworks and mechanisms for enabling multi-sectoral coordination across agencies and governance levels are uncommon, and where they exist, they are difficult to put into practice.

Pages: 40p

Publisher: CIFOR and USAID Tenure and Global Climate Change Program, Bogor, Indonesia and Washington, DC

Publication Year: 2016

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World Wetlands Day: The human element of mangrove management


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Study on above-ground and below-ground biomass in mangrove ecosystems, part of Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Evans Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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Study on above-ground and below-ground biomass in mangrove ecosystems, part of Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Evans Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
Study on above-ground and below-ground biomass in mangrove ecosystems, part of Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Program (SWAMP). Kubu Raya, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Evans Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

By Stephen Brooks, Land Tenure and Resource Governance Advisor for USAID, originally published at USAID Medium, from which it was adapted for CIFOR’s Forests News

As global climate change continues to threaten coastal communities in the tropics, governments have increasingly focused on the promotion and conservation of mangrove forests for their protective qualities.

Mangroves — trees and shrubs that grow in tropical estuaries — are among the world’s most productive ecosystems and, compared to other forest systems, have an impressive capacity to sequester and store carbon at high rates.

They also serve as an important physical buffer, protecting coastal areas from storm surges and acting as “bioshields.” Despite these clear benefits, since 1980 the world has lost approximately 20 percent of its mangrove forests.

With this in mind, there is a growing need to understand the factors- both biophysical and societal- that contribute to sustainable mangrove management.

Also read: Why should we care about coastal blue carbon?

To date, discussions around mangrove forest conservation and rehabilitation have been highly technical, and focused primarily on ecological conditions under which mangroves can be planted and promoted. Lacking from this conversation is a more robust analysis about the ways land governance, resource rights arrangements, and land use planning — the social aspects of the conservation challenge — affect mangrove conservation and rehabilitation.

Compared to terrestrial forests, mangroves’ unique placement straddling land and sea has led to great ambiguity as to the specific jurisdictional agency overseeing their management (i.e. Forest, Aquaculture, and Marine) in many countries.

Regardless, local land and resource governance systems often determine the ultimate success or failure of resource conservation efforts. Research and experience from around the world have increasingly shown that when communities are empowered and granted legitimate rights and authority to manage their own terrestrial forests, the community, the government, and the forest ecology benefit in numerous ways.

More rigorous research is needed, however, to explore whether coastal forests, given their unique and often ambiguous jurisdictional status, would experience similar benefits.

In 2016, the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supported the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) to analyze mangrove governance conditions at the global scale, and through specific case studies in Indonesia and Tanzania.

Click to browse Global Wetlands Map
Click to browse Global Wetlands Map

THE IMPORTANCE OF JURISDICTIONS

Findings from the research show that mangroves generally fall under the management of national governments. In many countries, mangroves are under the jurisdiction of multiple ministries and agencies, creating a maze of overlapping and vague responsibilities that deliver little protection on the ground.

Mangroves are also often relegated to the periphery of forest sector management, with few practices or policies devised to specifically address their unique needs.

Typically, mangroves are classified as protected areas, but forest officials responsible for mangrove management often lack the resources and capacity needed to effectively protect them. Compounding this challenge are local communities who continue to be active users of mangrove forests, but who do not have clear or documented rights and incentives to sustainably use or protect them for the long term.

Countries are recognizing the importance of identifying mangrove management approaches that deliver results on the ground. In Tanzania, there is a growing recognition of the weakness of top-down mangrove protection approaches. Joint forest management and group rehabilitation schemes with local communities are increasingly being proposed in an effort to foster more community-led management processes.

In Indonesia, local community leaders are spearheading mangrove conservation efforts after understanding the ability of mangroves to protect their coastal homes and livelihoods. Intact mangroves can reduce the loss of life and damage caused by tsunamis, and during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, coastal areas that were protected by mangrove forests were better able to withstand the devastating impacts of that disaster.

Some countries, seeing the critical role of mangroves, have proved to be more forward-looking. Both the Philippines and Thailand have laws and policies that enable community forestry practices and management. Vietnam recently approved a Coastal Forests Decree that calls for an analysis on how coastal forests are measured, classified, managed, and protected. Sri Lanka has an ambitious plan to protect its mangroves through a mix of laws, sustainable alternative incomes, and mangrove nurseries.

THE IMPACT OF GENDER ON CONSERVATION

The recent analysis also explored the intersection of mangrove conservation and gender. To date, little research has been conducted on the unique ways that men and women use, participate in, and impact mangrove systems, nor the ways that current resource governance systems prevent women’s participation in decision-making around coastal community resources.

The research found that while women are often keen to engage in paid employment for raising mangrove seedlings in nurseries, planting mangroves, or setting up enterprises to prepare products from mangroves — such as honey, syrups, or natural dyes — they rarely have a seat at the table when it comes to mangrove management.

As countries consider how to support the important biophysical aspects of mangrove conservation, the role of people, rights, and governance institutions should receive equal consideration. Mangroves play a key role in mitigating and adapting to the impacts of global climate change. To conserve and sustain them, it is imperative that we establish and strengthen the right mix of socially inclusive and participatory governance institutions.

*This article was adapted from its original form as published by USAID on Medium.

For more information on this topic, please contact Stephen Brooks at sbrooks@usaid.gov or Steven Lawry at s.lawry@cgiar.org.
This research forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.

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