THINKING beyond the canopy

Centre for International Forestry Research: Landscapes and food systems

Terry SunderlandPresentation to Wildlife Conservation SocietyThe Bronx, NY26th September 2014

Centre for International Forestry Research

CIFOR’s vision Forests are high on the political

agenda People recognize the value of

forests for maintaining livelihoods and ecosystems

Decisions that influence forests and the people that depend on them are based on solid science and principles of good governance, and reflect the perspectives of developing countries and forest-dependent people

CIFOR’s history Established in 1993 as part of the CGIAR Board’s early guidance led to emphasis on

policy-oriented, multi-disciplinary research Major lines of research have included:

• Criteria and indicators • Underlying causes of deforestation• Decentralisation• Improved logging practices• Forests and livelihoods• Forest finance and governance

Board approved a new strategy in 2008

CGIAR CIFOR is one of 15 centers that make up the CGIAR Consortium CIFOR is the Lead Center for the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees

and Agroforestry (CRP-FTA), in partnership with the World Agroforestry Centre, Bioversity, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, CATIE and CIRAD

Where we work

Burkina Faso Cameroon EthiopiaZambiaBrazil Indonesia

Headquarters: Bogor, Indonesia8 regional & project offices

Research sites in more than 30 countries

Peru Kenya Vietnam

Global comparative research

Synthesizing existing knowledge

Systematic reviews Developing new

methods Partnerships Capacity-building Outreach

How we work:Approaches

CGIAR (Stability Funds) 5.301

CGIAR (CRPs) 4.555

European Com-mission 4.843

Norway 3.991

Australia (ACIAR and AusAid) 2.098

USA (USAID/U.S. FWS) 0.975

French Global En-vironment Facility

0.775

Germany (GIZ) 0.765

Canada (IDRC) 0.744

Finland 0.535

Spain (INIA) 0.507

Others 4.780

Financial resources2011 Expenditures: USD 28.6 million

Human resources 270 staff representing 38 countries 85 consultants, 29 PhD students/interns Broad network of Associates

Forests Trees and Agroforestry: Conceptual framework

Themes

Smallholder production

systems and markets

Management and

conservation of forests and

trees

Landscape management, biodiversity

conservation, ecosystem

services and livelihoods

Climate change

adaptation and

mitigation

Impacts of trade and

investment

Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs)

System Level Outcomes (SLOs)

Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Theme 5

Cross-cutting themes:Gender

Communications Sentinel Landscapes

Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessment

Why ‘landscapes’?

• Forests support ca. 65% of worlds terrestrial taxa (Lindenmeyer 2009)• Estimated 1.6 billion people “depend” on forested landscapes in some way for their livelihoods (Agrawal et al. 2013)• 40% of world’s food originates in multi-functional landscapes (FAO 2013)• Forests and trees sustain agriculture through ES provision• “Landscape approaches” have moved to forefront of research and development agenda (Global Landscape Fora)

What do we mean by landscapes?

• Landscapes are fuzzy concepts – they are not planning units

• “A geographical construct that includes not only the biophysical components of an area but also the social, political, institutional and cultural components of that system”

Shooting in the dark..?

• Large body of literature on “landscape approaches” and “ecosystem approaches” but little consensus on applicability or terminology

• General principles and guidelines have been largely missing

• However, need to avoid “one size fits all” approach

• Complex landscapes; complex challenges

Core challenge: different sites, different issues

Multi-functionality• Combination of separate

land units with different functions (spatial segregation)

• Different functions on the same unit of land but separated in time (temporal segregation)

• Different functions on the same unit of land at the same time (functional integration or “real multi-functionality)

But in reality, segregation is the norm

Plantation Forest

Agriculture

New (landscape) approaches?• Since 2008, CIFOR and multiple partners working on defining

and refining broad “landscape approaches” building on previous initiatives

• How? Review of published literature, multiple workshops for consensus building, conferences/side events, e.g. Diversitas, IUFRO, CBD Bonn, Nagoya

• Validated by extensive survey of field practitioners• Based on this on-going work, SBSTTA commissioned CIFOR to

draft report “sustainable use of biodiversity at the landscape scale” (see http://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/sbstta/sbstta-15/official/sbstta-15-13-en.pdf)

• Currently: Systematic map of landscape approaches

So, what is new?• The landscape approach has been

re-defined to include societal concerns related to conservation and development trade-offs and negotiate for them

• Increased integration of poverty alleviation goals

• Increased integration of agricultural production and food security

• Emphasis is on adaptive management, stakeholder involvement and multiple objectives

The “Ten Commandments”...?

Ten principles for a landscape approach1. Continual learning and adaptive management2. Common concern entry point3. Multiple scales4. Multi-functionality5. Multi-stakeholder6. Negotiated and transparent change7. Clarification of rights and principles8. Participatory and user-friendly monitoring9. Resilience10. Strengthened stakeholder capacity

What impact?• Recommendation XV/6

"sustainable use" from SBSTTA XV (includes work on bushmeat)

• Tabled for adoption at COP 11 in Hyderabad: “taken note” of by parties

• Desire (and funding) to follow up with future CGIAR and CBD policy processes

• Contribution to System Level Outcomes of CGIAR

• Global Landscapes Forum, Warsaw (2013) & Peru (2014)

Challenges of the landscape approach

• Understanding complex systems is not straightforward• Understanding and influencing underlying trajectories• Multi-functionality of landscape mosaics• The landscape approach is different to spatial planning. Landscapes are

dynamic and subjective. Different people see them in different ways.• Trade-offs are the norm and have to be negotiated• There is no “end point” or best solution for a landscape – one can simply

intervene to avoid bad outcomes and favour better ones

Getting in concert

• Methodical overview of quantity & quality of evidence

• Follows methodology of systematic review process

Objective FormulationStakeholder meetings, topic setting

Method DevelopmentSearch strategy, inclusion criteria, protocol draft

Searching ProcessEstablish literature database, screen for relevance, remove duplicates

Screening ProcessFilter literature by screening at title and abstract level

Retrieve Full TextsFinal filter, study quality assessment

Report Production

DisseminationPublish map, make searchable database available, other outputs.

Systematic maps

Our (current) primary research questions:

What is the landscape approach, and how has it evolved into current discourse and practice?

How, and where, is it actually being implemented?

3 Key objectives:• Map the development of landscape approach theory• Review and synthesize current terminology• Review integrated landscape research by documenting current (and prior)

examples of landscape scale initiatives in the tropics

Objectives of the systematic map

Forests, food security and nutrition• One billion+ people rely on forest products for

nutrition and income in some way (Agrawal et al 2013)

• One fifth of rural income derived from the environment (Wunder et al 2014)

• Wild harvested meat provides 30-50% of protein intake for many rural communities (Nasi et al 2011)

• 80% of world’s population rely on biodiversity for primary health care (IUCN 2013)

• 40% of global food production comes from diverse small-holder agricultural systems in multi-functional landscapes (FAO 2010)

• Long tradition of managing forests for food (IUFRO 2013)

• Forests sustaining agriculture: ecosystem services provision (Foli et al. 2014)

CIFOR’s food security research• Rooted in historical research

on NTFPs / landscapes• Funded projects• Publications• Conference attendance and

scientific dissemination• Blogs and media coverage• Close collaboration with

range of partners• Emerging team of in-house

specialists

Hypothesis: Trees and Forests are important for dietary quality & diversity

Collection of nutritious NTFPs Farm/forest mosaics may

promote more diverse diets Agroforestry and fruit

production Ecosystem services of forests for

agriculture Availability of fuel wood Provision of ‘back up’ foods for

lean season = safety nets

• Study using DHS data from 21 countries integrated with GIS data on % tree cover to estimate the relationship between tree cover and child nutrition indicators

• CIFOR project collecting dietary intake information from mothers and children in study sites in five African countries

Testing the hypothesis

We Integrate: • Nutrition data from Demographic Health Surveys with• % tree cover data from GLCF (2003 and 2010

MODIS data at 250 m resolution) (as well as other sources for other controls)

..to investigate whether there is a statistically significant relationship between indicators of dietary quality and tree cover

Study using USAID’s DHS data

Sample: about 93,000 children between ages 13 and 59 months in over 9,500 communities

(21 countries )

• There is a statistically significant positive relationship between % tree cover and Dietary Diversity

• Fruit and Vegetable Consumption first increases and then decreases with tree cover (peak tree cover is ca. 45%)

• There is no statistically significant relationship between tree cover and Animal Source Foods

Results

• The results of the DHS study give an indication that there are interesting relationships, but are far from offering an explanation• DHS data are coarse • The GIS data don’t tell us the

kinds of trees/forests• Data can’t explain WHY

children in areas with more trees have more diverse diets

• Country level regressions give heterogenous results

• So….

So what?

Influencing the agenda?

New approaches for integrating agriculture and NRM at the landscape scale?

• “Eco-agriculture” (Scherr and McNeely 2006)• “Agroecology is complimentary to conventional agriculture and

needs scaling up” (United Nations 2011) • “New agriculture needed…” (UNDP 2011)• “Agro-ecological approach” (World Bank 2011)• “Integrated management of biodiversity for food and agriculture”

(FAO 2011)• “By 2020, the CGIAR should be a major leader in environment

and agriculture” (Cristian Samper, 25th September 2014)

www.cifor.org www.blog.cifor.org