Tag: conservation

Agroforestry: A primer

Design and management principles for people and the environment

Conventional agriculture is very productive. But high productivity comes at a cost: soil that is depleted or eroded, watercourses that are polluted or drying up, and a food system that produces 20–40% of greenhouse gas emissions. Many people now agree that we urgently need to transform the food system, including agriculture. Agroforestry, as a nature-based approach to production and land use, will play an important role in this transformation. Agroforestry is not new; farmers have practised it for thousands of years, and scientists have recognized it since the 1970s as a productive and ecologically sustainable form of agriculture and land use. But now agroforestry is suddenly at centre stage; it is promoted as a land-use strategy to support climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture and other goals.

Many organizations recommend or use it as a tool for restoring ecosystems – not only agricultural ones, but also forest landscapes. Although not a cure-all, agroforestry has great potential to contribute to all the goals mentioned above. However, agroforestry is not just a matter of adding trees to farms. To realize its potential, practitioners need to understand its principles. Agroforestry: A primer is a guide to agroforestry principles and concepts – and how to use them effectively.

Contents

Foreword

  1. Introduction
  2. Components of agroforestry systems
  3. Agroforestry systems as circular systems
  4. Principles of agroforestry design
  5. Co-design and establishment of agroforestry systems
  6. Planting material in agroforestry
  7. Management of trees in agroforestry systems
  8. From principles to practice: Key systems
  9. Stories from the front line

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The Forests of the Congo Basin: State of the Forests 2021

The “State of the Forests of the Congo Basin” report is published periodically to present the state of the forest ecosystems of Central Africa and how they are managed. Following the 2015 edition devoted entirely to climate change, the 2021 report takes up several themes and is presented in four parts.

The report begins by examining the state of the resource, which is increasingly recognized across the world as a forest area crucial for carbon sequestration and for the conservation of biological diversity. The Congo Basin forest ecosystems are then put into perspective within the global context of discussions that can guide the management and governance of the entire world’s tropical forests for decades to come. The report then addresses topical issues such as peatland management and the relationship between the biodiversity management and the emergence or re-emergence of zoonotic diseases. And COVID-19 features notably in the chapter on this topic. Finally, the report identifies the main challenges that need to be addressed to achieve sustainable management of forest ecosystems in the Congo Basin, with the goal of ensuring that management contributes to improving the livelihoods and living environment of local communities and indigenous peoples.

Table of contents

Acronyms

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Part 1: Central African forests: The state of forest resources and their management

  1. Distribution of forest types and changes in their classification

  2. The evolution of the wood subsector in the Congo Basin

  3. Forest Plantations in Central Africa

  4. Aligning international financial flows and the COMIFAC Convergence Plan

  5. Implementation of REDD+ Activities in Central African Countries

Part 2: Congo Basin forests in international discourse

  1. Mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into Forest Management in Central Africa: current status, challenges and improvement options

  2. Central African countries’ international commitments on climate changei

  3. Addressing imported deforestation and zero deforestation commitments

Part 3: Emerging issues for Central African forests

  1. Peatlands of the Central Congo Basin, current realities and perspectives

  2. Emergence/Re-emergence of Infectious Agents and Epidemic Risks in Central African Forests

Part 4: Congo Basin forests: Issues and challenges

  1. Land Use Planning and Impacts on the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa

  2. Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in Central Africa

  3. The rights of local and indigenous peoples in the light of forest and conservation policies

State of the Congo Basin Forests in 2021: Overall conclusions

Bibliography

Determining baselines and trends of Eastern chimpanzees and forest elephants in a Central African protected area after civil strife

Protected areas are crucial to safeguard Sub-Saharan Africa’s extraordinary and abundant megafauna. In many of these areas, instability has derailed conservation efforts and impeded adequate wildlife monitoring. Discovered in 2004, Eastern chimpanzees are found in the Central Uele Basin in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) within the Bili-Uéré Protected Areas Complex (BUPAC), the largest contiguous protected area in the country. BUPAC is threatened by habitat destruction, mining, wild meat trade, and insecurity. BUPAC chimpanzees are part of the largest remaining continuous population of the species in Africa; they are also being behaviourally unique. Forest elephants were frequent in the 1960′s in the BUPAC but have declined significantly up to 2004–2007. We used line transects to estimate Eastern chimpanzee and forest elephant density in the BUPAC core area in 2016 and 2019 and compared these with the 2004–2007 surveys. A total of 37 and 137 two km long line transects were systematically placed in 5,841 km2 and 6,176 km2 survey areas in 2016 and 2019, respectively. We found that chimpanzee density did not change during the two survey periods but indicators for forest elephant density decreased eight-fold. Human activities were detected mainly along the core area periphery in both survey years, where they overlapped with centres of animal activity. The stable high density of chimpanzees is a positive outcome for the core BUPAC. However, despite being a conservation priority area that has received relatively intensified protection, declining forest elephant numbers are likely to reflect the high number of human conflict hotspots in vicinity as well as the increasing human population density around the core area. We propose by elevating the core area to National Park whilst strengthening on the ground enforcement and management structures as well as legal measures against poaching might ensure the long-term survival of such an important area in Africa.

State of the Congo Basin Forests in 2021: Overall conclusions

This is why the forest ecosystems of the Congo Basin should be subject to equitable and fair agreements between, on the one hand, the States and stakeholders of Central Africa (the direct managers of these resources) and, on the other, the international community (including multinational private sector and philanthropic organizations), which provides the financial means and capacities for the protection and sustainable management of those forest ecosystems.

Forest-based adaptation: transformational adaptation through forests and trees

Forest-based adaptation is an ensemble of climate actions that employ forests and trees in support of climate change adaptation and resilience, including sustainable forest management, forest conservation and restoration, reforestation and afforestation. Forest-based adaptation can help address the gaps between current adaptation actions and the adaptation needed for reducing climate-related risks and impacts, while contributing to most of the Sustainable Development Goals and promoting strong synergies with mitigation. This FAO technical paper unpacks the concept of forest-based adaptation and describes policy spheres that could bolster the role of forests and trees in providing adaptation and resilience benefits. It introduces a set of ten principles for using forests and trees to promote transformational adaptation, which were developed with leading experts from the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and other partners. It describes the policy implications of each principle and draws on examples from diverse forest ecosystems and management practices to illustrate their application in practice.

Using Q-methodology to bridge different understandings on community forest management: lessons from the Peruvian Amazon

Community forest management (CFM) is promoted as a strategy to reach multiple development outcomes including the sustainable use of forest resources, forest conservation, poverty alleviation, and social equity through the devolution of rights to forest-dependent communities. Developing effective and equitable strategies to promote CFM requires consensus on its goals and the approaches for reaching those goals. Finding common ground among diverse actors involved in the promotion of CFM can be a challenge when their multifaceted expectations and beliefs are not explicitly enunciated or consciously expressed, obscuring contradictions, conflicting objectives, or even shared agendas. An initial step to reaching consensus would be to clarify the range of perspectives that exist to identify common ground and areas of divergent opinion. We report on an initiative applying Q-methodology as a means of identifying differing perspectives on CFM through interviews with 34 informants representing 6 stakeholder groups involved in the promotion of CFM in the Peruvian Amazon: Indigenous leaders, government policymakers, technicians from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), university professors, forestry students, and representatives of donor agencies. We found four different perspectives on what CFM should do: balance conservation with community rights, encourage capacity and enterprise development, technical oversight to protect forests on behalf of Indigenous communities, and support for grassroots Indigenous autonomy. These perspectives revealed differences in how conservation should be achieved and where balance between technical requirements, Indigenous environmental management, and stewardship practices should be favored. Despite different viewpoints, the perspectives also revealed shared understanding of CFM as a mechanism that could emphasize both supporting community rights and conservation goals. This example illustrates how Q-methodology can generate information on the range of perceptions underlying broad strategies such as the promotion of CFM that can facilitate dialogue around shared pathways and agendas.

The values of wildlife revisited

Wild animals are important worldwide because of the multiple values they represent for human societies. Different frameworks have been proposed to understand the values of wildlife from economic and noneconomic perspectives. Despite efforts from different disciplines to provide a holistic framework for the analysis of wildlife values, the focus is still based on the monetary value derived from market prices. Community-oriented approaches to wildlife conservation have an especially strong economic rationale because they depend on the economic costs and benefits that wildlife represents to local communities. However, purely economic approaches ignore that values are subjective and as such are perceived differently among stakeholders according to their social, economic, cultural, and ecological context. The lack of a holistic framework hinders the possibility to provide a clear and practical tool for the resolution of wildlife conservation conflicts and the identification of management options that maximize values. Based on a wide literature review, we propose a comprehensive wildlife value framework (WVF) incorporating the values of wildlife identified in the academic literature into the total economic value (TEV) framework. Costs associated with human-wildlife conflicts are also incorporated as well as subjective perceptions of values based on multidimensional well-being criteria. This work aims to provide a common structure within which different perspectives related to wildlife can be captured to inform multi-actor, multi-objective decision making related to wildlife management.

Annual Work Plan 2023-2024

This Annual Work Plan (AWP) for PATSPO II is based on the Project Document and the 4-year work plan in the project document, 2022-2025. This Annual Work Plan (AWP) covers the period from April 2023 to March 2024.

Protecting people and wildlife from the potential harms of drone use in biodiversity conservation: interdisciplinary dialogues

In this policy intervention, we recount the process of producing a policy briefing targeting researchers and practitioners who use drones in biodiversity conservation. We use the writing process as a springboard to think through the ways that interdisciplinary exchange has and might further inform the ethical use of new technologies, such as drones. This approach is vital, we argue, because while drones may be deployed as tools that enable or empower forest, wildlife or habitat monitoring practices, so too can they be variously disruptive, repurposed and/or exceed these applications in significant ways. From questions of surveillance and capture, data ownership and security, to noise disruption, drone use requires careful and critical reflection, particularly in sensitive contexts. Yet, interdisciplinary exchange attentive to the ethical, social and experiential dimensions of drone use remains patchy and thin. To this end, this intervention reflects on the process of a group of scholars from ecological, environmental and social science backgrounds coming together in an interdisciplinary project grappling with diverse issues around responsible conservation drone use. After recounting our methodology, including the surprises and learning that emerged in practice, we contextualise the key themes we chose to foreground in our published policy briefing. We conclude by connecting our collaboration with wider actions and energies in the context of existing (conservation) drone policy and practice, while underscoring our contributions to existing work.

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