THINKING beyond the canopy
Centre for International Forestry Research:
Landscapes and food systems
Terry Sunderland
Presentation to Wildlife Conservation Society
The Bronx, NY
26th 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, Indonesia
8 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
Commission 4.843
Norway 3.991
Australia (ACIAR and
AusAid) 2.098
USA (USAID/U.S.
FWS) 0.975
French Global
Environment Facility
0.775
Germany (GIZ) 0.765
Canada (IDRC) 0.744
Finland 0.535
Spain (INIA) 0.507
Others 4.780
Financial resources
2011 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 approach
1. Continual learning and adaptive management
2. Common concern entry point
3. Multiple scales
4. Multi-functionality
5. Multi-stakeholder
6. Negotiated and transparent change
7. Clarification of rights and principles
8. Participatory and user-friendly monitoring
9. Resilience
10. 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 Formulation
Stakeholder meetings, topic
setting
Method Development
Search strategy, inclusion criteria,
protocol draft
Searching Process
Establish literature database,
screen for relevance, remove
duplicates
Screening Process
Filter literature by screening at
title and abstract level
Retrieve Full Texts
Final filter, study quality
assessment
Report Production
Dissemination
Publish 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?

Forests and trees outside forests
are essential for global food security
and nutrition
Summary of the International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition
FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy, 13–15 May 2013
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