Lini Wollenberg Presentation for the conference on Taking stock of smallholders and community forestry Montpellier France March 24-26, 2010

1. Climate Change Mitigation and Smallholders in Forests LiniWollenberg Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program, CGIAR Taking stock of smallholder and community forestry: Where do we go from here? Montpellier, France 24-26 March, 2009

2. Mitigation and smallholders in forests Smallholders in/near forests depend on agriculture and live in dynamic tension between agrarian forces and forests But climate change interventions in land use currently sectoral. Focused on sequestering carbon forests: REDD

3. Agrarian-forest interactionsin climate change Farmers as major drivers of LUC, agricultural expansion CC mitigation in forests (REDD) and implications for farming communities Agroforestry, swidden and shifting cultivation as mitigation strategies Landscape-based mitigation strategies Forest frontier transition zone: boom-bust cycles, migration, high risk environment

4. What do we know, what do we still need to learn? How to protect high carbon forests from conversion to agriculture How to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon in agricultural landscapes

5. And how can these mitigation strategies ….also sustainably provide food, reduce poverty and maintain natural resources? By 2020, need to increase crop production (grains, roots and tubers) by 40% and meat products by 58% in developing countries; yet degrading resources, few valuable lands, limited crop yields in green revolution areas

6. 1. How to protect forests from conversion to agriculture

8. Market-oriented contribute more

9. Pathways 1 Incentives linked to the forest Raise the value of forests and secondary forests through NTFPS and environmental services (e.g. REDD) Institutional arrangements: local management, protected area rules and enforcement

11. Maintaining forest creates positive feedback on climate: stabilizes regional climate (Stickler et al 2009)

12. Displaces local farming. Where do people get their food?

14. Only possible if agriculture is main threatConversion linked to multiple local and macro causes of (migration, infrastructure, fire, drought, markets, wood extraction, technology) (Hirsch and Fisher 2007) Past projects limited by focus on local technical interventions

17. 2. How to reduce GHG and sequester C in agricultural landscapes?

18. Agricultural GHG emissions (UNFCCC) 10–12% global anthropogenic GHG emissions, 6.8 Gt of CO2 equivalent 74% from developing countries (increasing) From 38% - N2O emissions from soils 32% - CH4 enteric fermentation CO2-low flux 12% - Biomass burning, 11% - CH4 rice production, 7 % - CH4 and N20 manure management Highest emitters: South, Southeast Asia and Latin America (But high uncertainty) GHGs from land-use change, including deforestation in tropical areas, exceed emissions from all other agricultural sources (about 18%)

19. Technical mitigation potential IPCC- combination of modeling, default values and data from limited sites Reducing conversion of land through intensification 89% soil carbon (C) sequestration through cropland management, grazing land management, restoration of organic soils and degraded lands, agroforestry etc. 9% CH4 mitigation through rice, livestock and manure management 2% N2O mitigation emissions from soils through crop management. Remember: Full accounting of all greenhouse gas emissions exists for only a few intensive agricultural systems and for slash and burn. (Davidson et al 2008)

20. Alternatives to slash and burn studies Palm 2000: 14

21. Issue: Appropriate mitigation strategies for shifting cultivation? Swidden and shifting cultivation can fit under the UNFCCC definition of forest (10-30% cover, 2-5 m, temporarily unstocked, expert judgement (Van Noordwijk 2009) Only 1.75% of conversion due to long fallow annual crops. Only 37 million people? (Dixon 2001), 1 billion ha? (Sanchez et al. 2005). Need to verify numbers Swidden can act as a GHG sink due to fallows and agroforestry(next section) “Chop and mulch” in E Amazon maintains nutrients, but no fire-related emissions. Fire emissions/ha were 630 kg CH4, 19 kg N2O, and 130 kg NO, or 42, 3, and 10x times higher than highest soil emissions of CH4, N2O, and NO

22. Gockowski et al. 2000 In Sanchez 2000: 377

23. Trade-offs and Synergies: Food and Carbon (FAO 2009)

24. Implementation issues Technical High uncertainty in emissions estimates and lack of information for their assessment, no baselines C measurement; responses to land use not always well understood, high local variability, risk of loss, maximum capacity of soils to store C No life cycle information for value chain or smallholder livelihoods Other High transaction costs and risks may make mitigation less attractive than current land use (e.g. forest conversion to pasture)(Coomes et al. 2008) Impacts on costs of production and competitiveness ASB experience: site specific, game in progress Farmers want menus of mitigation choices (Tschakert 2007) Adoption of sustainable land management will require incentives High initial investments

25. Agricultural trends Northern Mountain Region of Vietnam (Leisz et al. 2009) (1) if farming systems continue as is, GHG emissions + (2) if the NMR farming systems change according to government policies and programs, net C sequestration occurs in first 20 years (3) over the longer term, increased GHG emissions from changes in the farming systems (e.g. increased paddy and increased pig raising in sties due to government policies) will overtake the C in vegetation

26. Summary Protect existing forest? (high C sequestration) Reduce GHG/sequester C in agriculture Incentives for conserved forest (REDD) Intensification of agriculture Reduce emissions (techno. & land use change) Increase sequestration Soil, AF Food, costs, appropriate to smallholders? Food, rights? Incentives for adoption, ST productivity? Emissions, pressure on forest, sustainability? Issues

27. Conclusions Interrelated paths towards mitigation: intensify ag and protect forests to reduce LUC; technical fixes to reduce emissions, SALM/AF to sequester more C Above ground biomass carbon probably most feasible and high impact management intervention Smallholders will face pressures for intensification and intervention that sometimes compete e.g., forest v. farming, longer fallows v. food production Which trade-offs are most appropriate for smallholders in specific regions and types of agrarian strategies? Use REALU /landscape + life cycle + trends over time approach. Need real numbers!

30. Voluntary markets and REDD based on this

32. Reinforce protection with local management, institutions and protected area rules and enforcement Probability of deforestation 7–11x lower inside ILPAs than in surrounding areas. (Since 2002 in Brazilian Amazon, Rickett et al. 2010) Larger forest size and greater rule-making autonomy assoc. w/high C storage & livelihood benefits. Communities restrict consumption of forest products when they own forest commons, (80 forest commons, 10 countries, Chhatre and Agrawal 2009) Mayan spatial analysis study

33. IMPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION and POVERTY Burning releases significant GHG. Widespread burning can induce regional reduction in rainfall, exacerbating climate?

34. Risk of agriculture in forest areas: MRV already challenging exercise for any land use but especially difficult at tropical frontiers where land use fluctuates according to boom and bust economic cycles, migration, sociopolitical conflict, national policy, wildlife etc (Cacho 2003) Where do we want to bear costs of mitigation?

35. Conclusions (cont) Whole system/landscape perspective (REALU) needed to understand interactions and accounting (Van Noordwijk et al. 2008), especially for sustainability implications : food production v. natural resource sustainability v emissions trade-offs not clear Numbers currently best estimates. Need for caution: diverse approaches; careful of crisis arguments

37. Carbon in Land Uses before and after Slash and Burn (116 ASB Sites) Sanchez 2000: 376

38. Carbon in forest-agriculture mosaic SubektiRahayu, BethaLusiana and Meine van Noordwijk 2005.

40. Soil v. Biomass Carbon

41. Mitigation factors (sample) Warm, moist climate zone Smith et al. 2008

42. Trade-offs predicted by models as well… The highest value for predicted additional carbon storage in the wider landscape did not coincide with the best results for local livelihoods (Noordwijk et al. 2008) Used FALLOW model (Van Noordwijk, 2002)

43. Forest conversion 72% of est. original 1450 mil ha tropical forest now converted to other uses Small scale farmers- 96% of losses, 30% in Lat Am, 50% in Asia, 70% in Africa

44. Carbon payments for agroforestry demonstrated to technically increase incomes (Seeberg-Elverfeldt et al. 2008)