Trees on farms
Global Landscape Forum, Marrakech, 16 Nov 2016
Henry Neufeldt
World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
Unexplored big wins for climate change
through landscape restoration

Zomer et al, 2016. Global tree
cover and biomass carbon on
agricultural land: the contribution
of agroforestry to global and
national carbon budgets. Nature
Scientific Reports, 6:29987. DOI:
10.1038/srep29987

• Trees on agricultural land make an important contribution to climate change mitigation: over
the past decade they have sequestered 0.7 Gt CO2 per year across the globe
• This carbon pool is currently not but should be accounted for in IPCC and national inventories
• There are regional hotspots both of biomass increase and loss: identifying the drivers may
help replicate positive trends and revert negative ones
• This global dataset needs to be supplemented by regional assessments of carbon stock
changes to verify trends and provide better data for decision making
Zomer et al, 2016. Global tree cover and biomass carbon on agricultural
land: the contribution of agroforestry to global and national carbon
budgets. Nature Scientific Reports, 6:29987. DOI: 10.1038/srep29987

• Brazil increasing by 14%
• Argentina’s stocks showed
the largest total decline
decreasing 20%, (0.18 PgC)
• On a per hectare basis,
Agentina’s decrease from
17.8 to 14.2 tC/ha
represents a 3.6%
decrease biomass carbon
over nearly a half million
km2 of agricultural land.
• ”Hot spots” of biomass
loss are evident along the
coast of Ecuador, northeast
Brazil
Above and Below Ground
Biomass Carbon on Agricultural
Land
The Contribution of
Agroforestry to
National Carbon Accounting

• Hot spots of of biomass
carbon loss in West Africa
• Sierra Leone - 25% decrease
• Guinea – 14% decrease
• Cameroon – 7% decrease
• Nigeria – 6% decrease
• Tanzania – 16% decrease
• Equatorial Guinea – 18%
• Cote de Ivoire – 7% increase
• Ghana – 23% increase
• Madagascar – 24% increase
Above and Below Ground
Biomass Carbon on Agricultural
Land
The Contribution of
Agroforestry to
National Carbon Accounting

Above and Below Ground Biomass Carbon on Agricultural Land
The Contribution of Agroforestry to National Carbon Accounting
Increase in biomass carbon stock: Bangaldesh 20% - Indonesia 9 %– Malaysia 10 % - China 8%
India 7%– Thailand 6% - Papua New Guinea 4%

Agroforestry has multiple
benefits:
• Provision of ecosystem
services
• Farmer livelihoods through
diversification
• Higher resilience to climate
shocks
• Mitigation

• Requires a big investment in scaling up success stories by verifying results on the ground,
developing the appropriate policies, market forces, extension and farmer capacity and
science needed to reach ca. 100,000 farmers across the globe in regional hotspots
• Identify the drivers of change (positive and negative) and put in place structures to replicate
success and invert negative trends
• Measure the benefits in social, economic, political and environmental dimensions
The Pitch
• We need to ensure that past gains are maintained and potentially expanded
• We need to make sure that losses are reverted across the globe