Presented by Terry Sunderland, from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), at USAID in Washington DC, USA, on April 20, 2017.

1. FOOD SECURITY IN THE TROPICS – WHAT ROLE FOR
FORESTS AND TREES?
Terry Sunderland, PhD
USAID, Washington DC, 20th April 2017

2. RE-DEFINING FORESTRY AND LANDSCAPES:
FUNDAMENTALS FOR ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
 Food, nutrition and health
 Water, energy and housing
 Livelihoods and employment
 Climate change adaptation
and mitigation
 Biodiversity conservation
 Resilience and safety nets
 To environmental and
economic external shocks

3. FORESTS, LANDSCAPES AND PEOPLE
• One billion+ people depend on forest
products for consumption and income in
some way (Agrawal et al. 2013)
• Safety-net during times of food and income
insecurity (Wunder et al. 2014)
• Wild harvested meat and freshwater fish
provides 30-80% of protein intake for many
rural communities (Nasi et al. 2011;
McIntyre et al. 2016)
• 75% of world’s population rely on
biodiversity for primary health care (WHO,
2003)
• 40%-80% of global food production comes
from diverse smallholder agricultural
systems in complex landscapes (FAO
2011; IFAD 2016)
• Long tradition of managing forests for food
– e.g. shifting cultivation (van Vliet et al.
2011)
• Forests sustaining agriculture through
ecosystem services provision (Reed et al.
2017)

4. FORESTS AND FOOD SECURITY: THE EVIDENCE
Seasonality
Off-farm income
Agriculture
**Rights & access**

5. “Forests are a major repository
of food and other resources that
play a crucial role in food
security. In addition, maintaining
diversity in agricultural
production systems leads to
increased resilience to shocks
particularly in the context of a
changing climate”. Editorial:
Arnold et al. 2011

6. “There is a statistically significant positive relationship between tree cover
and dietary diversity; fruit and vegetable consumption increases with tree
cover. Overall our findings suggest that children in Africa who live in
areas with more tree cover have more diverse and nutritious diets”.
Ickowitz et al., 2014

7. "Our findings suggest that deforestation and land use change may have
unforeseen consequences on the quality of local people’s diets. A better
understanding of the contribution of forest foods to local diets is needed to
understand the true impact that the loss of forests may have for nutrition in
the face of agricultural expansion. If indeed forests substantially
contribute to dietary quality in some areas as the results here imply,
forest loss may result in unforeseen, adverse consequences on
nutrition for local people." Rowland et al. 2016

8. “Areas of swidden/agroforestry, natural forest, timber and agricultural
tree crop plantations were all associated with more frequent
consumption of food groups rich in micronutrients. The
swidden/agroforestry land class was the landscape associated with
more frequent consumption of the largest number of micronutrient rich
food groups. Swidden cultivation in is often viewed as a backward practice
that is an impediment to food security in Indonesia and destructive of the
environment. If further research corroborates that swidden farming actually
results in better nutrition than the practices that replace it, Indonesian policy
makers may need to reconsider their views on this land use”. Ickowitz et al.,
2016

9. “Our findings suggest that when incorporating forests and trees within an appropriate
and contextualized natural resource management strategy, there is potential to
maintain, and in some cases, enhance yields comparable to solely monoculture
systems”.

10. FORESTS SUSTAINING AGRICULTURE
How does landscape configuration maximise the provision of these
goods and services for both sustainable forestry and food production?
Water regulation
Climate regulation
Pollination
Pest control
Foli et al. 2014; Reed et al. 2017

11. HAS THE MANAGEMENT OF WILD FOOD ACTUALLY INFLUENCED
OUR FORESTED LANDSCAPES?
“Our analyses
indicate that
modern tree
communities in
Amazonia are
structured to an
important extent by
a long history of
plant domestication
by Amazonian
peoples” (Levis et al.
2017, Science)

12. GENDER PERSPECTIVES
“There is strong and clear
evidence of the
importance of including
women in forest
management groups for
better resource
governance and
conservation outcomes”.
Leisher et al. 2016
“Women and children
collect a diverse range
of nutritious plant
based forest foods
while men are
primarily responsible
for animal protein
sources”.
Sunderland et al. 2014

13. IUFRO GLOBAL FOREST EXPERT PANEL REPORT - 2015
“The assessment report provides comprehensive
scientific evidence on how forests, trees and landscapes
can be – and must be - an integral part of the solution
to the global problem of food security and nutrition”.

14. HIGH LEVEL PANEL OF EXPERTS (HLPE) REPORT
• Much of the recent work on forests and food
security has influenced the drafting of the
HLPE Report: “Sustainable forestry for food
security and nutrition” for the Committee on
World Food Security (CFS)
• At e-consultation stage, many individuals,
civil society and governments provided
formal review and feedback: e.g. Russian
Federation, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, India,
the Netherlands
• Report will be released in June 2017 and
then officially launched at CFS Annual
Congress in October 2017
• Probably greatest opportunity to get forests
and food security and nutrition onto global
food security agenda and policy arena

15. KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: BREAKING DOWN SILOS
• IUFRO: Getting the forestry
community to understand the
importance of forest
management for food security
and nutrition
• CFS: Getting the nutrition and
food security community to
understand the role of forests for
food security and nutrition
• Nutrition community now
recognising importance of
biodiversity for food security

16. GETTING THE MESSAGE OUT

17. IMPACT: CGIAR MOVE TO SYSTEMS APPROACH

18. IMPACT AND INFLUENCE?

19. NEW APPROACHES TO INTEGRATE FORESTRY AND
AGRICULTURE: A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE?
• “Agroecology is complimentary to conventional agriculture and needs
scaling up” (United Nations 2011)
• “New agriculture needed…” (UNDP 2011)
• “Agro-ecological approach needed to feed the world” (World Bank 2011)
• “Integrated management of biodiversity for food and agriculture” (FAO 2011)
• “Food production depends largely on biodiversity and on the services
provided by ecosystems” (CBD 2013)
• “A paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological
systems……” (IPBES 2016)
• “High-input, resource-intensive farming systems, which have caused
massive deforestation, water scarcities, soil depletion and high levels of
greenhouse gas emissions, cannot deliver sustainable food and agricultural
production” (FAO 2017)

20. ALIGNMENT WITH USAID STRATEGIC PRIORITIES – BIODIVERSITY
USAID Biodiversity Policy, 2014
“The poor management of both forests and fisheries means that these precious
resources will not meet human demand over the long term – compromising
global food security and straining the resilience of these systems and society”.
Rajiv Shah, Administrator
• “Integrate biodiversity as an essential component of human development”
• “Embark on evidence-based action and learning efforts with a focus on the
nexus of biodiversity and other development sectors”
• “Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems provide goods and services critical to
human well-being (clean water, food, reduced natural disaster risk) and can
help sustain development outcomes”
• “Apply systems thinking and integrated approaches”
• “Identification and pursuit of opportunities for integration of biodiversity with
targeted sectors of agriculture, food security, climate change, health,
economic growth, and trade”

21. ALIGNMENT WITH USAID STRATEGIC PRIORITIES – FOOD SECURITY
US Global Food Security Strategy 2017-2021
• “Inclusive and sustainable agriculture-led
economic growth”
• “Strengthened resilience among people and
[food] systems”
• “A well nourished population (putting nutrition
before production), especially women and
children”
• “Ensuring a sustainable food and agricultural
system”
• “..aims to break silos, integrating programming
across sectors and agencies”
• “Evidence-based approach on what works…. for
maximum results”
• IR4: Increased sustainable productivity
especially through climate smart
approaches

22. FORESTS AND FOOD SECURITY: WHAT VISION?
• Clear need to understand the role that management of wild foods has
had in shaping forested landscapes.
• This includes swidden agriculture: how has temporal clearance of
forest influenced the configuration of tropical landscapes?
• What are the relative contributions of different forest resources
(edible plants, bushmeat, fish) in context of seasonality, economic
alternatives etc?
• Not about keeping people forest dependent, but recognising that
people are and remain dependent on forest resources. Integrate
these people and their practices into equitable landscape planning.
• Rights-based approaches: how to balance with conservation for more
inclusive food systems?
• Translating evidence to policy and implementation.
• Systems approach: Promoting ecosystem service function of forests
and trees with agricultural production = resilience.

23. THINKING beyond the canopy
t.sunderland@cgiar.org
@TCHSunderland