Land health surveillance and agroforestry in support of land restoration in Africa

1. Land health surveillance & Agroforestry
in support of land restoration in Africa
Ermias Betemariam (e.betemariam@cgiar.org)
Keith Shepherd
Dennis Garrity
UNCCD COP 12, Ankara
20 Oct. 2015

2. Land Health Surveillance
Shepherd KD, et al. 2015. Land health surveillance
and response: a framework for evidence-informed
land management. Agricultural Systems 132: 93–106
Land Health - the capacity of land, relative to its potential, to sustain
delivery of essential ecosystem services (the benefits people obtain from
ecosystems)
Land health surveillance
Develop and promote methods for measuring and monitoring land
health, assessing land health risks, and targeting interventions to
improve agro-ecosystem health and human wellbeing

3. Context-Harnessing New Opportunities
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WLE Flagship Project 1 (2017 – 2022): Restoring Degraded Landscapes
(RDL): restore 7 million ha land in Africa, Asia and LAC
20–25% of global land degraded affecting 1.5 billion people
Sustainable Development Goal # 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable
use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification,
and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
The Bonn challenge: restore 150 million ha (85 billion a year) of deforested
and degraded lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030
Zero Net Land Degradation (ZNLD) UNCCD by 2030: degradation <
restoration= f(halting further loss, restoring already-degraded lands)
CGIAR strategy 2016-2030 “Harnessing New Opportunities”: Improved
National Resource Systems & Ecosystem Services (SLO 3): targets to
restore 190 million hectares of degraded land by 2030
CRP

4. Opportunities
• Current global and national commitments to achieve all SDGs
and to meet the Bonn Challenge
• Rewarding schemes of ecosystem services, REDD+
• Climate smart agriculture, CC adaptation and mitigation, and
green economy
• Advances in monitoring technologies such as remote sensing
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5. 4
In Africa, mostly the opportunity is in restoring
mosaic landscapes with multiple functions
0.38 1 1 1 1 1.2
2 2.5
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11.1
15 15
0
4
8
12
16
Area(millionhectae)
Africa 50% of 59 M
committed
~ 1.5 billion ha suitable for mosaic restoration, in
which forests and trees, including agroforestry,
smallholder agriculture, and settlements

6. 5
At what stages? Under what contexts?
Land degradation and restoration as a continuum

7. • How can drivers of degradation can be reversed,
• What function is to be restored for whom (objectives),
• Who has rights, obligations (responsibilities) and stakes? (including
restoration after planned destruction in the case of mining contracts),
• What means are appropriate (do nothing, support natural processes, or plant
and manage),
• What incentives and investment is needed and how can this be sourced,
• How all of the above can be managed in a multi-stake-holder process,
supported by monitoring and evaluation
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Key questions in land restoration

8. Risk framework
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9. 8
Soil spectroscopy
• Rapid (~ 1000 samples/ day- robotic)
• Low cost (~ 56 %)
• Reproducible
• Predicts several soil functional properties
Cost-effective monitoring of land/soil degradation and restoration
• Lowering cost of acquisition and access
• Satellites, UAVs, lab spectroscopy
• Improving relevance to improving critical decisions
• Decision analytics, Value of Information

10. 9
Baseline information for targeting land restoration
Africa Soil Information Services ++ Prediction map for soil organic carbon for
sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: Africa Soil
Information Service)

11. 1
0
Information for targeting land restoration

12. 1
1
Cost-effective monitoring
Increase in vegetation cover could be a
sing of land degradation – e.g. bush
encroachment in rangelands
National capacity development is
important

13. Land restoration to target
multiple benefits- synergy
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Healthy landscapes
CBD
UNFCCC
UNCC
D
UNCCD
UNFCCC
CBD
• Measurement could be expensive
– Measure/monitor for multiple benefit
LDN: Monitoring framework
• Land cover and land cover changes
• Land productivity dynamics
• Soil Organic Carbon content
• Biodiversity??
• Socio-economic indicators??

14. Northern Ethiopia
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Context specific solutions

15. • There is insufficient specific evidence on land degradation to
focus action.
• Land health problems share many features with public health
problems.
• National land health surveillance systems could generate large
development benefit.
• Preventive strategies that reduce distal risks at national levels
are needed
Ermias Betemariam | Hands-on soil infrared spectroscopy training course | Nairobi | Nov. 12, 2013 | 1
4
Final remarks

16. • Avoid further degradation and restoring degraded lands
• Sustainable land management
• Avoiding degradation of non-degraded Lands
– enhancing the productivity of cropland and pastoral land per unit area,
time and input rather than expanding the area of land in production
• Community-based and traditional approaches
• Payment for ecosystem services
Ermias Betemariam | Hands-on soil infrared spectroscopy training course | Nairobi | Nov. 12, 2013 | 1
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Pathways

17. Actors Activities
Farmers and
pastoralists
• Engage in capacity development
• Involve in preparedness and risk management schemes
Private sector • Engage in investments that increase efficiency in land
use
• Invest in R&D on SLM
Governments • Create enabling environment- policy
• Set up national goal and targets
• Measure and monitor LDD Measuring LDD
Intergovernm
ental actions
• Agree on a Sustainable Development
• Agree on a new legal instrument (e.g. ZNLD) to the UNCCD
• Establish an Intergovernmental Panel/Platform
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Recommendations