monitoring change, creating outcomes: forests, trees and agroforestry in sentinel landscapes

Monitoring Change, Creating Outcomes: Forests, Trees and Agroforestry in Sentinel Landscapes Laura Snook and Judy Loo, Forest Genetic Resources Programme4 April 2013

Sentinel Landscapes stimulated rapid approval of program

Recognizing that:

• Trees are long-lived

• Can’t achieve impact during 3 year-projects

• Need for turning local to global perspectives through comparisons

• Current research efforts dispersed

Key concept in ‘Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’

Changing nature of forests over time Idealized to represent 5 stages

Forest transition curve

Purpose of Sentinel Landscapes

To measure changes and understand long-term trends in socio-economic and biophysical variables across the ‘forest transition curve’ globally across comparative sites.

Miombo woodland, Mozambique (J. Loo)

Objectives

1. Cross-regional comparison

2. Integration of biophysical & social data

3. Long-term presence (at least 10 years)

4. Co-location of research activities (share resources)

• Between Themes

• With partners

• With other CRPs

Challenges

Selection of a set of comparable landscapes for cross- regional comparisons

Integrating biophysical & socioeconomic data

Building/integrating data sets Integrating action research with

long term monitoring Ensuring/funding long-term

presence

Parkia fruits, Burkina Faso (B. Vinceti)

Opportunities for Bioversityin Sentinel Landscapes• Monitoring the status and trends of FGR

• Monitoring impact of interventions

• Developing long-term relationships with local Universities for capacity development outcomes

• Potential for long-term research (ie provenance or common garden experiments across gradients)

However, funding for research within SLs is not provided by the SL budget (except for predefined monitoring)

Mahogany tree, Maya Forest (J. Loo)

The Process of Selecting Sentinel Landscapes

1. Criteria (15): • Existing data • Scientists from >1 CRP6 components/themes•Variation along the forest transition curve•Etc.

2. Selection of a set of comparable landscapes for cross-regional comparisons

•SL workshop – June 2012, Nairobi•18 proposed candidate landscapes (3 from Bioversity)

Selected LandscapesTier 1:

6 regional landscapes (2 per region)2 cross-regional themes: (oil palm; tropical production forests)

Tier 2: 6 regional landscapes

Tier 1 Sentinel Landscapes

1. Nicaragua Honduras (“N-H SL”) + Maya Forest (?)

2. Western Amazon (MAP) Madre de Dios and Ucayali (Peru), Acre (Brazil) and Pando (Bolivia)

1. Mekong (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Southwest China)

2. Borneo/Sumatra/Sulawesi

Latin America South East Asia

Tapping chicle in the Maya Forest (L. Snook) Indonesian island forest (L.Snook)

Tier 1 Sentinel Landscapes

1. South East Mali, South West Burkina Faso, Togo and Northern Ghana. (Sikasso-Bobo Dioulasso-Tamale)

2. Central Africa Humid Tropics Transect (Congo Basin)

1. Tropical Production Forests Observatory

2. Oil palm: Landscapes, market chains and investment flows

Africa Issue bound

Nigerien Parkland (L. Snook) Moabi tree with Baka man and Moabi log, Cameroon (L. Snook)

6 Tier 1 Regional Sentinel Landscapes

Boundaries to be decided

Tier 2 Sentinel LandscapesLatin America

1. Eastern Amazon

Asia

2. Western Ghats

3. Central Asia

Africa

4. Miombo Woodland

5. Afromontane

Issue bound

6. Mangroves?

Miombo woodland, Mozambique (L Snook)

Bioversity Contributions

Judy Loo member of Sentinel Landscapes Methods group; Laura Snook as Theme 2 Coordinator

Bioversity contributions to diversity monitoring:• 5% holdback proposal led by Judy Loo to

develop and test indicators of genetic diversity of trees that are informative, practical, understandable for monitoring trends

•FGR programe collecting data on tree species in Sentinel Landscapes

•Barbara Vinceti is focal point for biodiversity monitoring in West African landscape

•Marlene Elias is designing questions for baseline data collection on gender

Barbara Vinceti, Burkina Faso

Bioversity Staff in Sentinel Landscape Development• Barbara Vinceti in Western Africa• Julius Tieguhong and Paulus Maukonen in Congo Basin• Riina Jalonen in Sumatra/Borneo, Tropical Production Forest Observatory and Mekong• Evert Thomas in the Tropical Production Forest Observatory and Western Amazon• Laura Snook in Mesoamerican (Nicaragua-Honduras) Sentinel Landscape• Judy Loo leading Central Asia Tier II proposal development • Bhuwon Sthapit linked with Western Ghats Tier II proposal

Above, Paulus Maukonen, Cameroon; Below, Evert Thomas, Bolivia

Bioversity in research projects associated with Sentinel Landscapes

Led by Bioversity:•Forestry to enhance livelihoods and sustain forests in Mesoamerica (Maya forest linkages with Nicaragua-Honduras SL)•Threats to priority food tree species in Burkina Faso: drivers of resource losses and mitigation measures (with CIFOR & ICRAF; West African SL)•Beyond Timber: Reconciling the needs of the Logging Industry with those of forest-dependent people (with CIFOR; Congo Basin SL)

Led by ICRAF: •Ecosystem Services Cooperation: Across sentinel landscapes, the science of ecoagriculture and national green accounting (Fabrice DeClerk)

Above, logs in Cameroon (J. Tieguhong)Below, woman in Burkina Faso parkland (J.Loo)

www.bioversityinternational.org

Thank you