Tree cover transitions and land-scape functions: does it matter?

Meine van Noordwijk

ICRAF

CRP6 Seminar Bogor – taking stock in CRP6.3 & 6.5 ; 13 March 2013

Tree cover transitions and investment in multi-colored economy: hypotheses grounded in data

Geological history, pat-terns & current activity

Global climate systems

based on oceans, land

& atmosphere

Flora and fauna and its biogeography

Land forms,vegetation,ecosystems,hydrology

Initial human land use

Late-stage hu-man land use

Land use is predictable from ‘reading the landscape’

Land use dominates over original terrain features

Landscape Space

People

Land Use Systems

Institutions

Functions, services

Geology Land forms

Climate

Vegetation Flora&fauna

Hydrology

Value chains Landscape -

Planning, Incentives

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Which trees are part of “forest”, which ones part of the “agroforest”, or “agriculture”?

Old-growth

http://www.cifor.org/es/crp6/research-portfolio.html

Tree cover transitions as uni-fying concept for livelihoods, landscape and governance aspects

Partnership in responsive and adaptive research for/on/in development efforts, strengtheningcapacity

Zero net land degra-dation

SLO1 SLO2 SLO3 SLO4

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Go

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UNFCCC CBD UNCCD Aichi targets: areas, aware-ness, species, governance, incentives

Low emission development; Reduce vulnerability through adaptation R

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nd

Mai

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acc

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ate

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Rural income growth & empowerment at bottom of the gendered pyramid

Food supply growth > growth in demand; food price affordable at bottom of gendered pyramid

Nutritional aspects of health improve at bottom of gendered pyramid

(Agr

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Eco

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Landscape interactions:

SLO1 Rural poverty SLO2 Food production SLO3 Health & Nutrition SLO4 Natural Resource Management

Tree cover transitions: so what?

Trees as • Assets • Affordable bio- energy source • Income earners through products • Markers of land tenure claims

Trees as • (emergency) food • Staple (sago…) • Source of soil fertility for crops • Erosion control • Buffering climate & soil temperature

Trees as • Source of fruit, nutritional diver-sity health • Affordable bio- energy source • Medicinals • Clean water

Trees as •Markers of land tenure claims • Water recycling • Nutrient recy-cling • Carbon storage • Climate buffer

Direct vs Indirect

Profitability Sustainability

Fruits as healthy part of diets

Essentially there are only two possible conditions for any specific field of science:

At least some of the evidence is conflicting with the most compre-hensive of current theories

Current theory is aligned with all credible known facts

Theory of Change

Identify and implement a rational pathway to achieve change that is deemed desirable by funders and acceptable by gatekeepers

Question common Answers

Answer open Questions

Our daily struggle

called science

Change of Theory

New Theory of Change

Three sessions reflect focal areas within the landscape theme (CRP6.3):

• 10.15-11.15 I. Tree cover transition data and research choices in sentinel landscapes Facilitator: Peter Minang

• 11.15-12.15 II. Ecosystem service consequences of tree cover transitions

Facilitator: Terry Sunderland

• 13.15-14.15 III. Learning landscapes: finding solutions that reduce tradeoffs locally Facilitator: Ujjwal Pradhan

The logarithm of human population density is a good predictor of the fraction of land area reported

as forest (across different forest types)

We can identify countries that have

more than 10% extra, or more

than 10% forest deficit relative to what is expected

for their population density

For 29 Developing Countries reporting increases in fo-rest area (“beyond forest transition point”), the pattern matches

that of 83 other Developing Countries

However, FT patterns are less likely in countries that have more than 10% forest deficit

A key assumption in the CGIAR is the Borlaug hypothesis that ag yield increase will save forests…

There’s a little bit of evidence suporting it, but not a lot…

Forest transition points are less likely where the firewood footprint still exceeds 0.15 ha p.p.

1. Tree cover in landscapes changes in quality, quantity and pattern in non-linear fashion; depending on the operational forest definition used, tree cover transitions at certain scales show a ‘forest transition’ graph of decline followed by recovery (basic forest transition hypothesis)

2. Tree cover transitions in time can be understood as the resultant of time-variant processes, with increases in human population density (or rather the logarithm of it) linked to decrease of natural forest cover, and increases in HDI (or other economic indicators) linked to increases in tree cover (population density and welfare hypothesis)

3. The spatial pattern in quality and quantity of tree cover from urban areas with (surrounding) trees to areas with few trees and open-field agriculture towards remaining natural forest show more than coincidental resemblance with the temporal dynamics of hypotheses 2, as both patterns reflects benefits derived from tree cover relative to other land cover types (spatial forest transition hypothesis).

4. Institutional change from a ‘forest’ to an ‘agrarian’ regime of tenure and control is essential for the transition from decline towards increase of tree cover to occur (agroforestation or tenurial reform hypothesis)

5. What happens in one part of the tree cover transition is linked at driver and/or actor level to other parts of the landscape as A) profitability of tree planting depends on access to tree and forest products elsewhere, B) migrational flows modify human population density in sink and source areas, etc.), C) landscape-wide rules instigated to address specific issues in parts of the curve (e.g. ‘illegal logging’ control) affect actors elsewhere (landscape linkage hypothesis; the ‘sparing’ hypothesis that agricultural intensification saves forests is a special form of it)

Forest and tree cover transitions: a unifying concept across CRP6

Temporal pattern, X-

axis

Spatial pattern, X-axis

Institutional challenge at turning point

X-linkage of actions in landscape

Core

Choice of Y-axis

1

2 3 4 5

6

1. Undisturbed natural forest 2. Undisturbed + sust. logged natural forest 3. Closed canopy undisturbed + logged forest 4A. as 3 + agroforest 4B. as 3 + timber plantations 4C. as 3 + agroforest + timber plant’s + estate crops 4D as 4C + shrub

Rainforest foundation

Conservation agency

Modis data

Ministry of Forestry

Forest ecologist

UNFCCC definition

Stakeholder:

6. Drivers of tree cover transition are space/time dependent and knowledge on past drivers in a certain landscape cannot be directly extrapolated towards the future; yet there may be predictability in the succession of drivers (driver change hypothesis) 9. Appreciation of tree cover and its associated ecosystem services varies with gender, wealth, cultural backgrounds, ecological knowledge and exposure to extreme events, leading to diversity of opinion and preferences for status quo and possible changes in tree cover (‘diversity of stakes’ hypothesis; includes gender specificity)

7. Land use types that are part of the tree cover transition differ in effectiveness of ‘provisioning’ and ‘environment-al’ goods and services, labour absorption and profitability (tradeoff hypothesis, ASB Matrix) 8. Tree cover of all types and in all stages is positively associated with buffer functions in an ecological, social and economic sense, with the spatial pattern and degree of integration linked to human resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of climate and market variability (integration, buffer and resiliency hypothesis)

A view from the modern LU planners kitchen:

From the “silo- approach” to (intensive) agriculture, production forestry and conservation areas set-

aside, we can cook a landscape that is more

palatable than any of the ingredients, by adding

local preferences, using a variety of tools

Polit

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Stage of the issue cycle

Scoping Stakeholder Negotiation Implemen- Re-eva-

analysis response tation luation

Is it a problem?

Cause-effect mechanisms

Who’s to blame?

What will it cost?

Regulate and/or reward

Implement & monitor

Evaluate, re-assess

Who’ll have to pay?

What can be done to stop, mitigate, undo or adapt?

How much and where?

Who will monitor compliance? Litigation

Tomich et al. 2004

10. Feedback mechanisms from beneficiaries of (certain types of) tree cover to the drivers/agents can take multiple forms (rules, incentives, suasion, investment in value chains and technology) and needs to be evaluated in the interaction between instruments rather than as specifically targeted approaches (‘no silver bullet’ hypothesis) 12. Public discourse on aspects of tree cover transition and the relevance of interventions follows a policy issue cycle, with different opportunities for knowledge-based analysis to support and influence the emergence of transparent, effective, efficient and fair solutions, linking platforms of political will to actionable knowledge (impact pathway hypothesis)

11. Dynamics of tree cover changes can be influenced by multistakeholder negotiation support processes, that recognize multiple knowledge, perceptions, stakes, power and influence (Negotiation support hypothesis; includes gender specificity)

New tech-nology

F. Support for technological innovation

Institutions, identity,

pride

Drivers

B1. Incentive structure through policy change (tax, subsidy etc)

A2. LU rights (e.g. community forest mngmnt)

B2. PES and conditional ES incentives

Response/ feedback options

Biodiversity, Watershed functions, GHG emissions,

Landscape beauty

Actors/ agents

Land use/cover changes

Conse-quences & functions

Livelihoods, provisioning & profitability

A1. Land use policies, spatial development planning, roads

Modified from: Van Noordwijk, M., B. Lusiana, G. Villamor, H. Purnomo, and S. Dewi. 2011. Feedback loops added to four conceptual models linking land change with driving forces and actors. Ecology and Society 16(1): r1. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/resp1/

C. Suasion and institutional support

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G = Potential gender specificity of analysis & targeting of interventions

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http://www.espconference.org/ESP_Conference

Land use zoning, use and property rights

Human popula-tion & Δ

Mar- ket access, tax,subs.

Management& behavioural

choices of land users

Food, fibre, income Harvestable products

Provisioning services Regulating, supporting & cultural services

Land use practices in a landscape

context

Human & environmental health&well-being

Commodity-product- ser-vice value chains, x-border trade

Waterflows (quality,quantity, regularity)

Macro-&me-so climate Biodiversity

Happiness monitoring

Economic development planning

Environmental & wellfare targeted planning

GDP, national econo-mic growth or decline

Natural ca-pital ac-counting

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AgTech

New green economy, integrated rural-urban development coalitions…

Three sessions reflect focal areas within the landscape theme (CRP6.3):

• 10.15-11.15 I. Tree cover transition data and research choices in sentinel landscapes Facilitator: Peter Minang

• 11.15-12.15 II. Ecosystem service consequences of tree cover transitions

Facilitator: Terry Sunderland

• 13.15-14.15 III. Learning landscapes: finding solutions that reduce tradeoffs locally Facilitator: Ujjwal Pradhan