The mission of
Southeast Asia regional programme is to reduce poverty and sustain the
natural resource base in the uplands of Southeast Asia through improved
agroforestry systems.
Strategic research
remains focused on Indonesia (humid rainforest
margins), the Philippines (monsoonal
hillside agriculture) and Thailand
(northern tropics landscape mosaics).
In Vietnam (high incidence of rural
poverty), Laos (upland agriculture in
forest margins) and the subhumid areas of eastern Indonesia we work
primarily on capacity building and knowledge sharing. A new programme in
China will combine capacity building with exchange, based on China’s
long and diverse experience in agroforestry. Collegial exchange
characterizes our relationships in Malaysia (focusing on tree–crop
experience) and Cambodia.
Our strategic research
is implemented at a ‘watershed triangle’ of key field locations. These
locations are Sumatra (Lampung and Jambi), northern Thailand (Mae Chaem),
and northern Mindanao (Claveria and Lantapan). We have worked to build an
interdisciplinary team of research and development specialists at each of
the corners of this triangle to conduct integrated research on issues
related to resource management in upland watersheds.
.
Major
themes
National policy
constraints to agroforestry and upland resource management
Management of
landscape-level impacts of land-use change
Rehabilitation and
improved utilization of degraded lands by smallholder agroforestry
systems
Agroforests as a
sustainable upland resource management system
Capacity building
.
ICRAF,
as part of the CGIAR or ‘Future Harvest’ family of international
institutes, aims to contribute to some of the most pressing problems
of this time:
Three
quarters of the world’s poorest people
- the 1.2 billion who live on less than one dollar a day - live
in rural areas, and depend on agriculture, one way or another.
The world has set itself the Millennium Development Goals of 50%
poverty reduction from 2000 levels by 2015 as a first step….
Rural
poverty and poor health
are causally related, with dependence on traditional medicinal
plants, surface water resources and local agrodiversity as basis of
healthy diets is at risk during the process of intensification of
agriculture and potential benefits of globalization are not yet in
reach for a majority of rural poor
Water
supply and conflicts
over use of water and (forest) lands: while the water supply remains
constant at best, the demands are increasing and so are the
conflicts over water use
Biodiversity
conservation
has to be made compatible with local livelihoods:the rain forest challenge is to protect key resources while
allowing rural poor to improve their livelihoods
While
there is healthy market demand for many products that local
agroforestry systems can produce, access to markets is often
restricted by rules and taxes, lack of transport and information
gaps, limiting the profitability of the use of local
agrobiodiversity
Government
structures and processes
tend to be biased towards urban perceptions and needs, and may
favour development interventions that do not address the needs of
the rural poor.
.
Our
objectives in Southeast Asia are:
To
develop a more systematic understanding of the role of trees in
land use mosaics in Southeast Asia, and articulate the
implications of this knowledge for the sustainable management of
natural resources in upland watersheds
To
redress policy imbalances by providing policy options that
will reduce poverty and conserve natural resources, and facilitate
the use of such options in policymaking processes
To
develop the capacity of our research and development partners
to address the most urgent natural resource management problems in
the uplands through agroforestry
To
provide methods, tools, and analyses that lead to institutional
innovations for successful participatory management of natural
resource
To
identify and refine key agroforestry technical innovations
that lead to more profitable and sustainable use of upland
landscapes
To
facilitate the impact of agroforestry innovations on the land
via the decisions of the millions of practical agroforesters,
through strong linkages with development projects that employ recent
research outputs.
Our
main
investors
... so far
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WORLD AGROFORESTRY
CENTRE - SOUTH EAST ASIA http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea
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