Everyone wants environmental protection, but the environment often loses out when there are limited resources and the most pressing need is to reduce rural poverty. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 emphasised the need for new approaches to solve the increasingly urgent conflicts between these needs – for options that can provide synergistic solutions to both problems at once.

Agroforestry is increasingly being recognised as a vital means of resolving apparent contradictions between development and environment agendas. It can help provide a way out of poverty for millions – and help ameliorate the problems of desertification and climate change while contributing to watershed management and biodiversity conservation at the same time.

Research by the Centre is providing practical means to achieve such synergies between global conventions, national environmental action plans and poverty reduction strategies. Agroforestry provides practical options for small-holders to be involved in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by selling carbon sequestration services to organisations seeking to meet their international carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction obligations. It provides a means to combat desertification as well as providing alternative sources of income for the poor in arid areas. Agroforestry can ameliorate the impact of climate change on the poor because trees are less affected by weather variations than annual crops and agroforestry can be a significant contributor to biodiversity conservation.

Research by the Centre is having considerable impact on ensuring that agroforestry does in fact live up to this potential. Unsuccessful introductions of exotic fast growing trees in the past have created environmental problems – such as reduced runoff from water catchments or the spread of invasive species. Technologies that may be very successful at the household levels can have damaging implications at the landscape or environmental levels, and research is needed to achieve the best balance of needs.

Agroforests can provide one of the most biodiverse agricultural landscapes – with both the environmental benefits of forests and the food and income producing abilities of annual crops. One of this section’s feature stories from Java shows how agroforests often provide the best-bet option to protect biodiversity that is under threat from high population and development pressures.

Our second feature story shows how agroforestry can also provide a viable option for restoring degraded environments. In highly populated rural areas of western Kenya where soil erosion has severely scarred the landscape, a new large-scale research project has begun to apply agroforestry to restore both the environment and community options.