The role of trees in environmental services

Understanding the role of trees in securing watershed services, storing carbon and maintaining biodiversity in landscape mosaics

There are few cost-effective approaches to evaluating the cost and value of environmental services and local goods, relative to marketable goods. Through our research, we hope to assist local resource managers to use cost-effective, replicable tools and approaches to appraise the likely impacts of changes in land use on watershed functions, biodiversity and carbon stocks, as well as on economic productivity of the landscape.

Key projects

Trees in Multi-use Landscapes in Southeast Asia (TUL-SEA)
The TUL-SEA project ensures access to cost-effective and appropriate tools across the Southeast Asian region, to help analyse trade-offs and assist with natural resource management negotiations. We are working with partners in China, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to deliver training courses and support local application of appraisals of landscape, tenure conflict, market, hydrology, agro-biodiversity and carbon stocks, and simulation models for tree and crop interaction at the plot level and landscape dynamics.

Landscape Mosaics
In partnership with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Integrating Livelihoods and Multiple Biodiversity Values in Landscape Mosaics project focuses on informing and facilitating a negotiation process on land use rights allocation between communities and district level and other key stakeholders. The aim is to enable them to manage landscape mosaics more sustainably. The project has study sites in Tanzania, Madagascar, Cameroon, Indonesia and Laos.