Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) requires a site-specific understanding of the tradeoffs between and among the goods and services that trees in agro-ecosystems can provide. Local professionals with interdisciplinary skills need replicable, cost-effective approaches to help stakeholders identify how trees in multi-use landscapes can impact positively and negatively on livelihoods, water and biodiversity, rights and rewards.
ICRAF in Southeast Asia has developed a negotiation support approach with a toolbox of instruments to reduce conflict in multi-use landscapes (Scheme 1). The approach aims to: Local resource managers in national institutions may now use these cost-effective, replicable tools and approaches to appraise the likely im¬pacts of new technologies and changes in market access, and to support evidence-based negotiation on contentious issues. However, prior to wider applicability:
The TUL-SEA project aims to improve and develop national capacity to use available, cost-effective, replicable tools and approaches to improve agricultural productivity (new technology and/or new market access) and environmental services in multi-use landscapes with trees.
To achieve the goals, the TUL-SEA project has four Work Packages (WP):
This project, through partnerships with local institutions, academics and universities, expects to improve land use practices and contribute to increased and sustained productivity and conservation. It is also expected to reduce conflicts, improve the equitable use of land, water and forest resources in multi-use landscapes with trees, and increase smallholder producers’ income and well-being.
| Current situation (aspects of the problem) |  |
Desirable state (targets) |
|---|---|---|
| 1A.Rapid market integration, economic growth coupled to ‘growing pains’: equity/gender, ES concerns, exclusion, boom/bust cycles, risks of specialisation in a single commodity. | |
1B.Risks at smallholder level are mitigated by better access to realistic ex ante impact study results (gender-specific) that apply to local conditions and institutions. |
| 2A. Upland – lowland conflicts over upland ‘deforestation’, floods and pollution: rule (perception), not evidence-based governance | |
2B.Upland-lowland conflicts over water quantity, timing and quality in relation to upland land use are based on site-specific evidence and are the basis for negotiation, rules and rewards. |
| 3A. External concerns over biodiversity con-servation linked to local concerns over exclusion | |
3B. Biodiversity conservation is recognised and rewarded within agricultural landscapes with ‘forest-analogue’ land uses. |
| 4A. An absence of local voices at negotiation tables due to poor connectivity of three knowledge domains (local, public/policy and modellers/scientists). | |
4B. Explicit recognition of multiple perceptions and sources of (gender-specific) knowledge enriches the public discourse on natural resource management and the negotiation of solutions with potential tradeoffs. |
| 5A. Land use planning remains an abstract, top-down activity, without the means to influence the actual trajectories of land use change. | |
5B. Local negotiations are informed by local articulation of alternative scenarios for landscape level changes in land use and livelihoods, coupled with quantitative scenario models and ex ante impact assessment tools. |
| 6A.The high cost of desirable site-specific research leads to the use of ‘blueprint’ approaches and undermines the platform on INRM research as an international public good. | |
6B. A suite of tools and approaches allow well-trained NGO and university staff to blend ‘secondary’ data, new articulations of local perspectives and quantitative scenario studies. |
| 7A. Diversity of upland situation is not seen as a strength, but rather as an obstacle to development for ‘bulk’ markets. | |
7B. Diversity and identity of uplands is seen as a strength, supporting an array of ‘niche markets’ and site-specific development pathways |
Selected national partners from NARS and universities will actively test the toolbox across frontiers where ‘new agroforestry technology’ or ‘new infrastructure/market access’ are the primary drivers of change, and where water, biodiversity and carbon stocks as key environmental services are cause for concern. The focal locations are proposed on the basis of urgent local issues (conflicts over natural resources potentially linked to agroforestry solutions, ‘new’ technologies). Because agro-ecology, national research capacity and the policy context differ among countries in Southeast Asia, landscapes are included in Indonesia (Stratum 1), Philippines (Stratum 2), and mainland Southeast Asia( Stratum 3: Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and China’s Yunnan province). The sites also collectively represent a broad range of population densities, forest cover, governance systems and relative strength of local partners; this diversity will facilitate comparative learning.
TUL-SEA has provided local partners in Southeast Asia with training, technical consultation and support on implementing tools. Universities, local government and NGOs are likely to be the most directly involved, as the institutional structure of most NARS (with their strong specialisation and hierarchies) is less tuned to broader issues analysis. At site level, however, more specialised skills and knowledge will be required for the appraisals. The project will build on the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) partnership with research and development agencies in the various countries, and on its tradition of site-level participation by users and beneficiaries, including farmers, user organisations and NGOs in scoping and scenarios.
In collaboration with the University of Hohenheim (UHoH), TUL-SEA is focused on further improving and developing the tools. TUL-SEA supports a PhD studentship at the University of Hohenheim to further improve the scenario modelling tools at the core of the project’s success. Furthermore, the University of Hohenheim will take the lead in sharing the results in Germany at appropriate venues.
ICRAF forges strategic partnerships and alliances to bring together and organise a critical mass of resources, in order to complete the full cycle of knowledge generation, technology development, adoption and implementation of agroforestry innovations and policy change. ICRAF Southeast Asia has more than 10 years experience in managing complex partner networks, as part of the Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) partnership that was honoured with the CGIAR Science Award for Outstanding Partnership in 2005 (www.cgiar.org/newsroom/releases/news.asp?idnews=346). TUL-SEA is also assisted by ICRAF’s support for the Southeast Asia Network for Agroforestry Education (SEANAFE), and the Rewards for, Use of and Shared Investment in Pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES) project. These networks effectively involve many national and international partners, intersect with the TUL-SEA partnership and have overcome all administrative hurdles for operation at this scale.
The participation of SEANAFE, which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), in TUL-SEA provides a direct pathway for ‘uptake’ of the approach into university curricula. Many universities in the region are experiencing declining student interest in agriculture and forestry, but those universities with a more problem-driven approach to rural development and associated environmental issues appear to fare better in attracting students. TUL-SEA proposes to assist in strengthening this approach and equipping the next generation of graduates with skills that are likely to be in demand.
Phase I of the RUPES project, which is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), delivered some successful experience in implementing INRM tools in Indonesia, Philippines and Nepal. The RUPES-I networks and achievements are important for TUL-SEA in providing training and tools implementation for the NARS partners. The RUPES program is now moving into its second phase, building on the successes and lessons learned in phase I, consolidating its gains, and reaching out to additional partners for widespread global adoption of rewards for environmental services schemes. In coordination with TUL-SEA, RUPES-II will use the negotiation support tools to achieve its goals in developing practical environmental services schemes that can be adapted to work in different countries with different circumstances.
Furthermore, ICRAF projects also use the negotiation support tools related to the Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Mechanism. Training and site implementations are expected for Rapid Carbon Stock Appraisal (RaCSA), Fairly Efficient Redd Value Chains Allocation (FERVA), Barrier Analysis for Tree Enhancement (WNoTree), Rapid Appraisal of Drivers of Land Use Change (DriLUC), Rapid Market Appraisal (RMA), Rapid Land Tenure Assessment (RaTA), and Forest, Agroforest, Low-value Landscape or Wasteland (FALLOW).
The projects are:
- Fair, Efficient and Sustainable Emission Reduction from Land Use in Indonesia (FESERLUI) Project (funded by The David & Lucile Packard Foundation) http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/feserlui
- Accountability and Local Level Initiative to Reduce Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (ALLREDDI) Project (funded by the European Union). http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/node/115?q=node/200
- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation through Alternative Land uses in Rainforests of the Tropics (REDD-ALERT) Project, funded by the European Union (EU) under its 7th Framework Programme: Climate Change, Pollution, and Risks.http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/?q=node/226
- Efficient and Fair ways of Avoiding Carbon Emissions in Indonesia’s Forest Margins: next steps in Negotiation Support Systems Project, funded by the Ford Foundation
TUL-SEA has also collaborated with African colleagues. On 24 March – 2 April 2009, TUL-SEA presented the tools to the Pro-Poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA) training event. PRESA is an ICRAF project that promotes healthy landscapes and sustainable rural livelihoods by facilitating negotiations between ecosystem stewards and beneficiaries on innovative, market-based mechanisms that deliver both fair and effective agreements. This project is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the European Commission and the Government of Finland.
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