Forests, Ecosystem Services and Food Security

FORESTS, ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND FOOD SECURITY
Terry Sunderland, Principal Scientist & Team Leader, Sustainable Landscapes and
Food Systems
Forest and Agriculture Day, CBD COP 13
Cancun, 9th December 2016

RE-DEFINING FORESTRY:
FUNDAMENTALS FOR ACHIEVING THE SDG’S
 Food, nutrition and health
 Water, energy and housing
 Livelihoods and employment
 Climate change adaptation
and mitigation
 Biodiversity conservation
 Resilience and safety nets
 To environmental and
economic external shocks

CONTEXT
From the CIFOR Strategy 2015-2025:
• Integration of diverse communities of
practice in the sustainable landscapes
debate: to be achieved by reconciling the
principles of multi-functionality with the
practice of managing sustainable
landscapes for forestry, food security and
nutrition and other benefits.
• Increased policy recognition of the need
to better integrate the forestry and
agricultural sectors: to be achieved by
using the landscape approach as the
convening factor (c.f. simultaneous yet
separate declarations on forestry and
agriculture).

FORESTS IN LANDSCAPES
• One billion+ people rely on forest products
for consumption and income in some way
(Agrawal et al. 2013)
• Safety-net during times of food and income
insecurity (Wunder et al. 2014)
• Wild harvested meat and freshwater fish
provides 30-80% of protein intake for many
rural communities (Nasi et al. 2011;
McIntyre et al. 2016)
• 75% of world’s population rely on
biodiversity for primary health care (WHO,
2003)
• 40%-80% of global food production comes
from diverse smallholder agricultural
systems in complex landscapes (FAO
2011; IFAD 2016)
• Long tradition of managing forests for food
– e.g. shifting cultivation (van Vliet et al.
2011)
• Forests sustaining agriculture through
ecosystem services provision (Foli et al.
2014)

THE ORIGIN OF THE “LANDSCAPE APPROACH”
1980s 1990s 2000s 2010 - present
1980s: Integrated
Rural
Development
1998: Integrated Natural
Resource Management
(INRM)
1985 onwards: Integrated
Conservation & Development
projects (ICDPs)
Contributing Sciences:
Ecosystem Management
Landscape Ecology
Island biogeography
Conservation rooted
frameworks e.g. “Ecosystem
Approach”
1992: “Landscape Approach”
first documented (Barrett
1992)
Last decade:
(Integrated)
Landscape Approach
frameworks

EMBRACING THE LANDSCAPE APPROACH –
INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS FOR PEOPLE ACROSS SECTORS
“Despite some barriers to
implementation, a landscape approach
has considerable potential to meet social
and environmental objectives at local
scales while aiding national commitments
to addressing ongoing global challenges.”
Reed et al. 2016, Global Change Biology.

OPERATIONALISING THE LANDSCAPE APPROACH: HOW?
THEORY PRACTICE
E.g. Ten principles Real integration
Local stakeholders
Conservation: WCS, CI
Development: USAID LESTARI
Private sector: e.g. APP, APRIL
Government: e.g. Ministry of Env. & Forestry

FOREST FUNCTIONS AND LINKS TO FSN

FORESTS AND FOOD SECURITY: THE EVIDENCE
Seasonality
Off-farm income
Agriculture

“Forests are a major repository
of food and other resources that
play a crucial role in food
security. In addition, maintaining
diversity in agricultural
production systems leads to
increased resilience to shocks
particularly in the context of a
changing climate”. Editorial:
Arnold et al. 2011

“Our main findings can be summarized as follows: there is a statistically
significant positive relationship between tree cover and dietary diversity;
fruit and vegetable consumption increases with tree cover until a peak of
45% tree cover. Overall our findings suggest that children in Africa
who live in areas with more tree cover have more diverse and
nutritious diets”. Ickowitz et al., 2014

"Our findings suggest that deforestation and land use change may have
unforeseen consequences on the quality of local people’s diets. A better
understanding of the contribution of forest foods to local diets is needed to
understand the true impact that the loss of forests may have for nutrition in
the face of agricultural expansion. If indeed forests substantially
contribute to dietary quality in some areas as the results here imply,
forest loss may result in unforeseen, adverse consequences on
nutrition for local people." Rowland et al. 2016

“Areas of swidden/agroforestry, natural forest, timber and agricultural
tree crop plantations were all associated with more frequent
consumption of food groups rich in micronutrients. The
swidden/agroforestry land class was the landscape associated with
more frequent consumption of the largest number of micronutrient rich
food groups. Swidden cultivation in is often viewed as a backward practice
that is an impediment to food security in Indonesia and destructive of the
environment. If further research corroborates that swidden farming actually
results in better nutrition than the practices that replace it, Indonesian policy
makers may need to reconsider their views on this land use”. Ickowitz et al.,
2016

FORESTS SUSTAINING AGRICULTURE
How does landscape configuration maximise the provision of these
goods and services for both sustainable forestry and food production?
Water regulation
Climate regulation
Pollination
Pest control
Foli et al. 2014; Reed et al. forthcoming

GENDER ISSUES
“There is strong and clear
evidence of the
importance of including
women in forest
management groups for
better resource
governance and
conservation outcomes”.
Leisher et al. 2016
“Women and children
collect a diverse range
of nutritious plant
based forest foods
while men are
primarily responsible
for animal protein
sources”.
Sunderland et al. 2014

IUFRO GLOBAL FOREST EXPERT PANEL REPORT - 2015
“The assessment report provides comprehensive
scientific evidence on how forests, trees and landscapes
can be – and must be - an integral part of the solution
to the global problem of food security and nutrition”.

2017: LAUNCH OF HLPE REPORT
• Much of the recent work on forests and food
security has influenced the drafting of the
HLPE Report: “Sustainable forestry for food
security and nutrition” for the Committee on
World Food Security (CFS)
• At e-consultation stage, many individuals,
civil society and governments provided
formal review and feedback: e.g. Russian
Federation, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, India,
US & the Netherlands
• Report will be released in June 2017 and
then officially launched at CFS Annual
Congress in October
• Probably greatest opportunity to get forests
and food security and nutrition onto global
food security agenda and policy arena

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: SHARING THE EVIDENCE
• IUFRO: Getting the forestry
community to understand the
importance of forest
manangement for food security
and nutrition
• CFS: Getting the nutrition and
food security community to
understand the role of forests for
food security and nutrition
• Participation at both forestry and
food/nutrition conferences and
events over the last 4-5 years

cifor.org
blog.cifor.org
ForestsTreesAgroforestry.org
THANK YOU
t.sunderland@cgiar.org
@TCHSunderland

Forests, Ecosystem Services and Food Security

In this document