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Recommendations by an expert consortium to the Government are set to help improve the roll-out of agroforestry concessions.
Peru set up the legal framework for ‘agroforestry concessions’ — Cesiones en Uso para Sistemas Agroforestales — in 2011 under the Forest and Wildlife Law. The concessions allow farmers to use the land as long as they adhere to zero deforestation and practise agroforestry.
The concessions are designed to help bring into the formal economy the many thousands of smallholders who have encroached on State forestland.
In recent years, implementation has become an increasing priority for the Government. The AgroFor project has been established to help the Government create the legal, institutional, technical and financial conditions needed to implement the concessions at a large scale.
Team members of AgroFor recently presented diagnostic reports on the granting and registration of the concessions to implementing agencies of the Government. The team also offered recommendations about how to reduce the gaps they had identified in the processes.
The diagnoses resulted from participatory work with the Government’s implementing agencies: Servicio Nacional Forestal y de Fauna Silvestre (Serfor/National Forest and Wildlife Service), Organismo de Supervisión de los Recursos Forestales y de Fauna Silvestre (Osinfor/National Forest Supervision Authority) and the Gobierno Regional de San Martin (GORESAM/Regional Government of San Martin).
According to the diagnoses, there were complex challenges that had to be faced by the agencies, both at political and field levels. The team noted that if these gaps weren’t filled or at least reduced now, the granting wouldn’t be efficient and would slow the large-scale adoption that the Government wants.
Gaps identified were synthesized into four aspects: 1) during the technical process of granting and registration; 2) within the specifications of the maps and data sources to validate eligibility; 3) as part of data collection for the forest catalogue; and 4) in the exchange of registrations and information between agencies.
During the meeting at which the findings were discussed, Marco Enciso, director of Serfor’s General Directorate of Forestry and Wildlife Policy and Competitiveness, emphasized that the recommendations will help improve the regulatory framework for the concessions, including helping to get all the institutional areas, agencies, and regional and wildlife authorities talking to each other, frequently and regularly.
“The recommendations and validation pilots help us at Serfor have more arguments to promote improvements in the guidelines for granting agroforestry concessions,” said Enciso. “The successful implementation of these enabling titles requires multi-model operational support. In this way, the formal status of thousands of producer families who are carrying out productive activities on public lands in the Peruvian Amazon will be promoted.”
The recommendations will be tested at pilot sites in the field, starting in the latter half of 2021. Knowledge gained from the pilots will help make the needed adjustments to fill the gaps.
Víctor Huamán, who is the director of Osinfor’s Forestry and Wildlife Control Directorate, said that the field testing will provide a strong base. The recent work has made it clear that without the kind of detailed information the sites are expected to produce, everything would be much more complicated and slower.
‘At Osinfor, we need the granting of the delineated area of the concessions to be clear but also the internal ordering, mainly to identify the area of natural forest that still exists, because part of our function is that these areas are maintained,’ Huamán said. ‘As we know, these enabling titles seek to formalize agroforestry activities but also to maintain forest cover. Osinfor’s role is important and for that we need these areas to be delineated.’
He was confident that the pilots would generate enthusiasm to expand the concessions.
Valentina Robiglio, the representative of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) with AgroFor, emphasized the more than 24 sessions held in 2020 with technical teams of Serfor, GORESAM and Osinfor, which led to the identification of the gaps in implementation, which, if overcome, would be a breakthrough in socio-environmental governance as well as in the promotion of agroforestry and improving the livelihoods of family farmers.
“We are closing a very important stage and it seems to me that all the institutions agree that the process of granting the agroforestry concessions is the beginning of a new process for the farmers involved and for all the institutions that are supporting them from a technical perspective,’ said Robiglio. ‘This is important because the farmers are going to need a lot of support. It is not only the issue of reducing deforestation and the benefit to the families but also the issue of mitigation and being able to report how we are going to be able to define the internal grant. Everything is connected; that is what we must develop through AgroFor.”
The diagnostics have been part of AgroFor’s role, which is to implement pilot projects to test and improve registration, mapping, monitoring and estimation of carbon emissions. The evidence from the pilots will also strengthen the agencies’ capacity to provide technical support to the smallholders.
The AgroFor team have also suggested that the agencies adopt a “farmer-centred” extension approach for mutual learning. This will better help develop viable management and forestry practices, maximizing socio-economic and environmental benefits, increasing the potential for the adoption of sustainable land management.
A potential 120 000 farmers are eligible for an agroforestry concession in the Peruvian Amazon and 30 000 would indirectly benefit from changes brought about by AgroFor by being able to more easily adopt sustainable land management, which is a fundamental condition for farmers to maintain their concession contracts.
The implementation of the agroforestry concessions could also contribute to a 20% reduction in emissions previously from deforestation.
AgroFor is implemented in a consortium of the Global Green Growth Institute, World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), with support from the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative.
Luis Chacón of SPDA collaborated in the preparation of this story.
World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is a centre of scientific and development excellence that harnesses the benefits of trees for people and the environment. Knowledge produced by ICRAF enables governments, development agencies and farmers to utilize the power of trees to make farming and livelihoods more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable at multiple scales. ICRAF is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. We thank all donors who support research in development through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.