The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined forces in 2019, leveraging nearly five decades of trusted science on the role of forests and trees in solving critical global challenges.
Researchers have created a guide for designing agricultural development projects that use solutions from nature.
As we enter the United Nations’ Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, interventions referred to as ‘nature-based solutions’ are at the forefront of the sustainability discourse. Applied in urban, natural forest or wetland ecosystems, these solutions are underutilized in agricultural landscapes.
A team of researchers from World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and International Centre for Environmental Management set out to help rectify this, creating a new technical framework to characterise nature-based solutions in agriculture, defining such as ‘the use of natural processes or elements to, over various temporal and spatial scales, improve ecosystem functions of environments and landscapes affected by agricultural practices and enhance livelihoods and other social and cultural functions’. The framework connects the conventional divide between production and conservation, adding functionality, purpose and scale when designing development projects. Their findings were recently published in the journal, Frontiers in Environmental Science.
The framework emerged from a review of 188 peer-reviewed articles on nature-based solutions and ‘green infrastructure’ published between 2015 and 2019 and three international expert consultations organized during 2019–2020. The review was further updated in 2021 and still confirmed the limited evidence of nature-based solutions in agricultural systems, particularly, in developing countries, although specific technologies featured under other labels.
Consultations indicated that wider adoption will require a phased approach to generate evidence for integrating nature-based solutions in national and local policies and agricultural development strategies.
The framework establishes four essential functions for nature-based solutions in agriculture: 1) Sustainable practices, with a focus on production; 2) Green infrastructure, mainly for engineering purposes, such as water and soil conservation, and slope stabilization; 3) Amelioration, for restoration of conditions for plants, water, soil or air and mitigation of the climate crisis; and 4) Conservation, focusing on biodiversity and ecosystem connectivity.
But each year, more strategies for ecological sustainability are emerging addressing climate adaptation and sustainable agriculture. Does the Earth really need another one?
‘There is indeed an oversized patchwork of frameworks and concepts,’ said Elisabeth Simelton, lead author of the research article and a senior climate scientist with World Agroforestry (ICRAF). ‘In many countries, and even during our consultations, we sensed a lot of “concept fatigue”. But you’d be surprised how difficult it is to find a framework that connects sustainable and multifunctional practices across different land uses. We have made an attempt to open doors to connect practices across the production and conservation spectrum. This framework does not actually introduce any new practices or terms; instead it collects and combines the ones that exist. So, this framework is a complement to existing concepts, to make better use of good practices that are out there already.’
Beau Damen, a co-author and climate-change and bioenergy researcher with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, agreed.
‘With the United Nations’ Food System Summit on the immediate horizon,’ he said, ‘there is a lot of interest in the role that nature-based and nature-positive solutions can play in promoting a transformation to a sustainable food system. But, while examples of potential nature-based solutions are abundant, ways to connect the features as they apply to agricultural contexts has been lacking. With this work, the team is providing coherent and practically oriented guidance on how these concepts can be applied to management decisions in an agricultural context and how working with nature can drive a broader transformation in food systems now and in the future.’
Yet for each new concept introduced, there is also a long policy cycle to include the concept in national plans and strategies and then to make it operational, with budgetary allocations to support it, staff to be trained in its application and success monitored and processes adjusted. If funding is already available from external sources or the concept is very clear, the process can go faster.
‘That was my experience with climate-smart agriculture,’ confirmed Simelton. ‘It was attractive to governments and donors because it had three clear ambitions and was targeted at meeting farmers’ priorities. But it was limited to agriculture and has, in my view, a restricted take on the role of ecosystem functions both to provide and to support climate-smart outcomes. This new framework helps to show that the names of practices matter less than their functions. And by being multifunctional, nature-based solutions help governments meet targets also under the Biodiversity and Combatting Desertification conventions.’
The research team want the framework to stimulate people to choose practices that contribute to synergies between some or all functions. For example, an engineer decides to use natural material, such as bamboo, instead of cement to stabilise slopes. And when an intervention involves permanent tree stands, why not also consider tree species that produce non-timber products, like fruit or nuts? The urgent need to store carbon in agricultural landscapes is also addressed.
‘You will see that carbon plays a more balanced role in this framework, along with resilient production, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration,’ said Simelton. ‘People in agricultural landscapes in developing countries also have very urgent problems of their own besides sequestering carbon for Westerners’ emissions. Many big carbon-finance hunters often ignore solving the underlying challenges to smallholders’ livelihoods, which are yet also fundamental for the sustainability of carbon sequestration actions. Also, ICRAF’s work on hidden start-up costs relates a lot to the fourth pillar of the framework.’
Jeremy Carew-Reid, director-general of the International Centre for Environmental Management and a long-time pioneer of nature-based solutions in the Mekong Region stressed the importance of connectivity of nature across landscapes and of applying the biodiversity 'net gain' principle to all development activities.
‘Protected areas continue to be a key strategy for conserving biodiversity and protected area networks need to be greatly expanded,’ he said. ‘But in order to balance community needs, additional practical solutions are needed. The framework shows how a range of land uses can be intertwined with conservation areas and the progressive establishment of natural corridors through intensive investment in restoration and rehabilitation.’
Overall, as Damen points out, nature-based solutions ‘encourage stronger connections between local actions to restore agroecosystems and national sustainability goals’. Effectively deploying nature-based solutions needs to be based on prioritizing production systems with the most need in terms of ongoing and future degradation, designing options hand-in-hand with local experts and communities and monitoring their implementation over the long-term.
Read the journal article
Simelton E, Carew-Reid J, Coulier M, Damen B, Howell J, Pottinger-Glass C, Tran HV, Van Der Meiren M. 2021. NBS framework for agricultural landscapes. Frontiers in Environmental Science 9:321.
Learn more
Science Conference of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry: Stream 4: Nature-based solutions to address the climate crisis
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.
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