Climate change mitigation and smallholders in forests

Climate Change Mitigation and Smallholders in Forests

Lini WollenbergClimate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Program, CGIAR

Taking stock of smallholder and community forestry: Where do we go from here? Montpellier, France 24-26 March, 2009

Mitigation and smallholders in forests

Smallholders in/near forests depend on agriculture and live in dynamic tension between agrarian forces and forests

But climate change interventions in land use currently sectoral. Focused on sequestering carbon forests: REDD

Agrarian-forest interactionsin climate change

• Farmers as major drivers of LUC, agricultural expansion

• CC mitigation in forests (REDD) and implications for farming communities

• Agroforestry, swidden and shifting cultivation as mitigation strategies

• Landscape-based mitigation strategies• Forest frontier transition zone: boom-bust cycles,

migration, high risk environment

What do we know, what do we still need to learn?

• How to protect high carbon forests from conversion to agriculture

• How to reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon in agricultural landscapes

And how can these mitigation strategies

….also sustainably provide food, reduce poverty and maintain natural resources?

By 2020, need to increase crop production (grains, roots and tubers) by 40% and meat products by 58% in developing countries; yet degrading resources, few valuable lands, limited crop yields in green revolution areas

1. How to protect forests from conversion to agriculture

Forest conversionby land use

Strassburg et al. 2009, Stern Review 2006

Land use %Fallow-based farming 11Other small scale 27Med-large scale farming 39Other market-oriented 22

• Smallholders contribute signif.• Market-oriented contribute more

Pathways 1 Incentives linked to the forest

• Raise the value of forests and secondary forests through NTFPS and environmental services (e.g. REDD)

• Institutional arrangements: local management, protected area rules and enforcement

IMPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION and POVERTY, etc.•Most cost effective mitigation/high impact•Maintaining forest creates positive feedback

on climate: stabilizes regional climate (Stickler et al 2009)• Displaces local farming. Where do people get

their food? • High carbon forests will be most protected;

least productive forests more threatened (Miles and Kapos 2008)

Pathways 2 Incentives linked to farmsRaise the productivity and value of existing agricultural lands

“Green revolution to shifting cultivation” Greenland 1975 Agroforestry and Alternatives to Slash and Burn, Sanchez et al. 2005;

Swallow, Boffa and Scherr 1996Protected area management: ICDPS, buffer zones (Hughes and Flintan 2001)

• Incentive not linked to forest; Jovan’s paradox: efficiency-> more clearing• Only possible if agriculture is main threat• Conversion linked to multiple local and macro causes of

(migration, infrastructure, fire, drought, markets, wood extraction, technology) (Hirsch and Fisher 2007)• Past projects limited by focus on local technical

interventions

IMPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION and POVERTY, etc.Higher emissions from intensive agriculture

• Fertilizer, irrigation increase N2O and CO2• Intensification reduces CH4 sink function of upland forest soils• High quality legumes can increase N2O and CO2 emissions (Mutuo 2005)

Yet best win-win option? (Vlek et al 2004). Net reduction at landscape scale if more land under forest. Mitigation funds would support intensification costs.

Feasibility, sustainability, and social justice issues: natural resources productivity, limited yield-growth potential, limited productive land, low efficiencies in developing countries, access to inputs, distribution of benefits

2. How to reduce GHG and sequester C in agricultural landscapes?

Agricultural GHG emissions (UNFCCC)• 10–12% global anthropogenic GHG emissions, 6.8 Gt of CO2 equivalent • 74% from developing countries (increasing)

From• 38% - N2O emissions from soils• 32% - CH4 enteric fermentation • CO2-low flux• 12% - Biomass burning, 11% - CH4 rice production, 7 % - CH4 and N20

manure management Highest emitters: South, Southeast Asia and Latin America

(But high uncertainty)GHGs from land-use change, including deforestation in tropical areas,

exceed emissions from all other agricultural sources (about 18%)

Technical mitigation potentialIPCC- combination of modeling, default values and data from limited

sites• Reducing conversion of land through intensification• 89% soil carbon (C) sequestration through cropland management,

grazing land management, restoration of organic soils and degraded lands, agroforestry etc.

• 9% CH4 mitigation through rice, livestock and manure management

• 2% N2O mitigation emissions from soils through crop management.

Remember: Full accounting of all greenhouse gas emissions exists for only a few intensive agricultural systems and for slash and burn. (Davidson et al 2008)

Alternatives to slash and burn studies

Palm 2000: 14

Issue: Appropriate mitigation strategies for shifting cultivation?

Swidden and shifting cultivation can fit under the UNFCCC definition of forest (10-30% cover, 2-5 m, temporarily unstocked, expert judgement (Van Noordwijk 2009)

Only 1.75% of conversion due to long fallow annual crops. Only 37 million people? (Dixon 2001), 1 billion ha? (Sanchez et al. 2005). Need to verify numbers

Swidden can act as a GHG sink due to fallows and agroforestry(next section)

“Chop and mulch” in E Amazon maintains nutrients, but no fire-related emissions. Fire emissions/ha were 630 kg CH4, 19 kg N2O, and 130 kg NO, or 42, 3, and 10x times higher than highest soil emissions of CH4, N2O, and NO

Gockowski et al. 2000In Sanchez 2000: 377

Trade-offs and Synergies: Food and Carbon (FAO 2009)

Implementation issuesTechnical• High uncertainty in emissions estimates and lack of information for their

assessment, no baselines• C measurement; responses to land use not always well understood, high local

variability, risk of loss, maximum capacity of soils to store C • No life cycle information for value chain or smallholder livelihoods

Other• High transaction costs and risks may make mitigation less attractive than

current land use (e.g. forest conversion to pasture)(Coomes et al. 2008) • Impacts on costs of production and competitiveness• ASB experience: site specific, game in progress• Farmers want menus of mitigation choices (Tschakert 2007)• Adoption of sustainable land management will require incentives• High initial investments

Agricultural trendsNorthern Mountain Region of Vietnam (Leisz et al. 2009) (1) if farming systems continue as is, GHG emissions +

(2) if the NMR farming systems change according to government policies and programs, net C sequestration occurs in first 20 years

(3) over the longer term, increased GHG emissions from changes in the farming systems (e.g. increased paddy and increased pig raising in sties due to government policies) will overtake the C in vegetation

Summary

Incentives for conserved forest

(REDD)

Reduce GHG/sequester C in agriculture

Protect existing forest?(high C sequestration)

Food, costs, appropriate to smallholders?

Intensification of agriculture

Reduce emissions

(techno. & land use change)

Increase sequestration

Soil, AF

Food, rights?Incentives for adoption, ST productivity?

Emissions, pressure on

forest, sustainability?Is

sues

Conclusions• Interrelated paths towards mitigation: intensify ag and

protect forests to reduce LUC; technical fixes to reduce emissions, SALM/AF to sequester more C

• Above ground biomass carbon probably most feasible and high impact management intervention

• Smallholders will face pressures for intensification and intervention that sometimes compete e.g., forest v. farming, longer fallows v. food production

• Which trade-offs are most appropriate for smallholders in specific regions and types of agrarian strategies? Use REALU /landscape + life cycle + trends over time approach. Need real numbers!

• Direct incentive to maintain/protect forest• Voluntary markets and REDD based on this• Experience: Mixed. Site specific values and

markets; trade-offs; limited access by poor, needs clear tenure, but need more data (PES, CDM, voluntary mkt literature, Tschakert 2007)

Option 1 Raise the value of forests and secondary forests through NTFPS and environmental services (carbon)

Mutuo et al. 2005: 45

• Probability of deforestation 7–11x lower inside ILPAs than in surrounding areas. (Since 2002 in Brazilian Amazon, Rickett et al. 2010)• Larger forest size and greater rule-making autonomy

assoc. w/high C storage & livelihood benefits. Communities restrict consumption of forest products when they own forest commons, (80 forest commons, 10 countries, Chhatre and Agrawal 2009)• Mayan spatial analysis study

Reinforce protection with local management, institutions and protected area rules and enforcement

IMPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION and POVERTYBurning releases significant GHG. Widespread burning can induce regional reduction in rainfall, exacerbating climate?

• Risk of agriculture in forest areas: MRV already challenging exercise for any land use but especially difficult at tropical frontiers where land use fluctuates according to boom and bust economic cycles, migration, sociopolitical conflict, national policy, wildlife etc (Cacho 2003)

• Where do we want to bear costs of mitigation?

Conclusions (cont)

• Whole system/landscape perspective (REALU) needed to understand interactions and accounting (Van Noordwijk et al. 2008), especially for sustainability implications : food production v. natural resource sustainability v emissions trade-offs not clear

• Numbers currently best estimates. Need for caution: diverse approaches; careful of crisis arguments

Carbon in Land Uses before and after Slash and Burn (116 ASB Sites)

Sanchez 2000: 376

Carbon in forest-agriculture mosaic

Subekti Rahayu, Betha Lusiana and Meine van Noordwijk 2005.

Soil v. Biomass Carbon

Mitigation factors (sample)

Smith et al. 2008

Warm, moist climate zone

Trade-offs predicted by models as well…

• The highest value for predicted additional carbon storage in the wider landscape did not coincide with the best results for local livelihoods (Noordwijk et al. 2008)

• Used FALLOW model (Van Noordwijk, 2002)

Forest conversion

• 72% of est. original 1450 mil ha tropical forest now converted to other uses

• Small scale farmers- 96% of losses, 30% in Lat Am, 50% in Asia, 70% in Africa

Carbon payments for agroforestry demonstrated to technically increase incomes (Seeberg-Elverfeldt et al. 2008)