The Challenges of Integration: Lessons from ASB research in the tropical forest margins Presented by Thomas P Tomich Principal Economist and ASB Global.

The Challenges of Integration: Lessons from ASB research in the tropical forest margins

Presented by Thomas P Tomich

Principal Economist and ASB Global Coordinator

World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya

Prepared for MA Conference on Bridging Scales and Epistemologies, Alexandria, Egypt 18 March 2004

http://www.asb.cgiar.org

The real world challenge

… is to identify innovative policies, institutions, and technologies that can reconcile forest conservation and poverty reduction. The Riquez Family,

Peruvian Amazon

Source: WWF Global 200 Ecoregions (WWF 2001).Notes: The Biomes displayed are only forest biomes that are present in the warm humid and subhumid tropics.

NEOTROPICALAFROTROPICAL

INDOMALAY

AUSTRALASIA

1000 0 1000 2000 Kilometers

Terrestrial Forest BiomesTropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf ForestsTropical and Subtropical Dry and Monsoon Broadleaf Forests

Focus areaDividing line between humid and subhumid tropics

ASB site locations#S

Alternatives to Slash-&-Burn (ASB) Benchmark Sites span the humid tropics

Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forest Biome

HIGH EXTRAPOLATION POTENTIAL: PANTROPIC PROBLEM DOMAIN

• a long-term, distributed network of benchmark sites, started in 1994

• a global consortium of over 50 research institutions, NARS, NGOs, government agencies, universities, and community groups; with contributions from about 250 researchers

• ASB is the only cross-cutting sub-global assessment of the MA and looks at tropical forest margins

• serious about integrated natural resource management (iNRM) principles: problem focused, driven by user needs, multidisciplinary, integrated approach to natural resource management

• Works at multiple scales through a nested local, national, regional and global structure

• Involves multiple knowledge systems: local knowledge, policymakers’ knowledge, and scientific knowledge

Results from the World Bank Meta-Evaluation of the CGIAR: “ASB has been applauded … for innovative field research, strong science, and for going furthest within the CGIAR toward implementing effectively a holistic, ecoregional approach founded on in-depth local research linked methodologically across long-term benchmark sites around the world to permit effective scaling up to global level. The intellectual value of this work has derived from the synthesis afforded by careful methodological coordination across sites on different continents, and close working relationships with ARIs and NARS…” (From the May 2003 World Bank report CGIAR at 31: A Meta-Evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research from p. 15 of the Thematic Working Paper on Natural Resources Management Research in CGIAR).

ASB: balancing rainforest conservation & poverty reduction

The organizational challenge: How to discover the ‘truth’

about how ASB works?

It’s possible that no two ASB participants have the same views on ASB processes.

Certainly no individual or small group really knows the collective ‘truth’.

Method: on-line consultation• Asynchronous online ‘event’

• Electronic polls to test premises, establish a common baseline, and to identify areas of consensus and of divergence in views

• Followed by facilitated, open-ended discussions on-line

• These are the data for this paper

• Participants: 42 of potential 109

• Biases?

19 participants are coauthors of this paperJulio Alegre, ICRAF Amazonia, Lima, Peru

Veronika Areskoug, ICRAF SE Asia, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Andrea Cattaneo, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, USA

Jonathan Cornelius, ICRAF Amazonia, Lima, Peru

Polly Ericksen, Earth Institute of Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA

Laxman Joshi, ICRAF SE Asia, Bogor, Indonesia

Joyce Kasyoki, ICRAF/ASB, Nairobi, Kenya

Chris Legg, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria

Marilia Locatelli, Embrapa, Rondonia, Brazil

Daniel Murdiyarso, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

Cheryl Palm, Earth Institute of Columbia University, Palisades, New York, USA

Roberto Porro, CIAT/ICRAF Amazonia, Belem, Brazil

Alejandro Rescia Perazzo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Angel Salazar-Vega, Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana (IIAP), Iquitos, Perú

Dagmar Timmer, ICRAF/ASB, Nairobi, Kenya

Meine van Noordwijk, ICRAF SE Asia Regional Programme, Bogor, Indonesia

Sandra Velarde, ICRAF/ASB, Nairobi, Kenya

Stephan Weise, IITA Humid Forest Centre, Yaounde, Cameroon

Douglas White, CIAT, Cali, Colombia

Analytical FrameworkClark et al. 2002; www.sustainabilityscience.org

Integration Institutional learning

Participation

Human & financial resources

Featured result: integration

A 5th dimension of the integration challenge

1. Disciplinary

2. Functional (institutional)

3. Spatial and temporal

4. Knowledge (epistemologies)

5. North – South integration needs specific attention

Hypotheses on integration (a selection)

USERS’ NEEDS & PROBLEM FOCUS: clear problem definition derived from users’ needs is key to disciplinary, functional, spatial/temporal and knowledge integration

PLACE-BASED FOCUS: sustained focus on specific sites facilitated co-location of measurements, which was essential in disciplinary integration.

INSTITUTIONAL INTERESTS: functional integration (among institutions) is more difficult than disciplinary integration (among teams of individual scientists).

BALANCED GOVERNANCE by institutions from North and South helps integrate across disciplines and interests – especially the top-down aspects of global environmental concerns and the bottom-up nature of rural development.

BOUNDARY CROSSING & INTEGRATION: boundary functions are key to integration across institutions, scales, knowledge systems and arenas (local, civil society, policy, science).

ASB as a ‘Boundary Organization’ (Guston, 2001)

Characteristics– Forum for interaction

among actors across social arenas

– Attention to managing boundary crossing activities

Goals are achieved through boundary crossing activities:– Communication– Translation– Mediation

Other Private Sector Managers

and Investors

Policymakers and Public Policy

Shapers

Farmers, local communities

Boundary Organization:

ASB

NGOs,Civil Society