Water, Land and Ecosystems - Latin America

Water planning system in rural-urban contiuum in western Honduras

Amanda — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 10:38:00 +0000

Water demands estimation for three watersheds in Western Honduras with a rural-urban continuum, analysing how current agricultural systems (as part of a CRFS ) are affecting the overall water balance under changes in land use and climate. Outcome targeted: better and informed water management decisions in rural-urban landscapes in western Honduras (part of water planning system of the Ministry of Environment).

Contact Person

Quintero, Marcela <m.quintero@cgiar.org>

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

CIAT (Alliance) - Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT - Regional Hub (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2017 — December 31, 2017

Research ThemeRural-Urban Linkages

Cluster

3.1 City-Region Food Systems and Urban Food Security

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Honduras

Sustainable development options and land-use based alternatives to: Enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation capacities in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon, while enhancing ecosystem services and local livelihoods

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Peru and Colombia, which are jointly home to 23% of the Amazon forest, both have initiatives oriented toward implementing the REDD Readiness Preparation Proposal, as well as designing NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action) plans and NAPA (National Adaptation Programmes of Action) plans. Furthermore, Peru is host to one of the eight pilots of the World Bank´s ‚Forest Investment Program‘. Despite the existence of these initiatives, there remains an urgent need in both countries for proven viable land-use based options for enhancing carbon sinks, protecting endangered Amazon forests and enhancing the adaptation capacity of local communities to climate change. Moreover, the respective costs and the identification of pathways for achieving a sustainable and low-carbon development in the Amazon have not yet been analyzed in depth.Although there are on-going initiatives to reduce the deforestation and enhance carbon sinks, deforested Amazonia (which now represents 30% of the total area) is highly degraded and new models for rehabilitation of these areas are critically needed. This project seeks to assist national environmental authorities and local farmers in Colombia and Peru in managing sustainably their deforested areas by: i ) providing national authorities with validated land-use options, designed in cooperation with rural communities, that contribute to the design of low-carbon development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies ii) enhancing country capacity to assess cost-efficiency of the adoption of these options in terms of improving adaptive capacity while providing other co-benefits (i.e. carbon sinks enhancement, protection of natural forests and water ecosystem services of importance for local livelihoods); iii) improving the capacity to monitor land cover changes in order to assist the monitoring of the effectiveness of land-use based mitigation and national adaptation plans in Peru; and iv) identifying the likely pathways the countries may take towards sustainability in terms of ambitious climate protection and around which the mitigation-adaptation land-use options might be framed. Peru and Colombia, which are jointly home to 23% of the Amazon forest, both have initiatives oriented toward implementing the REDD Readiness Preparation Proposal, as well as designing NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action) plans and NAPA (National Adaptation Programmes of Action) plans. Furthermore, Peru is host to one of the eight pilots of the World Bank´s ‚Forest Investment Program‘. Despite the existence of these initiatives, there remains an urgent need in both countries for proven viable land-use based options for enhancing carbon sinks, protecting endangered Amazon forests and enhancing the adaptation capacity of local communities to climate change. Moreover, the respective costs and the identification of pathways for achieving a sustainable and low-carbon development in the Amazon have not yet been analyzed in depth.Although there are on-going initiatives to reduce the deforestation and enhance carbon sinks, deforested Amazonia (which now represents 30% of the total area) is highly degraded and new models for rehabilitation of these areas are critically needed. This project seeks to assist national environmental authorities and local farmers in Colombia and Peru in managing sustainably their deforested areas by: i ) providing national authorities with validated land-use options, designed in cooperation with rural communities, that contribute to the design of low-carbon development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies ii) enhancing country capacity to assess cost-efficiency of the adoption of these options in terms of improving adaptive capacity while providing other co-benefits (i.e. carbon sinks enhancement, protection of natural forests and water ecosystem services of importance for local livelihoods); iii) improving the capacity to monitor land cover changes in order to assist the monitoring of the effectiveness of land-use based mitigation and national adaptation plans in Peru; and iv) identifying the likely pathways the countries may take towards sustainability in terms of ambitious climate protection and around which the mitigation-adaptation land-use options might be framed. Due the diverse dimensions covered by this project this is contributing to WLE, CCAFS and FTA.The reason for aligning with WLE is that although this project response to national priorities for forest conservation, the largest effort of the project is to design and evaluate on farms, sustainable land uses that can restore deforested areas in the Amazon. This under the assumption that restoring these lands will reduce pressure on remaining native forests. Also, one of the outputs of the project is to produce indicators to evaluate the effect of sustainable land uses on ES beyond carbon sequestration (e.g. on water-related ES, biodiversity maintenance). The project also will analyze the effects of farm-based interventions on the different landscapes previously identified for the study sites.

Contact Person

Marcela Quintero (m.quintero@CGIAR.ORG)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

5. Mr Paiva Munguambe, Director, National Institute for Irrigation, Mozambique (pmunguambe@inir.gov.mz)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — June 01, 2018

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.2 Ecosystem services assessment, exploring trade-offs, and equitable planning of restoration interventions

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Peru

Regulating current and future damage from pests and diseases through enhanced use of intra-specific crop diversity in agricultural production landscapes

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Intra- and interspecific diversity of agricultural biodiversity is one of the principle mechanisms that pest and disease regulating services are provided by agricultural ecosystems and landscapes. As much as 30% of the global harvest losses to pests and diseases occur in developing countries. The continuing evolution of tolerant species of pests and pathogens that are able to overcome resistance genes of modern breeding requires an increased use and reliance on pesticides with consequences for environmental externalities (e.g. water quality) and human health. Landscapes sown to uniform varieties (modern or local) are prone to increased vulnerability to pests and diseases that can spread rapidly (e.g. the Irish potato famine caused by the late blight pathogen in the 1840s; the southern corn leaf blight in the US in the 1970s; the fungal disease black sigatoka responsible for about 47% of yield loss in Central American countries; cassava mosaic virus causes yield losses of up to 40% in some parts of Africa). Until recently IPM methods have concentrated on using agronomic techniques to modify the environment to reduce the need for pesticides, making limited use of the opportunities offered by the effective deployment of the intraspecific diversity of local crop varieties themselves. This project concentrates on management of local crop cultivars as a key resource for pest and disease regulation for a globally agreed set of staple crops for the specific pest and disease systems in China, Ecuador, Morocco, and Uganda: (i) maize (Zea mays): northern leaf blight (Setosphaeria turcica) and stem borer; (ii) common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris): angular leaf spot (Phaeoisariopsis griseola), anthracnose (Colletotrichum lindemuthianum), rust (Uromyces appendiculatus), and bean fly (Ophiomyia phaseoli; O. spencerella); (iii) faba bean (Vicia faba): aphids (Aphis fabae), chocolate spot (Botrytis fabae), seed pod weevil (Bruchus rufimanus; B. dentipes); (iv) banana and plantain (Musa spp.): black leaf streak (black sigatoka; Mycosphaerella fijiensis), Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense), nematodes, and weevils (Cosmopolites sordidus); (v) Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum): Septoria leaf blotch (caused by Zysomoseptoria tritici) and brown rust (Puccinia recondita f. sp. Tritici); and (vi) rice (Oryza sativa): rice blast (Pyricularia grisea) and rice plant hopper (Nilaparvata lugens).. By concentrating on intra-specific diversity as an ecosystem service based approach to pest and disease regulation, we highlight ecological mechanisms that reduce field, farm, and landscape vulnerability to pest and disease outbreaks. To date, a global collaboration of national researchers from four countries, have been supported to train national site-level personnel in common participatory approaches and technical assessment of genetic diversity, pathogens and pests incidence, and in the implementation of on farm experimental trials. Ministries of Agriculture, NARS and local governments in all four countries have provided policy support and allocated staff and students to work with farmer communities on integrating the use of crop varietal diversity good agronomic practices to manage pests and diseases. Local research stations, extension and local NGOs support capacity building and mainstreaming methods to manage pest and diseases, including providing good quality clean diverse seeds, and knowledge of pest and disease symptoms identification for better on farm management. Early results of field trials and other project activities include: (a) finding that increased diversity of crop varieties distribution across farmers’ fields and agricultural landscapes corresponds to a decrease in mean crop damage levels and reduced risk to future damage (b) Multi-landscape on-farm experiments identified varieties with more effective resistance to pests and diseases when grown outside their home landscape emphasizing the need for landscape scale mobilization of intraspecific diversity for pest and disease based regulating ecosystem services; (c) Intra-specific (variety) mixtures with non-uniform resistance tested in all countries and specific cases where mixtures out-performed their component monocultures in reducing crop damage and increasing yields identified for further testing; (d) Locally identified resistant materials integrated into national resistance breeding procedures with farmer selection criteria; (e) Clean diverse sets of seeds provided from community seed banks have increased production for small holder farmers in some of the sites up to 30%; (f) An unexpected benefit was these community seed banks acted as a meeting point for household members which adds social cohesion by providing a common means for the communities to improve production and income; (g) Training materials were developed, and over 3 000 farmers, extension, students, and researchers trained; (h) a damage abatement methodology and choice experiments developed to determine economic trade-offs using crop genetic diversity versus other IPM, resistant breed varieties or chemical input methods; and (i) Knowledge products: radio and television programmes, videos, drama, booklets, website articles and posters and peer-reviewed publications jointly authored by national partners. The long-term benefits of this initiative will be increased human capacity of male and female farmers to improve their incomes through the development of the skills, knowledge and enabling environment to use crop biodiversity to reduce crop loss from pests and diseases. Farmers will be empowered to use diversity and conserve it for future use. Rich and unique crop biodiversity, which form the basis for food security will be available to poor male and female farmers in the quality, quantity, and diversity needed to buffer against the increasing unpredictability in the amount and onset of rainfall, temperature extremes, and the frequency and severity of pests and pathogens. Not only will different varieties be availed which are adapted to new landscape conditions, but that diversity per se, i.e., sets of varieties with variation in functional or adaptive traits, will minimize the risk of crop loss under changes in pest and pathogens. Three complementary dimensions will be essential to ensure that farmers increase their ability to benefit from the use of crop genetic resources in their agricultural production systems to regulate pest and disease. The first will be to ensure that variation in resistance to key pests and diseases continues to exist in rural landscapes and be accessible for small-holder farmers from local communities and through seed networks supported by national programs. Second that the policy environment supports the use and benefit-sharing with farmers of the diversity for agricultural productivity and ecosystems resilience, and third that the farmers in these landscapes have the knowledge, institutions and leadership capacity to evaluate and use the benefits that this diversity provides them with. By adding intraspecific diversity, this project is working to reduce current crop loss, like other IPM methods, but also to reduce the probability of future crop loss, where target crops will be resilient to future changes in pests and pathogens (CGIAR IDO on Future Options). We posit that crop genetic diversity can regulate pest and diseases for specific landscapes and farm where there is variation in the host (crop inter- and intraspecific diversity) to the pest in question. However, we are aware that crop genetic diversity may not be the solution in all cases. Although the information is collected at the farmer’s field, it is collected from households across the larger agrocological landscape and the level of analysis is both at farm and at the agricultural landscape level. In this regard, GPS coordinated are collected for each household accompanying with information collected not only on the level of intra-specific diversity, but also the pest and disease damage and levels of pesticide use. Initial maps have already been made for China, Morocco, and are on-going for Uganda and Ecuador. We are using this information to look within each agroecological landscapes whether diversity is having an impact on reducing disease damage at the landscape level. Our up-scaling is concerned with diversity deployment in space from farm to community and across community to the landscape level. Questions such as: is it good to put all the diversity out there or not; and at what spatial scale should diversity be deployed are key to this work. Wheat stem rust (UG99) is a good example of a landscape level threat where single cultivars grown over larger areas has evolved a super-race pathogen that has become a serious threat to landscape level production. Thus, this work has many large-scale implications and aims to answer how much diversity (intra-specific) needs to be deployed at the landscape scale to avoid such super races from continuing to evolve.

Contact Person

Devra Jarvis (d.jarvis@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

Bioversity International

Partners

Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas Indígenas de Cotacachi, Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II, National Agriculture Research Laboratories, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Yunnan Agricultural University

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2012 — July 01, 2016

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.1 Landscape restoration and their impacts

Regions

Southeast Asia, Latin America, Global, Eastern Africa

Countries

China, Ecuador, Morocco, Uganda

Anticipation of consequences of implementing Rewards for Ecosystem Services (RES) in Peru on livelihoods, equity and gender issues

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

The implementation of the scheme of Rewards for Ecosystem Services in the Canete watershed in Peru will start in 2015 and monitoring and evaluation activities are expected in the long run. However, these activities are more related to the fund resources execution rather than on the impacts on this scheme on livelihoods and equity. Also, previous studies in this watershed focused on water balance and economic valuation with few efforts on understanding the current status of human wellbeing dimensions and how these affect or not the adoption of conservation measures. Consequently, any activity oriented to build the baseline upon which such impact assessment and monitoring can be conducted is needed. In this respect, CIAT will contribute to this process by collecting data to build a baseline upon which the impact assessment of rewards for ES on livelihoods and equity will be possible. This activity will also incorporate a component oriented to identify the most important factors that determined the adoption of previous conservation efforts; the identification of these adoption determinants will be useful for RES managers when implementing the activities funded with the recently created Fund for RES. The baseline will allow us to anticipate in an ex-ante manner, the likely effects on these rewards on local livelihoods and equity. This activity is rooted on the long term agreement between CIAT (with support of WLE) and Ministry of Environment in Peru where CIAT provides advice on various technical/scientific aspects of RES in the country. The results of this study will inform MINAM, who has the official role of evaluating RES schemes, about the social impacts of these schemes. This information is expected to further support more efforts of MINAM when promoting these schemes in the country by providing evidence on the impacts on RES on human wellbeing. To do this, basic assessment of opportunity cost of three-four interventions funded by the PES, including preferences from a choice experiment in the communities, will be applied in ex-ante scenario analysis on the data from household surveys. The study will include 10 communities that will benefit from the PES. The PES scheme is expected to impact communities that manage 16,000 ha (aprox). Main research questions are: What are the socio-economic impacts of the Rewards for Ecosystem Services (RES) scheme? Does the RES reward reduce household vulnerability through impacts in production and income?Does the RES improve food security? How does the RES affect people not receiving rewards for ES?. The baseline of the study will include control and treated (with PES) households, where information on the following aspects will be included: • Demographic characteristics • Migration • Off farm Employment • Food security • Income changes and stability/volatility • Subsistence hunting and gathering • Agricultural Production and practices, including livestock • Government/NGOs support • Gender disaggregated analysis • Cultural values (to be defined)

Contact Person

Marcela Quintero (m.quintero@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

Ministry of the Environment

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Peru

Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest agricultural interface (Colombia and Peru)

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Activity description: This project activity ‘Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface’, also called ASSETS, was established with the aim to document the relations between ecosystem services, food security and the nutritional health of local communities living in the forest-agriculture interface. ASSETS is interdisciplinary by nature, including the use of participatory methods, household and dietary surveys, modeling, economic valuation and risk analysis, aimed at investigating three major research themes: i) Drivers, pressures and linkages between food security, nutritional health and ecosystem services; ii) Crises and tipping points involving past, present and future interactions between food insecurity and ecosystem services at the forest-agriculture interface; and iii) The science-policy interface. The project initiated in 2013 with field data collection in Colombia (Amazon department), and will continue in 2015 with data collection in Peru (Ucayali region) and analysis of results. In 2015, the project team will carry out focal groups and household surveys to understand the interactions between ecosystem services and, food security and nutritional health for the rural communities; This activity has a complementary sub-activity entitled “Impact Assessment Study on the effects of land use changes occurred in the past decade on household well-being and ecosystem Services in the Ucayali Region, Peru (Amazon region)”. This activity complements the three major research themes mentioned above with an impact assessment of the past land use changes in the region on ecosystem services, food security and livelihoods. Today, the landscape in upland communities of the Peruvian project site has been strongly affected by land use change: along the main road and its ancillary, oil palm cultivation stretches for miles, interrupted by pasturelands and cacao plantations in suitable areas. This sub-activity aims to understand the agriculture, livelihood, and ecosystem use changes that have occurred in mestizo communities partly due to oil palm cultivation, which started as a development plan to reconvert coca production and has subsequently grown in the past decade as a profitable, albeit heavily subsidized, business. Given the strong political interest in oil palm cultivation at the national and local level, our objective is to inform policy makers on the changes that the promotion of oil palm monoculture has brought about in the Ucayali region and provide recommendations for the future development of this crop taking into account the changes in household wealth, dietary quality and diversity, and in their relationship with the ecosystem, which ultimately affect their ability to achieve long-term resilience and inclusive well-being. This activity will answer three research questions: 1) What are the changes in agricultural and livelihood diversity occurred in the past thirteen years and what is the role played by oil palm cultivation in contributing to these changes? (2015-2016) 2) Has use of and dependency from the ecosystem changed because of the conversion of land to oil palm cultivation? (2015-2016) 3) Are the changes in income, wealth, diets, use of ecosystem services and vulnerability to shocks different among farmers who have converted land to oil palm plantations more recently and those who have been oil palm growers for longer, living in areas where landscapes have been strongly modified by oil palm cultivation? (2015-2016)

Contact Person

Marcela Quintero (m.quintero@CGIAR.ORG)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

Ministry of the Environment, Peruvian Ministry of the Environment

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — August 30, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Colombia, Peru

Addressing the challenges of smallholder farming communities: Restoring Degraded Agro-ecosystems

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

The project aims to restore degraded soils and agro-ecosystems in order to enhance the productivity, profitability, resilience, and generation of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes that are highly vulnerable to climate change, through the adoption of improved climate-smart agroforestry and silvo-pastoral based systems (AFS) by smallholder communities. Agricultural systems provide food, feed, fiber, and fuel to sustain the livelihoods of local populations. These basic services and people’s livelihoods depend on complex webs of ecosystem services (ES) that control risks, vulnerability, and resilience to shocks. Land degradation, largely caused by poor management such as burning and overgrazing, diminishes landscapes’ ability to provide this range of ES, and reduces the ability of populations to respond to social and ecological pressures. Moreover, degraded natural resources increase the vulnerability of the poor to external stresses. It is now widely accepted that reversing land degradation requires integrated management across scales. The proposed work will use a cross-scale systems approach to restore degraded agro-ecosystems and generate multiple ES at plot (sustainable increase in productivity) and landscape (improved use of natural resources). Specifically in 2015, this project will: 1) Document management practices and data on the impact of improved AFS strategies on crop production, soil fertility at the plot scale 2) Document information and develop protocols to examine costs and benefits of AFS to farmers. 3) Document information and develop protocols to quantify environmental costs and benefits at landscape scale and explore promising mechanisms to compensate farmers for ecosystem services. 4) Document information and develop protocols for Extrapolation Domain Analysis. 5) Identify with farmers and other key development partners key components of AFS that should be combined and managed on degraded lands to enhance the multi-functionality of these systems (6) Improve the capacity of technicians and farmers and local organizations to design more diverse and sustainable farming systems, including crops, livestock and trees.

Contact Person

Mirjam Pulleman (m.pulleman@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

University of Hohenheim, National Agricultural University, Nicaraguan Institute of Crop Livestock-Technology, Catholic Relieve Service

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.1 Landscape restoration and their impacts

Regions

Latin America

Defining management strategies to improve water use efficiency and soil carbon stocks in rainfed systems and modeling their impact at different spatial and temporal scales

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Proposing alternatives to intensify farming and improve land use and ecosystems services at landscape level in rainfed systems demand for robust methods and tools. In this activity we proposed developing and fine-tuning state of the art approaches, in cross collaboration with sister Centers, ARIs and related CRPs. The first cluster of activities deal with the need of having reliable geospatial information on daily rainfall for modeling water balance, including the characterization and modeling of shallow ground water level dynamics, river recharge, etc. This is an on-going activity with CIAT-Africa in the Volta River basin. Several of the tools being tested for large-scale reconstruction of rainfall were developed by CIP with CCAFS, using mechanical statistical approaches. The second cluster deals with enhancing the efficiency in the use of water by crops. CIP has been testing the partial root-zone drying in potato under different environmental conditions and using different irrigation schemes at small-scale (Reported and published under WLE). In 2015 & 2016 we expect to introduce the technology in the Blue Nile Basin (Ethiopia) and unravel some crucial physiological mechanisms to fine tune the technique as well as testing the method at commercial scale. We are also evaluating the use of minor water stress periods as priming to enhance WUE. The third cluster deals with soil carbon stocks and quality. CIP and EMBRAPA initiated this work in the Andes and East Africa (Reported and published under WLE) and using novel portable or semi-portable laser-based equipment such as Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF). Previous work has been published under WLE and is closely related to the work conducted by CIP. The soil and water department from University of Florida is a partner in this research. A PhD student is working on modeling soil carbon dynamics. A limiting factor in modeling soil-carbon-nutrients-water relations across scales is the lack of good quality data at the resolutions needed. The research proposed focuses on generating and processing remotely sensed information to be used as ancillary data. To assess the robustness of the procedures tested, the theory will be developed in data-rich environments to ascertain the biases introduced as data scarcity increases. We propose using non-linear processes to characterize and model these soil-nutrients-water relations. Tools and methods will be programmed in open source software and national partners in developing countries will be trained in their use, once validated. This work has attracted the attention of policy-makers and with a small grant from CCAFS we will be complementing the research to support Peruvian Ministries of Agriculture and the Environment to generate the first agricultural NAMA in Peru. This is a great opportunity to show synergies between these two CRPs. Tools developed by CIP and partners must be anchored in the larger pathway developed by the Program to generate the expected impact. Therefore, a senior Applied Physicist has been posted to Nairobi to jointly implement the applications with ICRAF, CIAT, and other WLE partners.

Contact Person

Roberto Quiroz (r.quiroz@cgiar.org)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2012 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.1 Landscape restoration and their impacts

Regions

Eastern Africa, Western Africa, Latin America

Countries

Ethiopia, Ghana, Peru

RRR Business Models

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:00 +0000

To recover nutrients, water, and energy from agro-industrial and domestic waste streams 150+ RRR success stories were analyzed across the globe, and the feasibility of the best RRR business models is being tested in four cities for their replicability at scale, while safeguarding public health and the environment. The donor is waiting for the results to invest in the implementation of two promising business models. Like other RRR projects also this one is about closing water and nutrient loops which support regulatory ESS, while preventing environmental pollution. The associated EU/IFAD funded project component will focus on i) the assessment of institutional, policy, regulatory and financial drivers in the successful implementation of various RRR businesses in the selected regions and ii) the assessment of the economic impact of selected RRR businesses in terms of waste reduction, health, gender, water productivity, ecosystem services, climate change and other relevant indicators. The project will also study on demand of FAO options for safe wastewater use which were not yet tested.

Contact Person

Miriam Otoo & Solomie Gebrezgabher (m.otoo@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Partners

Makerere University, Indian Institute of Science, Hanoi University of Agriculture, Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, International Centre for Water Management Services, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, GRUPO GEA

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2014 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeRural-Urban Linkages

Cluster

4.1 Business opportunities in nutrient, water and energy recovery and reuse

Regions

Eastern Africa, Latin America, Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Africa

Countries

Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, Uganda, Vietnam

Agroforestry, biodiversity and other ecosystem services in Central America for improved productivity and resilience of smallholder agriculture

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:00 +0000

This activity addresses sustaining and restoring productive landscapes through conserving biodiversity with agroforestry systems in El Salvador. Extensive land degradation and consequent food insecurity and poverty remain major problems in Central America, particularly in sub-humid rural areas and for those farmers who depend on subsistence maize-bean based systems. In El Salvador, intensive, unsustainable use of agricultural lands and lack of appropriate technologies for soil conservation, particularly in areas less suitable for agricultural production (e.g., steep slopes), affect the provision of ecosystem services including deforestation and loss of biodiversity, water recharge, soil erosion and nutrient depletion, that ultimately lead to reduced productivity. The sustainability of production and livelihoods in these landscapes will highly depend on ecosystem services in the long term. It is anticipated that this activity will result in the co-design of diverse systems based on agroforestry (AFS) that sustain important biological diversity such as fuel and fruit trees, medicinal plants, pollinators and useful below ground organisms, and associated ecosystem services to improve productivity, profitability and resilience at plot scale and provisioning of ecosystem services; develop better strategies, capacity and tools to facilitate scaling-out/up of AFS in similar areas in the tropics. In this activity W1&2 funds will strengthen attention to soil knowledge as a key missing factor in understanding land degradation and decision making. Specifically in 2015, this activity will: 1) Improve capacity of farmers and local organizations to design AFS for supporting sustainability of crop production and restoration of biodiversity and other ecosystem services at plot and landscape scales (2015-2016) 2) Identify best bet practices of diverse AFS with partners in the field to conserve biodiversity and improve food production and other ecosystem services (2015-2016) 3) Provide knowledge on soils and land use to local organization and government for a better understanding of soil properties, land degradation and potential C sequestration (2015-2016). 4) Improve local capacity to rescue, generate and modelling soil information within local organizations and governments to support decision making (2015-2016).

Contact Person

Pablo Siles (p.siles@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.2 Ecosystem services assessment, exploring trade-offs, and equitable planning of restoration interventions

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Peru

Use of agrobiodiversity for ecosystem resilience in managed and natural landscapes of Cuba

wle_admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:28:03 +0000

Cuba’s six Man and the Biosphere UNESCO reserves protect an important portion of the country’s wild floral and faunal species and are a refuge for unique components of agricultural biodiversity that are crucial for human wellbeing in tropical island landscapes. These components provide a range of ecosystem services from food, nutrient cycling, crop pollination and seed dispersal services to conserving genetic and species diversity and providing recreational and spiritual spaces. The unique biocultural heritage found in Cuban Biosphere Reserves is attributable in part to the presence of people, whose traditional patterns of land use have proven sustainable over centuries. The sustainable and traditional agricultural biodiversity management practices contribute to a more resilient, diversified agricultural system and to increased food security for the local communities. Most of the communities within the Biosphere buffer and transition zones depend for their livelihoods on small family farms and small gardens called conucos. Conucos have maintained traditional cultivars even after the introduction of modern varieties and promotion of monocultures of imported varieties by centralized, state-run development projects. This has important implications for the potential of home gardens to conserve threatened diversity in situ which is necessary for protecting so-called “minor” species and species that are difficult to preserve ex situ (i.e., vegetatively propagated and tropical fruit trees). The economic crisis that started in 1990 in Cuba had a strong negative impact on agriculture, but at the same time created conditions for emergence of a new model strongly based on principles of organic low-input agriculture and agro-ecology. With continuing food shortages, urban residents were forced to grow some of their own food. The government encouraged this process by starting an urban agriculture program that fostered both private and commercial gardens on underutilized urban land to supplement the food available in urban areas from the commercial agriculture sector. These gardens emphasized an organic, sustainable-agriculture approach for food production. Based on the experience of the National Movement of urban Agriculture and on the need to increase the national production of food, the government has recently developed the Sub-Urban Agriculture Program. This program, largely based on the principles of low-input organic agriculture, aims at increasing availability and diversification of food for the sub-urban population. The project seeks to meet national goals of food security and sovereignty by encouraging the production of local food crops and improving their value through an improved agricultural system that relies on local seeds adapted to local environment and climate, a reduced need for expensive inputs, income benefits from certification schemes, new local market opportunities, etc. The new suburban agriculture program is a promising start for stimulating and incentivizing domestic production and sale and the project seeks to maximize the potential benefits from the new policies.

Contact Person

Pablo Eyzaguirre, Nadia Bergamini (n.bergamini@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

Bioversity International

Partners

Centro Nacional de Areas Protegidas, Food and Agriculture Organization, ADC-supported livelihood improvement through sustainable resource management program

Completed

Start/End dateDecember 01, 2012 — December 01, 2017

Research ThemeRestoring Degraded Landscapes

Cluster

3.1 Landscape restoration and their impacts

Regions

Latin America

Water, Land and Ecosystems - Latin America

Water planning system in rural-urban contiuum in western Honduras

Contact Person

Lead Center

Partners

Sustainable development options and land-use based alternatives to: Enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation capacities in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon, while enhancing ecosystem services and local livelihoods

Contact Person

Lead Center

Partners

Regulating current and future damage from pests and diseases through enhanced use of intra-specific crop diversity in agricultural production landscapes

Contact Person

Lead Center

Partners

Anticipation of consequences of implementing Rewards for Ecosystem Services (RES) in Peru on livelihoods, equity and gender issues

Contact Person

Lead Center

Partners

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