Agroforestry is a form sustainable forest management: lessons from Southeast Asia

Agroforestry as land use based on planted trees, provides productive and protective(biological diversity, healthy ecosystems, protection of soil and water resources,terrestrial carbon storage) forest functions that societies care about in the debate onsustainable forest management. Yet, the trees planted in agroforestry systems areexcluded in formal definitions and statistics of ‘forestry plantations’ and overlooked inthe legal and institutional framework for sustainable forest management. A paradigmshift is needed in the forestry sector and public debate to redress this oversight. Weexamine five issues that hinder a regreening revolution based on farmer tree planting tocontribute to sustainable forest management. First, issues of terminology for forests,plantations and reforestation are linked to land tenure and land use restrictions. Second,access to high quality planting material of proven suitability remains a challenge,especially at the start of a farmer-tree-planting phase of a landscape. Third,management skill and information often constrain production for high market values.Fourth, overregulation often restricts access to markets for farmer grown timber andtree products, partly due to rules intended to curb illegal logging from natural forests orgovernment plantations. Fifth, there is a lack of reward mechanisms for environmentalservices provided by agroforestry. Current relationships between agroforestry andplantation forestry are perceived to be complementary, neutral or competitive,depending on the ability of (inter)national policy frameworks to provide a level playingfield for the provision to society at large of productive and protective forest functions.In conditions where large-scale plantations operate with substantial governmentsubsidies (direct or indirect, partly justified by environmental service functions), incontrast to non-existent or minimal subsidies for agroforestry, the potential to producewood and simultaneously provide for many forest benefits and ecological services withagroforestry is placed at a disadvantage, to the detriment of society at large

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