Growing productive trees and protecting the environment: a novel way of providing forest ecosystem services - trees on farm

Conventional wisdom holds that the only way to tackle the negative effects of deforestation is to replant forests, but World Agroforestry Centre scientists disagree. Trees on farm can provide similar environmental services as forests, they claim, while the trees supply useful products to rural communities such as fruit and timber simultaneously. Tropical rainforests are disappearing fast, while one billion rural poor around the globe depend directly on forest resources and agriculture for their livelihoods. Until the trade-offs between conservation and local needs are addressed, tropical rainforests will continue to vanish, according to Peter Minang, Global Coordinator, ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins. Agroforestry – crop farming systems with trees – could provide a solution to this dilemma according to ASB scientists. Tree- based farming systems have more biodiversity, store more carbon, control erosion, have better water retention than other agricultural systems and at the same time provide income to farmers. “Therefore agroforestry becomes the ‘best bet’ for achieving ecosystem services, improved incomes and food production for rural communities living in the forest margins in the tropics,” argues Minang

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