Descriptions
Agriculture, including rangelands, covers >30% of land globally, with trees being an integral part of most smallholdings. Trees on Farms (TonF) remain largely invisible in countries’ approaches to meet their UNCBD or UNCCC targets.
The implementing partners for this project have been working on TonF for more than 30 years. In particular the sentinel landscape (SL) initiative, led by ICRAF, provides integrated data sets to improve understanding of TonF roles for sustainable development for all of the implementing countries. The SL provides a unique opportunity to transform national capacities for harnessing TonF, development of tools and interventions and greatly increasing the contribution of agricultural land to ATs.
Building on the SL initiative, the project aims to improve countries’ knowledge of TonF importance for biodiversity and for human wellbeing. It develops and disseminates practical, context-specific strategies to increase TonF based on local knowledge and local needs. Furthermore, the project strengthens partnerships between governmental agencies in different sectors (Agriculture, Forestry, Conservation) and with potential financial investors to garner non-public finances for TonF.
In addition, the project builds countries’ technical expertise to monitor, assess and report on TonF through innovative, practical approaches and training of NGOs and governmental staff. This Phase II is applying the outputs of Phase I (2017 – 2021) to establish TonF pilots through performance based contracts in Uganda and Rwanda, while responding to requests of our political partners to support the mainstreaming of biodiversity into the agricultural sector, regionally and locally and increasing the awareness of TonF as agroecological practice that delivers on biodiversity, green jobs and climate change mitigation and adaptation, in the context of the countries Covid recovery strategies. We further take the lessons learned at country level into the global arena to mobilize an important additional constituency of the Decade in countries regionally and globally.
