Description

In Peru, more than 120,000 vulnerable, non-indigenous small-scale farming families informally farm uncategorized State forest land. Their production systems typically rely on clearing forest land. As such, their activities contribute significantly to deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry, the country's highest-emitting sector (>50% of national total). This threatens Peru's commitments to reducing deforestation, restoring degraded land and to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The project addresses the lack of resilience of the farming families occupying State forest land. The research will contribute to scaling the Agroforestry Concessions regulation initiated by the Government of San Martin Region in mid-2018. This innovative scheme aims to promote ecosystems services restoration on deforested State forest land and conserve remnant forest in farmers' landholdings by formalizing occupation through a lease-type, 40-year usufruct title over land. It is conditional on adoption of integrated sustainable land management and forest conservation practices at the farm level.

The project focuses on the development of the rural advisory services component of the regional Agroforestry Concessions scaling strategy. It is based on co-generation, with the Government of San Martin and other key partners, of knowledge on:
- the socio-technical feasibility and likely impacts of alternative rural advisory services models
- contextual scaling and local governance aspects that will interact with the advisory services, and additional support required to ensure scaling of the scheme
- tailored knowledge on which specific integrated sustainable land-management practices work best where, for whom and at what cost.