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Our way of working

CIFOR-ICRAF is focused on contributing to a decisive shift in global trajectories: from a future of environmental destruction and livelihood crises to one of prosperity and planetary health. Uniquely equipped to deliver transformative research, we harness the power of science and innovation to improve the benefits that forests, trees, soils and their sustainable management can provide to all of humankind, for a more resilient, equitable and prosperous future.

Our work is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, as well as the three Rio Conventions.

CIFOR and ICRAF are members of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CIFOR leads the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) in partnership with ICRAF and other key organizations, and we work closely with the CGIAR Research Programs on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM), and Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE).

Ethiopia’s green growth strategy includes a commitment to restore more than 20 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes within the next 20 years – one of the world’s most ambitious forest landscape restoration programmes. The NICFI-funded Provision of Adequate Tree Seed Portfolio in Ethiopia (PATSPO) project is designed to improve the productivity and resilience of forest landscape restoration in the country.

Since 2017, PATSPO has supported the Government of Ethiopia through the provision of high-quality tree seeds of priority species, for large-scale restoration plantings. The project has also strengthened existing tree-seed organizations and supported the establishment of additional private and government seed dealers.

“As a result of these efforts, both the physical and genetic quality of seed has improved,” said Kiros Hadgu, a CIFOR-ICRAF scientist and country representative for Ethiopia.

PATSPO conducted sector analysis and, in partnership with the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC), established the national Tree Seed Network to foster collaboration among all stakeholders in the tree seed sector, including private companies.

The project has also provided species-specific knowledge for priority species, a critical mass of tree genetic resources for the future, and capacity development to monitor and deliver quality seeds and seedlings of the species required for large-scale restoration. An atlas on the distribution of 150 tree species in Ethiopia is being finalized, as well as an app called ‘What trees to plant where’.

The Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS REDD+) wrapped up its third phase in 2020, focused on assessing policy design and the impacts of actions to ‘reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’ (REDD+). Through a series of virtual national stakeholder workshops, GCS REDD+ brought together policymakers, practitioners, researchers and donors to discuss the latest knowledge on REDD+ and how to translate it into action.

In Peru, CIFOR-ICRAF worked with Peru’s Protected Areas Service (SERNANP) to codevelop the tool ¿Como Vamos? (‘How are we doing?’), which enables participatory reflective monitoring on multistakeholder forums. In Vietnam, scientists have been invited to join a National Task Force to develop Vietnam’s Forestry Development Strategy (2020–2030). And through deep engagement in Indonesia and Peru, GCS REDD+ provided technical support for the inclusion of peatlands in the countries’ respective Forest Reference Emission Levels (FREL) and contributed to the Peruvian National Strategy on Forest and Climate Change.

Knowledge generated by the Sustainable Wetlands Adaptation and Mitigation Programme (SWAMP) triggered policy processes with Indonesia’s Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), leading to a Ministerial Decree in October 2020. This formed the legal basis to establish a Strategic Coordination Team tasked with meeting the SDGs and low-carbon development agenda through the development of a roadmap of management strategies for peatland and mangrove ecosystems.

SWAMP also contributed to greater confidence in improving Indonesia’s FREL following its diagnosis of missing sources and sinks of GHG emissions.

Agroforestry – growing trees on farms – can provide alternative resources, diversify livelihoods and mitigate the impacts of climate change. With support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, CIFOR-ICRAF brought agroforestry expertise to the ASEAN-Swiss Partnership on Social Forestry and Climate Change (ASFCC), a 10-year multi-partner collaboration with far-reaching impacts in Southeast Asia.

“We led the development of the ASEAN Guidelines for Agroforestry Development, provided technical support to Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – which revised its national forestry law to include agroforestry – and facilitated the agroforestry roadmap for Cambodia,” said Delia Catacutan, Regional Coordinator for Southeast Asia.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) recognizes that keeping global warming below 2 degrees requires nature-based solutions. CIFOR and COWI were selected by the GCF to write the Sectoral Guides on forests and land use, and on ecosystems and ecosystem services. CIFOR-ICRAF is involved in a number of GCF-supported projects:

• In The Gambia, where annual rainfall has decreased and become more erratic and temperatures have risen by up to 2°C, scientists are providing technical support to the government to use an ‘ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA)’ approach to restore degraded community forests and community protected areas, reduce human–wildlife conflict and help move the country towards climate resilience.

• In Sri Lanka, CIFOR-ICRAF partners across government are pioneering highland restoration to protect the water storage capacity of reservoirs – vital for irrigating lowland rice – and are introducing payments for environmental services to sustain it. This addresses the climate change double whammy of higher, more intense and erosive rainfall in the uplands but increased drought in the lowlands, where much of the nation’s staple food is grown. CIFOR-ICRAF also acts as delivery partner to support the National Designated Authority in implementing a GCF ‘readiness’ project.

When the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic hit, CIFOR-ICRAF was in a unique position to respond. For over 20 years, our wild meat experts have researched the implications of interactions between wild animals and humans in forested landscapes – including zoonotic diseases – and recently collaborated with the Convention on Biological Diversity on joint guidelines for a sustainable wild meat sector.

Amid the sudden cries to ban wet markets and the harvesting, trade and consumption of wild meat worldwide, CIFOR-ICRAF scientists stepped up with evidence in hand. In March 2020 they published a Forests News editorial demonstrating how such a ban would put millions of communities who have no other source of affordable protein – many of them Indigenous Peoples – at risk of malnutrition.

“Unsustainable harvesting of wild meat is a major driver of biodiversity loss, but the real issue lies with massive rural–urban migration. As people bring their taste for wild game to the city, they create a demand that fuels widespread illegal hunting, threatening to leave behind ‘empty forests’,” explained Robert Nasi, Managing Director of CIFOR-ICRAF.

Through the Sustainable Wildlife Management programme, CIFOR and partners are developing models to conserve wildlife while improving the food security of people who rely on wild meat for nutrition. And in partnership with Oxford University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, scientists are assessing the pandemic’s influence on perceptions around wild meat consumption and wildlife management policies.

In April, experts held a webinar to discuss what COVID-19 means for wild meat, and in June Dr Nasi was invited to serve as a panellist at a briefing to US congressional staff and Washington-based agencies organized by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation. He shared evidence linking ecosystem fragmentation and degradation to the emergence or re-emergence of diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Lyme disease, including recent CIFOR-ICRAF research on deforestation and Ebola.

August saw the launch of a new project supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) that aims to identify and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on legal and sustainable wildlife trade in low and medium-income countries. The UKRI GCRF TRADE Hub Indonesia also launched this year and held a webinar on COVID-19 and the wildlife trade in Papua.

Finally, in October, the Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management and FAO released a joint statement outlining four guiding principles to reduce the risk of zoonotic diseases through ‘nature-based stimulus packages.’