In Southeast Asia, the World Agroforestry Centre focuses its work on four main levels. We take a nested approach that considers trees within the farm, farms within the landscape, and the landscape within governance structures.
1. Governance processes
- Facilitating institutional change and policy reform which secures land use rights, giving farmers access to forests.
- Establishing mechanisms to reward poor communities for actions which improve or preserve the environment (known as ‘environmental services’).
- Building the capacity of local governments and research and development organizations in integrated natural resource management.
2. Multifunctional landscapes
- Gaining a better understanding of the role of agroforestry in protecting watersheds and biodiversity across landscapes.
- Researching the interactions and impacts of land use change.
- Facilitating negotiations at the landscape level between governments / policy-makers and farmers.
3. Farmers’ Land Management
- Developing technologies at the plot-level which ensure productive landscapes.
- Providing the tools, methods, science, and information about different options, that farmer’s need to make decisions about whether or not to adopt agroforestry.
- Researching trade-offs between short-term profit and long-term productivity, with environmental considerations.
4. Trees & Markets
- Informing farmers about available tree species.
- Making quality planting material available to farmers.
- Linking farmers to reliable tree product markets.
(link to more information about work in each of these theme areas plus project profiles)
