The challenge of HIV/AIDS: Where does agroforestry fit in? - World ...

Chapter 14Environmental Services:Working Group ReportIntroductionWorking groups were designated around the four focalareas of the environmental services theme: watershedmanagement, biodiversity, climate change and environmentalpolicy. The groups considered three tasks:• Identify problems and challenges for environmentalservices and pro-poor agroforestry.• Identify significant roles that the Centre can undertaketo address these challenges.• Identify targets for the Centre to achieve over thenext 10 years.The following conclusions were reached.Watershed management: pro-poorstrategies to enhance watershedfunctionsProblems and challenges of watershedmanagement and pro-poor agroforestryThe last 20 years have seen a wide variety of approachesto watershed management across the developingworld. There has been some synthesis of this experienceduring the last few years and four major conclusionsstand out. First, watershed management programmesneed to be redesigned to better involve multiplestakeholders and link upstream resource use withdownstream impacts. Second, there are vital gaps inlocal and global knowledge about land–water and landuse interactions that inhibit appropriate action for improvedwatershed management, particularly over largeland areas. Third, there is a need for better networkingamong people involved in research, development andpolicy for watershed management. And fourth, there isincreased realization that the main output of watershedmanagement is water.Forest management has traditionally been tightlyassociated with good watershed management. However,with increased pressure on available water andstate forest resources, there is a need to reassess therelationships between trees, water and soils in watersheds.Improved understanding of the effects of treeson different watershed functions – water quality, floodrisk, landslide risk, dry-season flow – can help to targetforest conservation, afforestation and agroforestry interventions.The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification(UNCCD), the UN Convention on BiologicalDiversity (UNCBD) and the UN Framework Conventionon Climate Change (UNFCCC) are creating newsituations in which public and private agencies areplanting trees for the sake of improved environmentalmanagement. Without due care, this might put unacceptablenew pressures on available water resources.There is a need to assess these risks and tradeoffs.Roles for ICRAF in pro-poor watershedmanagementThree main questions motivate the Centre’s work onpro-poor watershed management. First, what is thepotential for agroforestry systems to conserve or restorewatershed functions in multiple-function watersheds?Second, how can agroforestry systems be designed andadapted to have the greatest beneficial impact on waterquality, flood risk, landslide risk and dry-season flowin the wide range of environments found in watersheds