For many people who live in developed countries in the west, forests are often little more than a very large collection of fenced-in trees behind a sign describing it as a park.
They might see it as a home for animals, but certainly not for people other than the occasional camper.
But around the world, hundreds of millions of extremely poor people live in forests, especially tropical forests. And many more live right next door, so to speak, where much of their life revolves around the forest and its plants and animals.
The World Bank estimates 90 per cent of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty depend on forests for some part of their livelihood.
Forests also offer a range of other benefits for people's well-being. In addition to supporting people’s livelihoods, forests are often a vital element in their cultural identity. Forests also provide materials for their clothing and housing, herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes, and a place to hunt and fish. And then there are all the environmental services these people benefit from when forests remain intact. For example, less soil erosion or a reduced threat of landslides.
It is not only people in developing countries that depend on forest ecosystems. Forests are just as important for people living in the developed world. Close to 40 per cent of the pharmaceuticals used in the United States are either based on, or synthesized from, natural compounds found in plants, animals or micro-organisms. And the vast majority of these come from forests. Forests also store vast amounts of carbon that might otherwise escape into the atmosphere and exacerbate global warming.
But the greatest value of these ecosystems might still be unknown. Only a fraction of known species has been examined for their potential medicinal, agricultural or industrial value. Nor do we fully understand how forests and their rich eco-systems contribute to the well-being of the larger global environment.
While our level of understanding about ecosystems is still limited, we have nevertheless known for a long time about their importance in providing people with essential goods and services. Calls for forest conservation and sustainable forest management implicitly recognize that forest loss can damage and ultimately destroy many of these goods and services.
With interest now focused on global warming, people have become increasingly aware that tropical forest ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change. We are still learning about climate change’s effect on forests and how this may impact on the world’s one billion impoverished people who, according to the World Bank, depend on forests for a part of their livelihood.
CIFOR and the Latin America-based CATIE – the Tropical Agriculture Centre for Research and Higher Education – are trying to address this shortage of knowledge through TroFCCA – Tropical Forests and Climate Change Adaptation.
Supported by the European Union, TroFCCA operates in:
- Asia: Indonesia and the Philippines
- Africa: Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali
- Central America: Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica
TroFCCA is enhancing our understanding of tropical forests and climate change adaptation by developing robust methodologies to assess ecosystem vulnerability to climate change. Most importantly, TroFCCA is aiming at adaptation strategies being mainstreamed into international and national development agendas.
TroFCCA’s specific objectives include:
- Identifying regional development issues for which climate change impacts over forests can increase the vulnerability of society
- Developing specific methodologies to assess vulnerability
- Contributing to current national and regional adaptation processes
- Developing criteria and indicators for adaptive forest management
- Facilitating the development of policy-oriented adaptation strategies
- Facilitating a science-policy dialogue on adaptation
By assessing climate change vulnerability, TroFFCA will assist decision-makers in formulating relevant policies that will help people prepare in advance and adapt to climate change.
Partners and collaborators
TroFCCA works closely with national governments, scientists and non-governmental organizations, and invites participation from national and international research students.
Contacts
TroFCCA website: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/trofcca