New Book: Agroforestry as a Tool for Landscape Restoration

Book Description:
This book compiles a set of articles from a technical session: “Agroforestry as a Tool for Landscape Restoration”, held in August 2009 as part of the “2nd. World Agroforestry Congress. The future of global land use”.

The book is comprised of 5 sections with a total of 14 chapters. The articles selected provide an overview of recent efforts to apply agroforestry technologies to landscape restoration in degraded lands located in tropical and temperate regions worldwide. The book is directed at a broad audience including academics, practitioners, and policy makers.

The topics, problems and objectives in each chapter vary according to the specific circumstances of ecosystem or landscape degradation, ranging from extreme conditions and solutions such as sand embankments and vegetative barriers in arid regions of Sudan, to degraded agricultural or pasture lands, implementing successional analog ecosystems in the Brazilian Amazon, “agrotropic-rainforestry” systems in Cameroon, traditional shifting agricultural technologies without burning in Madagascar, agrosilvopastoral systems in Costa Rica, or reforestation with taungya systems in Venezuela. Several chapters focus on soil restoration and sustainable production of subsistence goods, as well as non timber forest products in Cameroon, Mexico and Argentina.

Several chapters are dedicated to describing agroforestry systems aimed at the provision of environmental services such as biodiversity conservation and protection of watersheds. The book closes with a chapter stressing the importance of working with local people, and providing education and extension services to local communities. This collection of articles intends to call the attention of practitioners, academics and policy makers to key issues and approaches in agroforestry that can be useful to address the complex environmental and productivity problems of degraded agricultural lands throughout the world.

Table of Contents:
Introduction

Preface

Section 1- Agroforestry systems designed to restore degraded lands to productive land use systems yielding subsistence goods for rural people:, pp. 1-2

Chapter 1. Imitating natural ecosystems through successional agroforestry for the regeneration of degraded lands – a case study of smallholder agriculture in northeastern Brazil, pp. 3-17
(Jennifer Schulz, University of Alcalá, Department of Ecology, Carretera de Barcelona km 33,600, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Spain)

Chapter 2. Tavy bôka: a Malagasy alternative to slash and burn agriculture, pp. 19-28
(Thomas K. Erdmann, Development Alternatives, Inc., 7600 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 200
Bethesda, MD 20833 USA)

Chapter 3. Restoration of equatorial rainforest slopes of Mabonji in the Meme division, Southwest region of Cameroon, pp. 29-43
(Emmanuel Suka, Ministry of Environment and Protection of Nature of Cameroon, P.O. Box 1396, Limbe Botanic Gardens, Limbe, Southwest Region, Cameroon)

Chapter 4. Constraints of tree establishment and their role in rehabilitating degraded dry land in Sudan, pp. 45-53
(Nawal Khidir Nasr Al-amin1 and Abubakr Abd Elwahab El-magzob2, 1 Department of Botany & Environmental Science, College of Range Science & Forestry, Sudan University of Science & Technology; 2 Forestry and Range Department, Desertification Research Institute, P.O. Box 728, 11111 Khartoum, Sudan)

Chapter 5. Restoration of degraded pastures using agrosilvopastoral systems with native trees in the Neotropics, pp. 55-68
(Florencia Montagnini, Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
370 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA)

Chapter 6. The Multispecies Agroforestry System of the Danac Foundation in tropical dry forest landscapes of Yaracuy, Venezuela (a case study), pp. 69-81
(Eduardo Escalante, Álvaro Guerra, Rodolfo Martínez and Alirio Piñuela, Danac Foundation for Agricultural Research, Carretera Panamericana, Encrucijada de Marín, San Javier, vía Guarataro, Estado Yaracuy, Venezuela)

Section 2- Agroforestry systems designed to restore soil while focusing on non-timber forest products:

Chapter 7. Non-wood products from native multipurpose trees from agroforestry homegardens in the semiarid Mexican Plateau, pp. 85-97
(Teresita del R. L. Terrones Rincón*, Miguel A. Hernández Martínez, Santa Ana Ríos Ruiz, Claudia Martínez Ayala, National Institute of Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research, Guanajuato-México)

Chapter 8. Effects of native trees in agroforestry systems on the soils and yerba mate in Misiones, Argentina, pp. 99-112
(Stephanie Day1*, Florencia Montagnini1, Beatriz Eibl2, 1 Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies 370 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; 2 Facultad de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Nacional de Misiones, Eldorado, Misiones, Argentina)

Section 3- Agroforestry systems to restore and conserve biodiversity in agricultural landscapes:

Chapter 9. Effects of management practices on coffee productivity and herbaceous species diversity in agroforestry systems in Costa Rica, pp. 115-132
(Esteban Rossi1, 2 , Florencia Montagnini1, and Virginio Filho Elias de Melo3, 1Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 195 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511, USA; 2Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, 950 Main St., Worcester, MA 01610, USA; 3Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), 7170, Turrialba, Costa Rica)

Chapter 10. Using bird distribution to evaluate the potential of living fences to restore landscape connectivity in pasturelands, pp. 133-142
(Wendy Francesconi1, Florencia Montagnini2, and Muhammad Ibrahim3, 1University of Florida, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, 350 Newins-Ziegler Hall, Gainesville, FL, 32601, USA; 2Yale University, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 370 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; 3Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica)

Chapter 11. Operationalizing environmental services of agroforestry systems: Functional biodiversity assessment in Tomé-Açú, Pará, Brazil, pp. 143-156
(Daniel Callo-Concha ,2, Manfred Denich2, Institute of Crop Science and Resources Conservation, University of Bonn. Katzenburgweg 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany, 2Center for Development Research (ZEF), Department of Ecology and Resource Management, University of Bonn, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany)

Section 4- Agroforestry systems for watershed restoration and conservation:

Chapter 12. Riparian Buffers for Habitat Enhancement of Beaverlodge Watershed – Alberta, Western Canada, pp. 159-170
(Doug Macaulay1, Jill Henry2 and John Hallett3, 1Alberta Woodlot Extension Program, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, Main Floor, Airdrie Agriculture Centre, 97 East Lake Ramp NE, Airdrie, AB, Canada, T4A 0C3; 2 County of Grande Prairie, P.O. Box 6000, Clairmont, ON, Canada, T0H 0W0; 3 Alberta Conservation Association, Main Floor Main floor Provincial Building 9621 – 96 Avenue, Peace River, AB T8S 1T4)

Chapter 13. Agroforest landscape ecosystem analysis in Mindanao, Philippines: current status and perspectives for watershed restoration, pp. 171-182
(Oliva P. Canencia, Mark John T. Gabule and Chris Rey M. Lituañas, Mindanao University of Science and Technology (MUST), Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines)

Section 5- Agroforestry dissemination and training:

Chapter 14. Agroforestry educational experiences for smallholders involved in biodiversity conservation and landscape restoration in the Xingu Watershed – Mato Grosso, Brazil, pp. 185-195
(Camila Horiye Rodrigues, Instituto Centro da Vida (ICV), Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso, Brazil)

Index pp.195-201