Trees and resilience in dryland agroforestry systems in Eastern African
Trees and resilience in dryland agroforestry systems in Eastern African
wca2014-1107 Jan De Leeuw 1,*Ramni Jamnadass 2Miyuki Iiyami 1Mary Njenga 1Phil Dobie 2Roeland Kindt 2Thomas Groen 3Bob Wagner 4 1East and Southern African Region, 2ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya, 3ITC, Enschede, Netherlands, 4Private consultant , Nairobi, KenyaVulnerability related to drought and climate change has led to considerable interest to enhance resilience in drylands. Woody species form an important part of the vegetation of drylands, yet there is scattered knowledge on the role that trees could play in achieving more resilient drylands development. The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) organized a consultative assesment process to compile existing knowledge and best practice on trees and resilience to ensure that trees in drylands forests and agro-forestry systems are managed to strengthen people’s resilience to the shocks they encounter. Considering resilience from an ecosystem service perspective has advantages in agroforestry systems where trees have many indirect benefits. An ecosystem service approach was thus taken to assess existing knowledge of benefits that people derive from trees in the drylands of East Africa. The assessment further reviewed fifteen project based natural resource management interventions in African drylands in more detail and assesed to whether experience gained could be upscaled throughout the region. This oral session will present the outcomes of this consultative assessment on trees and resilience.