This document discusses opportunities and challenges for establishing long-term socio-ecological research (LTER) sites as part of the CGIAR Research Program 6 on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. It proposes selecting 6 sentinel landscapes across different regions to facilitate cross-comparison of data on drivers of land use change and their impacts. Key opportunities include testing landscape hypotheses using long-term biophysical and social data collection. Challenges include selecting comparable landscapes, integrating different types of data, and linking long-term monitoring with action research. The document outlines a process for selecting sentinel sites, identifying baseline data needs, and establishing research partnerships to address these opportunities and challenges.

1. Long term socio ecological research
sites for CRP6
-opportunities & challenges
Forests, Trees and
Agroforestry
Anja Gassner, a.gassner@cgiar.org

2. Crosscutting Sentinel landscape
theme
 Follows key recommendation from the 2009 Stripe social
Component Lead science review commissioned by the CGIAR Science Council
Center:  Builds on the CGIAR’s comparative advantage to conduct
CIFOR/ICRAF long-term, comparative research
Component  Generates data about the drivers and impacts of land use
Coordinator: change, as well as approaches to threats and benefits for
Anja environmental resilience and the poor
Gassner/Manuel  Integrates research and impact pathways to exploit potential
Guariguata synergies across all CRP6 components

3. Issue bound

4. geographically
bound

5. Issue bound Sentinel landscape
 Oil palm value chain: volumes of traded CPO and anticipated
growth in production in both Indonesia and Malaysia (and other
countries emerging in SSA – Cameroon, Nigeria, Liberia etc)
 Shea nuts/cacao - recent restructuring of local and regional trade
patterns associated with new technological opportunities of
substituting cocoa butter with cocoa butter equivalents in the
world’s chocolate industry
 Migration patterns/population pressure Andes –West Amazon?

6. Main Purpose
• Cross regional comparison
• Integrating Biophysical & Social data
• Long-term presence
• Opportunity to test landscape hypothesis based
on good understanding of landscape variation
• Co-locating research activities (share resources)
– Between Components
– With Partners
– With other CRP’s

7. Why should you be interested?
60% of ICRAF’s work
- 6.5 month of your working time
Will be related to research questions framed
under the CGIAR Research Program 6
Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

8. Why should you be interested?
A budget of 3.7 Million to be spend on:
 Baseline data
 Partnership connections
 Overall coordination
 Access to datasets
 Intelligent data management and data mining

9. Cross regional Comparison
“Greening” and “browning” in the Sahel
Vagen T, unpublished data 2012
1982:2006

10. The opportunity for your work
Design projects based on an prior information
about spatial and temporal variance within a
landscape
• Which communities have improved their
livelihood more than others?
• What are degradation hotspots in the
landscapes?
• Can I compare my community to communities
in other regions?

11. Opportunity for ICRAF/CRP6
• Opportunity to test our hypothesis about the
reciprocal relationship between tree cover
and livelihoods across 6 landscapes
• Opportunity to develop and test practical
methods to integrate socioeconomic and
biophysical data

12. Moving from exploratory to confirmatory
methods!
Theoretical Content of Model
High Low
Confirmatory Analysis Exploratory Analysis
Structural Equation Modeling
Agent based Modeling
Causal search Methods
Discriminant Analysis
CRP6
Baseline’s
Regression Trees
PCA, CCA, NMS
Multiple
Regression

13. The challenge for ICRAF/CRP6
• Selection of a set of comparable landscapes
for cross- regional comparisons
• Integrating Biophysical & Social data
• Long-term presence/ creating a panel data set
• Integrating action research with long term
monitoring

14. Cross regional Comparison
Step 1: The monitoring framework is to be constructed from
environmental problems that are formulated as hypotheses or
assumptions
Step 2 To verify these hypotheses and assumptions, relatively simple
indicators or the more complex landscape functions are
selected
Step 3: The data set to be analysed depends on the assessment
methods applied.
Step 4: The choice of adequate areas and representative test sites is
essential for optimised monitoring programmes
Step 5: The results are interpreted to verify hypotheses, to construct
metadata and to propose measures supporting a sustainable
landscape development.
A Conceptual Framework for Integrated Functional
Landscape Monitoring, Syrbe, Hierold, Bastian, Röder 2010

15. What are CRP6 ingredients?
Objective: Enhancing the management and use
of forests, agroforestry and tree genetic
resources across the landscape from forests to
farms.
Conceptual framework: forest and land use
transition curve

16. Conceptual framework

17. SL1 SL2 SL3 SL4 SL5 SL6
Tenure, rights and access regimes
Regulatory frameworks affecting women participation
Ethnic diversity and social equity
Types of management approaches and land-uses
Level of market development and schemes
Functional diversity
Drivers of change
Multiple actors at different scales

18. • Existing data for baseline and historical; e.g. long-
term human welfare, demographic and human
health data, as well as time series biophysical data
• Scientists from "X" CRP6 components interested co-
locating research in this site.
• Potential for optimized outcomes for livelihood and
environmental benefits within the landscape and
transferability beyond the landscape.
• Existence of a network of reliable partners on the
ground that we can add value too.
• Relative political stability and accessibility
Where all other criteria are equal preference will be given to
sites that coincide with research areas of other CRPs !

19. 5 sites in Latin America
5 sites in South East Asia
1 site in Central Asia
6 sites in Africa
2 issue bound landscapes

20. Landscape ecology research design
principles
a) Variations across landscapes
 If too many factors differ it is not possible to
attribute any cause and effect relationships
 PSEUDOREPLICATION
b) Variation within landscapes
 Geopolitical boundaries across the same agro-
ecosystem
 Institutional boundaries (in/outside protected areas
 Before and after studies (before after logging
moratorium)

21. Challenge 2
Integrating Biophysical & Social data

22. Research Design
SL1 SL2 SL3 SL4 SL5 SL6
Meta goals – driven by overall
CRP6 research hypothesis
SL1 SL2 SL3 SL4 SL5 SL6
Local & Local & Local & Local & Local & Local &
regional regional regional regional regional regional
Relevant Relevant Relevant Relevant Relevant Relevant
questions questions questions questions questions questions

23. Integrating Biophysical & Social data
Conceptual Frameworks developed for
integrating social science into the long-term
ecological research (LTER) sites:
“Mitigation of pressures on biodiversity through
modification of their underlying socioeconomic
drivers is thought to be the most effective and
durable option to reduce the rate of biodiversity
loss”

24. Drivers-pressures-states-impacts-responses (DPSIR) approach

25. New tech- F. Support for technological innovation
G nology
A1. Land use policies, spatial development planning, roads
A2. LU rights (e.g. community forest mngmnt)
Livelihoods, provisioning &
profitability G
G
Land Conse- G Response/
Actors/
G Drivers use/cover quences & feedback
agents
changes functions options
Biodiversity, Watershed G
G
functions, GHG
Institutions, C. Suasion and institutional support
emissions, Landscape
identity, prid beauty
e B2. PES and conditional ES incentives
B1. Incentive structure through policy change (tax, subsidy etc)
G = Potential gender specificity of analysis & targeting of interventions
Modified from: Van Noordwijk, M., B. Lusiana, G. Villamor, H. Purnomo, and S. Dewi. 2011. Feedback loops added to four conceptual models linking land change
with driving forces and actors. Ecology and Society 16(1): r1. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/resp1/

26. Integrative Science for Society and the
Environment (ISSE)
An integrated conceptual framework for long-term social–ecological
research, Collins et al., 2011

27. Separating the drivers into press and pulse events
An integrated conceptual framework for long-term social–ecological
research, Collins et al., 2011

28. Socioeconomic biodiversity pressures and drivers
Human appropriation of net
primary production” (HANPP) is a measure of socioecological
material flows. (Haberl et al., 2001, Haberl et al., 2007a)

29. Boserup revisited in four comparative case studies
Marina Fischer-Kowalski et al., 2011
Research in Human Ecology
• Social metabolism can be quantified in terms of
energetic and material flows per time period, usually a
year.
• Different sociometabolic regimes have substantially
different metabolic profiles
• The higher the metabolic rate the higher the impact
upon the environment.

30. Challenge 3
Integrating action research with long
term monitoring

31. Lantapan watershed : The strong presence
of ICRAF in this site is an advantage—it can
facilitate both formal and informal
knowledge-sharing sessions and or advocacy
work to reach out to policy.
Sumbaja watershed : RUPES Project
provides support to local communities to
gain access to the Indonesian Government’s
Community Forestry Program
Lake Victoria Basin:
PRESA, therefore, directed its efforts into
already ongoing processes by initiating the
formation of a stakeholders’ consortium
with the objective of making a case for
publicly-funded payments for environmental
services.

32. SE TOU –landscape: Participatory
modeling to influence stakeholders
take on Integrated conservation and
development project (ICDP) strategies
Tri-National de la Sangha –Historical Lower Mekong: …. The intended
trend analysis and scenario visioning outcome is to foster learning amongst
to achiev the best outcomes for both conservation organisations and
conservation and development. government departments, to better
recognise and critically appraise the
trade-offs that exist between
conservation and development in
forested landscapes, *…+ to learn from
the current intervention experiences

33. AfricaSoils Sentinel
Site based on the Land
Degradation Surveillance
Framework
a spatially
stratified, hierarchical, randomized
sampling framework
Sentinel site (100 km2)
16 Clusters (1 km2)
10 Plots (1000 m2)
4 Sub-Plots (100 m2)

34. Characterize local variation in
Step 1 conditions of tree cover, forest
quality, livelihood options and
environmental consequences
Test the empirical value of
Step 2 ? a ‘forest transition’
conceptualization as
spatial representation
Interpret (model) the temporal trajectory
of components of the sentinel landscape
Step 3 and their aggregate effects

35. We have a model of
the drivers and
pressures
…..
What to do with the model?
Step 4B Step 4A
Allow scenario After 5-7 years revisit
testing in the sites and test the
Small “action model predictions 
sites” , minimising validate, refute or
the spill over to improve model
the larger (repeat steps 3 & 4)
landscape

36. Purpose of June Workshop
 To remind the component teams of the
advantage of co-locating research and to get a
consensus on candidate landscapes and types
of baseline data to be collected.
 To invite potential Partners to present CRP6 as
the new CGIAR program that is willing to
collocate research and funding to existing
initiatives.

37. Outcome of June Workshop
 Selection of Sentinel Landscapes for CRP6
 Identification of potential partnerships

38. After the June Workshop
 Selection of a few Sentinel Landscapes as pilots
 Identification of sites teams that will be
responsible for data compilation (with support
from ICRAF-RMG, ICRAF-GIU) and data collection
 Development of a set of research hypothesis
“meta goal” that will guide the sampling frame
for the baselines
 Decide on a minimum set of baseline data to be
taken at each site
 Decide on methodological harmonization for data
collection