Forests: Nature at your service

We cut down trees and burn our woods every day, we are destroying nature.
– Eliany Portocarrero Novoa, 15, Peru
The soil is no longer fertile and there is not enough rain. Working the land is difficult.
– Bakary Diédhiou, 60, Senegal
The farming area has shrunk considerably, because the village is no longer enough to accommodate the growing numbers of people.
– Ibrahiem Abo Zeid, 55, Egypt

These are just a few of the many personal observations from people in communities that IFAD-funded projects support, indicating a troubling pattern worldwide of how forest and other resources that underpin rural livelihoods are under threat. Every day, poor people in rural areas are grappling with challenges linked to the degradation or increasing scarcity of the natural resources on which they depend, and to climate change.

Poor rural people are on the front line of climate change impacts, and the ecosystems and biodiversity on which they rely are increasingly degraded by unsustainable practices such as excessive fertilizer use, conversion of fragile lands or forests to other uses, monoculture planting or overgrazing. Their forests and agricultural lands are declining not only in quality but also in quantity. Growing water scarcity, rising energy and agricultural input prices, and dwindling fish and marine resources all compound the threat to their essential sources of income and nutrition. With fewer and fewer choices, often out of desperation, many are forced to abandon rural areas for cities, where they face a new set of challenges and risks.

“Environmentally damaging agricultural practices are a major driver of land, water and forest degradation, deforestation and persistent poverty,” says Elwyn Grainger-Jones, Director, IFAD Environment and Climate Division. “Poor rural people, including smallholders, are often disempowered, making it difficult or impossible for them to sustainably manage the natural resources on which they depend. They lack reliable access to land, markets, improved seed and fertilizer, weather information and credit, and even to basic services such as health care and education.”

But the knowledge and technology to tackle these challenges exist already, adds Grainger-Jones. What is needed is an ‘evergreen revolution’, powered by sustainable agriculture, that balances crop, livestock, fisheries and agroforestry systems. Approaches such as conservation – or ‘no-till’ – agriculture, agroforestry and sustainable land management are increasing yields and improving environmental outcomes.

“These solutions can help increase production and incomes without compromising soil fertility and ecosystem services,” he says. “We need to invest much more to promote and scale up their adoption, so that smallholders can play their full role in global food production systems.”

IFAD has years of experience helping poor rural communities manage their natural resources. While some of our projects specifically target the environment and natural resource management (ENRM), this approach is fundamental to the success of all IFAD-supported projects.

Investments in sustainable agriculture create a huge opportunity to recognize the interactions between agriculture and forestry and to increase yields and incomes – while simultaneously addressing the pressing challenges of our day, including food security, resilience to climate and price shocks, and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

“People need resilient and productive ecosystems to escape poverty, and vast numbers of rural poor people, whether they live in, near or far away from a forest, depend on the environmental services that forests provide. They need to be empowered to manage their natural resources,” says Grainger-Jones. “Women and indigenous peoples, in particular, must play a central role, because although they are among the most vulnerable groups, they also have unique and valuable knowledge and are key decision makers in their communities.”