Abstract
Traditional agroforestry systems across South Asia have historically supported millions of smallholding farmers. Since, 2007 agroforestry has received attention in global climate discussions for its carbon sink potential. Agroforestry plays a defining role in offsetting greenhouse gases, providing sustainable livelihoods, localizing Sustainable Development Goals and achieving biodiversity targets. The review explores evidence of agroforestry systems for human well-being along with its climate adaptation and mitigation potential for South Asia. In particular, we explore key enabling and constraining conditions for mainstreaming agroforestry systems to use them to fulfill global climate mitigation targets. Nationally determined contributions submitted by South Asian countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change acknowledge agroforestry systems. In 2016, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation’s Resolution on Agroforestry brought consensus on developing national agroforestry policies by all regional countries and became a strong enabling condition to ensure effectiveness of using agroforestry for climate targets. Lack of uniform methodologies for creation of databases to monitor tree and soil carbon stocks was found to be a key limitation for the purpose. Water scarcity, lack of interactive governance, rights of farmers and ownership issues along with insufficient financial support to rural farmers for agroforestry were other constraining conditions that should be appropriately addressed by the regional countries to develop their preparedness for achieving national climate ambitions. Our review indicates the need to shift from planning to the implementation phase following strong examples shared from India and Nepal, including carbon neutrality scenarios, incentives and sustainable local livelihood to enhance preparedness.
Highlights
Climate change is a reality and it is well established that the planet is facing climate emergency [1]
Effort to consolidate the information and present it in this paper will be of significant interest to academicians, policymakers, and researchers working on agroforestry systems (AFS) and for mainstreaming AFS in climate dia
Agroforestry: Role in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Despite agroforestry being acknowledged for its carbon sequestration potential among all land uses considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2000), the understanding of carbon sink in different AFS in the region is still very elementary because of insufficient authentic data on carbon stocks of AF interventions, in comparison to agriculture and forestry [85]
Summary
Climate change is a reality and it is well established that the planet is facing climate emergency [1]. There are growing expectations on multifunctional land use systems, to fulfill mounting regional land and food demands while addressing emerging climate hazards, as they support sustenance of productive landscapes, habitats, social, economic, and regulatory aspirations [14]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its first, second, and third assessment reports (1990, 1996 and 2001) have acknowledged the South Asian region for its capacity to incorporate adaptation and mitigation approaches that can facilitate pro-poor development through carbon-offset arrangements such as farmer managed natural regeneration, agroforestry, and adaptive agriculture practices [17]. We performed an initial bibliometric analysis to understand the existing published literature on Forests 2021, 12, 303 regional agroforestry practices and their importance in addressing global climate adaptation and mitigation targets. What are the key capabilities, and constraints when looking to include agroforestry into climate adaptation and mitigation?
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