Tree-Based Farming Could Deliver Abundant Benefits

In addition to mitigating the effects of climate change, forests can help alleviate hunger and provide a safety net for some of the world’s poorest people.

Forests may be the green investment with the richest returns for humankind, according to new research.

While one study outlines the ways in which forests provide food, fuel, shelter and a safety net for more than a billion humans, a separate one confirms that a canopy of older, sturdier trees helps protect the saplings and juvenile growths against heat and drought.

An international team of more than 60 scientists collaborated on a report − Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition: a Global Assessment Report − just published by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO).

“Large-scale crop production is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, which may occur far more frequently under climate change,” says Christoph Wilburger, who co-ordinated the IUFRO initiative. “Science shows that tree-based farming can adapt far better to such calamities.

Key role
“We know that forests already play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change. This report makes it very clear that they also play a key role in alleviating hunger and in improving nutrition.”

Climate scientists tend to consider forests as “carbon sinks” − agencies that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and that could help counter the rising levels of the greenhouse gas released by the burning of fossil fuels.

But forests also have a role in water storage and in protecting land from the forces of erosion.

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