Lina Hammarstrand and Andreas Särnberger (Chalmers) presented their Master thesis work where they compared two forest management systems in Miombo forest in Tanzania. Striking was that the unprotected forest had higher carbon content than the protected and also more species, while the protected had more distinguished Miombo species in its composition. The three most desired ecosystem services were extracted from discussions with locals and were charcoal, timber and building poles.

 

At the discussion afterwards it was pinpointed that Miombo forest under use usually has a higher diversity compared to protected systems, which may reflect natural disturbances and succession in Miombo as long as the forest canopy and soil productivity is not completely devoid. Through the interviews conducted in the study it was also obvious that the protected forest was well perceived due to that the locals were very involved in the measures particularly through the fact that it gave them labour opportunity and hence information and potentially motivation to the protection measures. 

 

Hanna Sinare (Stockholm Resilience Centre) presented results from her study on ecosystem services and their benefits to livelihoods from seven different landscape types in six villages in northern Burkina Faso. Agricultural fields, depressions and homesteads where the ones giving the most services and benefits, while livestock, which contributes to a large part of benefits in times of trouble (drought, failed crops), needs resources even from several more peripheral landscape types. She also presented a review in preparation on ecosystems services from trees and shrubs in West Africa, where preliminary result showed that nutritional values was the most scrutinized service found in the literature. 

 

Hanna got some questions on the effect of trees on the regulatory ecosystem services such as water and temperature as well as the microbial activities in association with trees in this area. There was also a discussion on the “insurance value” of livestock particularly in relation to times of land-use change. 

 

Deborah Goffner (CNRS, France and Stockholm Resilience Centre) talked on the large Pan-African program “the Great Green Wall of Africa”, which she presented as a regional large-scale political process of African initiative. Her part of this project has been on ecosystem restoration in Senegal where the large program precipitates in a number of soil and vegetation restoration projects and associated training activities. One of the aims is to diversify the amount of indigenous species used in the afforestation program. The discussion from her presentation covered the different short- and long-term goals and the way of determining success in terms of survival rates when planting trees in sensitive environments. 

 

Peter Holmgren (CIFOR) focused on the need of capital to generate positive development in the landscape and he took leverage on the discussion around REDD+ and the carbon market. His opinion was that the public funding is not enough and that private investment has to be enhanced There is a lot of capital ready for good investments – but ideas have to be presented clearly and convincing. The procedure also has to secure long-term, affordable and reliable capital. Keep it simple, it has to be profitable and public funds have to be used effectively. 

 

1. Forest use efficiency. 

2. Simple indicators – in contrast to rigid REDD+ induced carbon accounting. 

3. Protected forest – does it work or not? Or do we only lose money while degradation prevails? 

4. The role of the ‘middle man – in contrast to possibilities for producers to reach the market. 

5. Public money, in India it is abundant according to a man in the audience, but as soon the public investments comes in, the focus is only on making money. 

6. Landscape classification or taxonomy – change over time is interesting and there is still lacking definitions, unity and consensus between scientific communities on “the landscape perspective” – does it include livelihoods, governance and tenure or is it just a new name for watersheds?

7. Understanding the marketfor fuelwood and timber. 

8. The spider-web for ecosystem service.