Trees, livestock, people and water need to find transitions in silvopastoral systems • Recently published FAO report ”Grazing with Trees” give more background and 17 cases of ”silvopastoral solutions”

1. A turning point for drought management:
Upscaling the silvopastoral approach in the Near East North Africa Region
Solutions – including silvopastoral systems
Trees, livestock, people and water
Anders Malmer
FAO COFO Working Group ”Dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral systems”
steering group chair
2022 11 11 1

2. Silvopastoral systems are not new, BUT…
• Many traditional grazing landscapes
suffer degradation from ”increasing
extensive use”.
• This vulnerability will increase with
climate change induced increasing
drought frequency and magnitudes.
• A solution maintaining and restoring
silvopastoral systems means not
excluding people and livestock, but
transforming the production system for
diversified value creation (livestock and
trees), driving local societal, economic
and ecological services development.
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3. Trees improve soils
Mature trees and woody plants
regularly deliver organic material
and nutrients to improve both
physical and chemical soil
properties for
• Soil productivity
• Water management
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4. Livestock eat both grass and leaves
• Intensification can be different
ways to control what is eaten
where…
• Rotating enclosures
• Bringing fodder to the animals
• Protecting, maintaining and
tending tree seedlings
• While trees mature, they can be
pruned to supply fodder in a
controlled way
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5. Water will be increasingly critical for
humans, livestock and vegetation
The old ”Trade off model” that the trees steal the water
Is exchanged for the ”Optimun tree cover model”
In each landscape/aridity the benfit of trees need to balance their water use
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Canopy cover High
Low

6. So; Trees, livestock, people and water need to
find transitions in silvopastoral systems
• Recently published FAO report ”Grazing with Trees” give more
background and 17 cases of ”silvopastoral solutions”
• Well explained science background:
”Trees, forest and water: Cool insights for a hot world”
David Ellison, et al. 2017 (23 authors), Global Environmental Change 43 (2017) 51–61
• Optimum tree cover original study in Burkina Faso:
”Intermediate tree cover can maximize groundwater recharge in the seasonally dry tropics”
Ulrik Ilstedt, et al. 2016 (12 authors), Nature Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/srep21930
• Review on local tenure and business to drive scalable adaptation
”Tamm review: Re-imagining forestry and wood business: Pathways to rural development…”
E.K. Sadanandan Nambiar in Forest Ecology and Management 448 (2019) 160–173
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Anders.Malmer@skogsstyrelsen.se