Sharing the Land: Restoring Degraded Ecosystems and Improving Livelihoods Through Agroforestry

The document argues that agroforestry provides a viable alternative to monoculture reforestation and intensified agriculture by creating multi-functional land-use systems. It highlights that 'land-sharing' through agroforestry can actually support 'land-sparing' by reducing the pressure to deforest for agricultural expansion. Using case studies from Sri Lanka and Vietnam, the brief demonstrates how home gardens and forest gardens increase tree cover and improve rural resilience. It also notes the success of nitrogen-fixing species in Africa and the use of rubber and cocoa agroforests in Indonesia and globally. The authors conclude that successful implementation requires secure land tenure, local context-specific choices, and inter-agency collaboration.

• Land degradation is a widespread global issue affecting approximately 24% of the world's land area, including nearly a third of forests and over a fifth of cropland, with 1.5 billion people directly depending on these degraded areas.
• Agroforestry is presented as a superior alternative to monoculture reforestation, which often uses exotic timber species that fail to restore original biodiversity or ecosystem services and provide limited benefits to local communities.
• In Sri Lanka, the government has promoted biodiverse, multi-layered home gardens to ease pressure on natural forests, with an estimated 13% of the country's land now devoted to these gardens.
• Vietnam has used reforestation policies to alleviate poverty, including a 1998 target to reforest 5 million hectares, leading farmers to convert allocated forest land into 'forest gardens' that combine profit-driven tree plantations with household crops.
• Specific agroforestry species have significantly boosted crop yields in Africa: nitrogen-fixing species in Zambia produced maize yields similar to fully fertilized fields, and the species Faidherbia albida has been proven to boost maize yields across the continent, especially in low-fertility soils.
• The document identifies several large-scale agroforestry systems globally, including 2.8 million hectares of jungle rubber forest in Indonesia, 7.8 million hectares of cocoa agroforests worldwide, 9.2 million hectares of silvopastural systems in Central America, and 5.1 million hectares in Mali.
• Successful land restoration through agroforestry requires secure land tenure because investments take years to pay off, as well as careful selection of species to avoid competition for water in water-scarce areas.

APA

Davis, M., Palm, M., Mattsson, E., & Bessonova, E. (n.d.). Sharing the Land: Restoring Degraded Ecosystems and Improving Livelihoods Through Agroforestry. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SIANI-Focali-2014-Agroforestry-land-degradation.pdf

Chicago

Davis, Marion, Matilda Palm, Eskil Mattsson, and Ekaterina Bessonova. Sharing the Land: Restoring Degraded Ecosystems and Improving Livelihoods Through Agroforestry. Stockholm Environment Institute, n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SIANI-Focali-2014-Agroforestry-land-degradation.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Davis |first1=Marion |last2=Palm |first2=Matilda |last3=Mattsson |first3=Eskil |last4=Bessonova |first4=Ekaterina |title=Sharing the Land: Restoring Degraded Ecosystems and Improving Livelihoods Through Agroforestry |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SIANI-Focali-2014-Agroforestry-land-degradation.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{davisndsharing, author = {Davis, Marion and Palm, Matilda and Mattsson, Eskil and Bessonova, Ekaterina}, title = {{Sharing the Land: Restoring Degraded Ecosystems and Improving Livelihoods Through Agroforestry}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SIANI-Focali-2014-Agroforestry-land-degradation.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }