Center For International Forestry Research

Climate change, energy and low-carbon development:to avoid catastrophic climate change, society needs to both end its dependence on fossil fuels and pursue low-emission development through sustainable land management, including agroforestry, ecosystem conservation and restoration, and a transition to sustainable economy models.all cifor-icraf research contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation by helping to keep trees in the ground, increase tree cover, and find the best tree species for local conditions. The 'climate team's' research focuses on forests conservation, on reducing emissions from deforests and forest degradation (redd+), on the sustainable management of forests and wetlands, on developing sustainable bioenergy solutions, and on bioeconomy transitions. Conserving and sustainably managing carbon-dense peatlands and wetlands is one large area of our work. Through all of this, we aim to support our partners in the development of effective, cost-efficient, and equitable climate policies and practices.

Governance, equity and well-being:problems related to land, trees and forests, as well as growing inequity cannot be solved if we do not understand and address unequal power relations and other governance challenges. Such research is essential to bring about (just) transformational change (what change, for whom) in policies, institutions and behaviours.cifor-icraf conducts applied research to reveal and propose solutions to patterns of inequity (e.g. Gender, ethnicity, age); to improve understanding of the roles of forests, trees and agroforests for smallholder and indigenous livelihoods, health and food security; and to explore and innovate with sustainable landscape approaches and multi-stakeholder processes.

Trees and forest genetic resources, and biodiversity:the ability of farmers and forest dwellers to produce food and other goods and services depends on biodiversity in genes, species and ecosystems. Yet the world is experiencing an alarming and accelerating loss of biodiversity, which is undermining progress towards development goals related to poverty, health and climate, among others.cifor-icraf's work on tree productivity and diversity aims to deliver on the best science needed to safeguard tree diversity, domesticate trees and deliver suitable tree planting material to growers including for food, fodder, timber and medicinal plants.

Soil and land health:with over one third of the earth's surface degraded and over 3.2 billion people negatively affected by degradation, continuing business as usual is no longer an option. It is clear that without healthy, well-functioning soil we cannot produce nutritious food and achieve food systems transformation. The un decade on ecosystem restoration 20212030 is a critical call to action and opportunity to restore ecosystem and soil health.cifor-icraf is a global centre of excellence for soil and land restoration, integrated soil information, and soil organic carbon accounting, with relevance for food and nutrition security, national restoration goals and climate commitments. Providing rigorous actionable evidence, partnerships and global engagement are core to our work. Through co-leading the coalition of action 4 soil health (ca4sh) we are ensuring actionable evidence directly informs global soil agendas and ecosystem health investments.

Agroecology:in the quest to transform food systems in ways that serve both people and nature, agroecology is gaining prominence as a means of generating solutions. It is a farming and food system approach that's inspired by natural ecosystems, combines local and scientific knowledge, and focuses on the interactions between plants, animals, humans, and the environment.the transformative partnership platform on agroecological approaches to building resilience of livelihoods and landscapes (agroecology tpp) aims to foster transitions to more sustainable agricultural and food systems by accelerating and coordinating the actions of a range of institutions that are already working on agroecology across various scales, contexts, and locations.