Socio-ecological response and resilience to El Niño shocks :The case of coffee and cocoa agroforestry landscapes in Africa

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In many developing country contexts, rural smallholder agroforestry landscapes are very important sources of livelihoods for millions of households, but are also constrained by ecological and climatic factors. Our understanding of how these landscapes respond to environmental shocks and long-term change is poor, but can be significantly improved by using multidisciplinary approaches that incorporate ecological, climate and social science methods (Fisher et al 2014). Combining these disciplines into manageable research projects as well as finding appropriate funding to support them remains a serious challenge. We are exceptionally well placed to address this dearth of knowledge due to our work monitoring a coffee-farming landscape in Ethiopia and a cocoa-farming landscape in Ghana. Both studies are part of the ECOLIMITS project, funded by the NERC/DfID Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation programme (ESPA). These studies are focussed on gradients of management intensity from natural forest through high shade/low fragmentation to low shade/high fragmentation agroforest farms. We have gained a detailed understanding of the ecological system (how farming is affected by and affects biodiversity, ecosystem processes and ecosystem services) and the social system (how farming relates to rural livelihoods and multiple dimensions of poverty, and how these relationships are modified by local and national institutions). In the last few months, a strong El Niño-associated drought and increased temperatures have affected both regions. This has generated many challenges in both landscapes, but also provides a rare opportunity to study the sensitivity and resilience of agroforestry landscapes to weather shocks. In this proposal, we seek to monitor ecosystem services and crop yields through this El Niño event and beyond to 2017, and survey households to understand the impacts they have experienced as well as identify the key factors that lead to their resilience or vulnerability. In particular, we plan to explore the relationships between tree cover, crop yields and vulnerability to climate shocks. Our work will directly inform regional and national agendas in both countries to develop climate strategies that are resilient to environmental shocks, and hence maintain crop yields and rural livelihoods in a changing environment. The proposal is urgent because funds are needed to immediately conduct household surveys and biodiversity measurements during the El Niño, and maintain ecological monitoring to mid-2017 to assess recovery.