What to plant, when and where? - designing integrated forest-agricultural landscapes to enhance multiple livelihood benefits to and from agriculture

我们项目的总体目标是调查撒哈拉以南非洲热带地区自然资本（sensu农林业）提供的生物和人类福祉效益。利用自然资本（如自然和半自然生境及其资源）从农业中获益的综合土地管理已被学者和实践者确定为撒哈拉以南非洲可持续农业集约化的关键组成部分。小农传统上认识到自然栖息地可以为农业带来的好处。但是关于提高作物产量的潜在“最佳实践”的研究很少。关于自然资本在改善作物生产的同时保护生物多样性、清洁水和木材、粮食、医药和燃料等资源方面的潜力，存在着巨大的知识缺口。关于自然资本对农业的好处背后的生物机制的数据缺口相当大。知识和数据上的差距造成了认知上的挑战（“自然资本有多有用？它是否必要？”），而这反过来又阻碍了小农和工业化农场有针对性地采用土地综合管理促进农业集约化。我们的研究将填补这些空白，结合社会和生态方法的进步，量化综合景观管理如何以及在多大程度上提高农业效益。我们将与坦桑尼亚的农民、农业综合企业、发展和教育从业者、研究组织和政府合作，从坦桑尼亚的研究景观中收集和分析生态和社会经济数据，以实现四个关键目标。我们的研究景观（约20公里x 40公里）包括沿Udzungwa山脉脆弱森林和Kilombero山谷高产农田边界的走廊的一部分，这是一个集水区和重要的生态热点。首先，我们将调查研究景观提供的四个关键好处：包括作物产量、土壤健康、生物多样性（特别是传粉媒介和害虫天敌的丰富程度及其与食用植物和栖息地的相互作用）和人类福祉。其次，我们将研究这四种效益对自然和半自然生境的空间依赖性及其在景观中的分布。第三，我们将开发模型来预测研究景观中半自然和自然栖息地恢复或丧失后这四种效益的变化。这将使我们能够设计景观和管理，最大限度地发挥这四大优势。第四，我们将调查农民和农业综合企业在农场管理和更广阔的前景方面做出决策的驱动因素。我们将开发一种工具，使我们能够可视化这些驱动因素，以及它们如何转化为决策，进而转化为农业生产力。我们项目的研究重点是影响，旨在最大限度地利用自然资本，促进粮食安全和人类福祉。这是基于可持续资源的定义，即“以不超过地球替代能力的速度使用资源”。这项研究建立在这样的证据之上，即农林业可以大大有利于与授粉和病虫害防治相关的作物、土壤和生物多样性，同时产生当地（粮食、木材、木柴、医药）和全球（减缓气候变化、生物多样性保护）的环境效益。我们的研究将建立在与农民、农业综合企业和政府建立的长期合作伙伴关系的基础上，以实现这一影响。

The overall aim of our project is to investigate biological and human well-being benefits provided by natural capital (sensu agroforestry) in tropical landscapes of Sub-Saharan Africa.Integrated land management that exploits natural capital (e.g. natural and semi-natural habitats and their resources) for benefits to and from agriculture has been identified as a key component of sustainable agricultural intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa by academics and practitioners. Small-holder farmers traditionally recognise the benefits natural habitats can provide to agriculture. But research on underlying 'best practice' for improved crop yields is rare. Large knowledge gaps exist on the potential of natural capital for improving crop production whilst protecting biodiversity, clean water and resources such as timber, food, medicine and fuel. Data gaps are considerable on the biological mechanisms that underlie the benefits of natural capital for agriculture. Both knowledge and data gaps create perception challenges ('how useful is natural capital and is it necessary?) and these in turn hinders the targeted uptake of integrated land management for agricultural intensification in small-holder and industrial farms.Our research will fill these gaps combining social and ecological method advances to quantify how and to what extent integrated landscape management can enhance benefits to and from agriculture. Working with rural farmers, agribusiness, development and education practitioners, research organisations and government in Tanzania, we will collect and analyse ecological and socio-economic data from our study landscape in Tanzania to address four key objectives. Our study landscape (~ 20 km x 40 km) encompasses part of a corridor along the border between the fragile forests of the Udzungwa Mountains and the productive croplands of the Kilombero Valley, a water catchment area and an important ecological hotspot. First, we will investigate the four key benefits provided by the study landscape: these include crop yields, soil health, biodiversity (in particular abundance of pollinators and natural enemies of pests and their interactions with food plants and habitats), and human-wellbeing. Second, we will investigate the spatial dependencies of these four benefits on natural and semi-natural habitats and their distribution in the landscape. Third, we will develop models that predict changes in these four benefits following restoration or loss of semi-natural and natural habitats in the study landscape. These will allow us to design landscapes and management that would maximise the four benefits. And fourth, we will investigate the drivers for decision-making by farmers and agribusiness on the management of farms and the wider landscape. We will develop a tool that allows us to visualise those drivers and how they translate into decision-making and subsequently into agricultural productivity. Our project's research focus is on impact aiming to maximise the utilisation of natural capital for food security and human-wellbeing. This builds on the definition of sustainable resource as 'use of resources at rates that do not exceed the capacity of the Earth to replace them'. The research builds on evidence that agroforestry can substantially benefit crops, soil and biodiversity linked to pollination and pest control, whilst generating local (food, timber, firewood, medicine) and global (climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation) environmental benefits. Our research will build on long-term partnerships established in the study landscape with farmers, agribusiness and government to achieve that impact.