ASB MILESTONES 1990-2007

• Dr. Brent Swallow, ASB Global Coordinator from February.
• ASB new policy focus: Avoided Deforestation with Sustainable Benefits/Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation (REDD) agenda.
• ASB Voices and Policybriefs translated and printed in Spanish.
• 3 ASB Voices of the Future written by partners in Spanish about ASB Scenarios work in Peru.  
• Field Guide to the Future receives more than 1,500 requests from all around the world.

• ASB has a new name: ASB - Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins. 
• ASB website revamped.
• ASB leads a collaborative effort with CIFOR: Field Guide to the Future: Four ways for Communities to Think Ahead. 
• ICRAF/Diversitas AgroBIODIVERSITY meeting in Jambi - Padang, 21 - 26 May 2006. Comparative Study on Environmental Services and Biodiversity under ASB.
• ASB Voices and Policybriefs translated and printed in French.

• ASB wins CGIAR Science Award for Outstanding Partnership.
• CGIAR external review and impact assessment of ASB completed.
• ASB book Slash and Burn: The Search for Alternatives, summarizing 10 years of ASB research (Columbia University Press) launched at CGIAR Annual General meeting (Marrakesh, December 2005).
• ASB MA state of the assessment report (final) "Forest and Agroecosystem Tradeoffs in the Humid Tropics" and executive summary online http://www.asb.cgiar.org/ma/
• ASB-Peru Synthesis report.
• ASB-MA brochure.

• ASB listed by EcoAgriculture partners as a leading organization in EcoAgriculture.
• Comprehensive ASB governance document prepared
• ASB mission and vision approved.
• "Virtual" consultation among ASB researchers about the challenges of integration (across disciplines, institutions, spatial and temporal scales, and different types of knowledge) and how ASB has adapted and learned.
• ASB open meeting on "Forests and Water" on December 8th, 2004 in Bogor, Indonesia.
• ASB MA user needs assessments for the ASB/MA in Peru, Indonesia, Cameroon, Thailand and Brazil in 2004.
• Environmental Services and Land Use Change: Bridging the Gap between Policy and Research in Southeast Asia. A special issue of Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, Vol. 104/1.
• The Amazon Initiative (AI) Consortium established. Currently, 145 researchers from 19 institutions are part of this network (ASB included).
• ASB MA scenarios training workshop 17-23 November 2004 Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• Amazon Initiative website launched http://www.asb.cgiar.org/iniciativaamazonica.html
• Quarterly ASB news posted on "Whats New" in http://www.asb.cgiar.org
• 13th ASB-GSG meeting in December 6-7, 2004 in Bogor, Indonesia.

• ASB heralded as a prototype of successful application of Integrated Natural Resource Management (iNRM) methodology: World Bank report CGIAR at 31: A Meta-Evaluation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (from p.15 of the Thematic Working Paper on Natural Resources Management Research in CGIAR).
• 12th GSG meeting 20-21 March, 2003 at the Aberdares, Kenya.
• CIFOR was selected to provide the next chair by the GSG, effective 2003-2005.
• Global Coordinator appointed to Technical Advisory Group, World Bank BioCarbon Fund.
• ASB-Millennium Ecosystem Assessment inception meeting held in 19-21 March at the Aberdares, Kenya.
• Functional Values of Biodiversity - Phase II project: datasets and technical reports online: http://www.asb.cgiar.org/BNPP/phase2/bnpp_phase2_general.htm.
• Harvard University Kennedy School of Government intern studied ASB global impact pathways ("Strategic typology of impact pathways for natural resource management: A case study of the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn programme".)

• ASB is approved by the MA Board as the only cross-cutting sub-global assessment of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA).
• ASB Brazil syntheses report for Phase II.
• 2 IFPRI Research Reports on Brazil
• "Evolution of the ASB programme" completed.
• ASB national consortia translated the existing English language lecture notes into Indonesian.
• 'Mini' websites in Spanish and French.
• Hosted page for Rainforest Challenge Programme.
• ASB website approaching 20,000 'unique' visitors at yearend
• 2 new issues of ASB Policybriefs; and ASB Policybriefs No 1 revised and reprinted
• Some ASB Policybriefs translated to Portuguese, Indonesian
• 5 new ASB Voices/Voices of the Future
• Some "Voices" translated to Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, Thai, and Karen.
• Rainforest Challenge news release for World Summit on Sustainable Development.
• ASB posters and global maps online

• 11th GSG Meeting 15-16 November 2001 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
• World Bank Netherlands Partnership Program (BNPP) contract signed for the sudy of spatial scale of impact on various hydrological functions started.
• ASB accredited as an NGO by the GEF. ASB pursued this partnership since ASB was born from GEF and this partnership provides a possible link for impact rather than potential funding.
• ASB grants for partners' activities (GSG grants and passthrough grants) coordinated through global coordination office.
• "Rewarding the Upland Poor for Environmental Services" (RUPES) project launched in SE Asia.
• 3 ASB country synthesis chapters (Brazil, Cameroon, Indonesia) published in D.R Lee and C.B. Barrett, Tradeoffs or Synergies? Agricultural Intensification, Economic Development and the Environment. CABI.
• ASB Sustainable land use Mosaic (SLUM) working group workshop: "Bringing the landscape into focus: developing a conceptual framework and identifying methods for ASB work at the landscape scale" 12-13 November held in Chiang Mai, Thailand: http://www.asb.cgiar.org/docs/SLUM_contents.htm
• Conversion of ASB results into training materials: 12 lecture notes completed by ASB/ICRAF SE Asia.
• ASB Policybriefs series started and produced 3 issues.
• ASB Voices/Voices of the Future started and produced 3 issues.
• New listservers (ASB-Rainforest, ASB-MA, ASB-BNPP).

• First Review of "Systemwide Programmes with an Ecoregional Approach": (the "Henzell Review")
• "The Alternatives to slash-and-burn programme has gone further than the others in relating its research sites to the whole area over which the problem occurs, and in scaling up to the global level in its findings on tradeoffs?" (p.xix).
• 10th GSG meeting held 11-12 September, Yaounde, Cameroon.
• First time GSG is chaired by the Director of Research, Dr. Anne-Marie Izac, ICRAF.
• Dr. Polly Ericksen, Interim Coordinator (up to June).
• Dr. Thomas P. Tomich, Principal Economist & ASB Global Coordinator (from June).
• First presentation of financial report (ASB Programme of Work and Budget) to GSG.
• GEF considered the full proposal through the WB investment. The CGIAR Finance committee, after a request by ICRAF, allocated 600K USD to ICRAF for ASB coordination in 2000.
• ASB/EC-funded project "Environmental Services and Rural Livelihoods in the Forest Margins of West and Central Africa" European Commission? starts (1.5M Euros over 3 years).
• 3 ASB working group and one country report published:
  • Climate Change
  • Aboveground Biodiversity Assessment
  • Economic and Social Indicators
  • ASB Cameroon Phase II
• ASB website http://www.asb.cgiar.org and a searchable database of ASB publications is available
• ASB Listserv (ASB-Global)

• 8th GSG meeting: 1 March 1999, Costa Rica.
• 9th GSG meeting: 2-4 November 1999, Salt Lake City, USA.
• Dr. Anne-Marie Izac, Director of Research, ICRAF, Chair of GSG (from November, 1999).
• IITA implementation on USAID Sustainable Tree Crops (STCP) Programme in West Africa. Strong links to ASB and potential for other regions.
• ASB Symposium at American Society of Agronomy (ASA) held in October 1999.

• Evaluation of Phase II by Dr. Otto T. Solbrig, Bussey Professor of Biology, Harvard University.
• 7th GSG meeting: 22- 23 May 1998, Brasilia, Brazil.
• GSG reduces its size for effective governance. The following institutions were selected to remain in the GSG: AARD (Indonesia), Embrapa (Brazil), IRAD (Cameroon), Ministry of Agriculture (Peru), Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives-MOAC (Thailand), CIFOR, ICRAF, IFPRI, IITA and TSBF.
• Dr. Erick Fernandes, Global Coordinator (joint appointment with Cornell University).
• ASB competitive grants for partners start.
• Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn in Indonesia Phase II report.
• ASB "matrix" ideas developed: Assessing trade-offs between production and the environment.

• UNEP, Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) conducted a highly successful review of ASB Phase I.
• 6th GSG meeting: 17-27 August 1997, Bogor, Indonesia.
• A new working group structure was developed and nominations approved? with six working groups - and their chairs appointed as ASB moves to Phase III for 1998: Carbon & GHGs, Biodiversity, Household Benefits, Agricultural Sustainability, Linkages, and Training & Information.

• 5th GSG meeting: 3-5 October 1996, Nairobi, Kenya.
• Mr. Chip Rowe, ASB, Global Coordinator.
• Development of national and local criteria to scale-up from plot to landscape.
• 'Best-bet' alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture identified using multiple criteria across benchmark sites.
• A cost-efficient method for rapid appraisal of above-ground vascular plant biodiversity at all benchmark sites developed and tested.

• ASB Phase I Evaluation by Dr. Hari Eswaran of USDA. He endorsed Phase I and recommended funding for Phase 2 for 5 years.
• Phase II included new additional sites: Peru and Thailand.
• 4th GSG meeting, 30 July - 4 August 1995, Pucallpa, Peru.
• Characterization of ASB sites starts.
• The Indonesia Ministry of Forestry requested ASB to develop options for improving the tenure of traditional farming communities in government classified forest lands which are actually degraded grasslands.

• 3rd GSG Meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon March 24-25
• 28 March 1994, ASB was endorsed as one of the first systemwide programmes of the CGIAR
• ASB Phase 1 starts. Thematic Working Groups established
• Pedro A. Sanchez, DG, ICRAF, Chair of GSG (Elected Chair from March 1994)
• Dr. Dale Bandy, first ASB global coordinator
• Special symposium on Alternatives to slash- and-burn during the World Soil Science and Congress, July 1994 in Acapulco, Mexico

• 2nd GSG meeting, Bogor, Indonesia February 22-24, 1993
• GSG approved the inclusion of: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) as members

• The ASB idea received support from two recommendations agreed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (UNCED) appearing in Chapter 11 (Combating Deforestation) of Agenda 21:
  • "Limit and aim to halt destructive shifting cultivation by addressing the underlying social and ecological cause"
  • "Reduce damage to forests by promoting sustainable management of areas adjacent to the forests"
• 1st Global Steering Group (GSG) meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya May 25-27, 1992, with representatives from ICRAF, EMBRAPA, IRA, AARD, WRI, TSBF, IFDC, IITA, IRRI, MAFF, CIAT
• GEF recommends funding for ASB Phase I: US$3.0M
• First global workshop on Alternatives to slash-and-burn (ASB) held at Porto Velho, Rondonia Brazil 16-21 February, 1992

• At International Centers Week in 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) inquired about prospects of developing a CGIAR system-wide programme to develop alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture (ASB)
• First preparatory Meeting in Diamant, Martinique in 2-3 July 1991
• ICRAF was asked to play the overall coordinating role
• Pedro A. Sanchez, DG, ICRAF, Chair of GSG
• Dale E. Bandy, ASB, Global interim Coordinator