Governance, Incentives, Policy & Practices

Image	Where, What	Story	More Information
	GLOBAL Output Potential Outcome	ASB researchers have helped quantify the effects of tropical forest conversion. Conversion of primary and secondary forest to other land uses, although profitable for farmers, usually brings negative consequences for plant and soil biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration. The ASB Matrix brings together indicators of local, regional and global benefits for a range of land use options, acting as a decision-support tool. The studies in Indonesia and Cameroon, to cite but two examples, show that a 'middle path' of development is feasible, involving smallholder agroforests and community forests. ASB research also shows that this middle path requires supportive policy and institutional arrangements.	§ "Success Story Details" document § ASB Policybrief #5 § ICRAF 2 pager "The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn matrix: reconciling conflicting interests for forests and people" (2003-28-ES-LA) § ASB report on methods for the ASB matrix § ASB Country Synthesis Reports ( Brazil, Cameroon, Indonesia, Peru, Thailand) § Slash and Burn book, specifically chapter: "Balancing Agricultural Development and Environmental Objectives: Assessing Tradeoffs in the Humid Tropics." § ASB Video - Jean Tonye "ASB Presents a Basket of Options"
	GLOBAL Potential Outcome Potential Impact	ASB is part of the Rainforest Challenge Partnership, a powerful alliance that brings together the conservation and development communities to combine strengths in research for sustainable development with strengths in advocacy and public awareness. The focus is on delivering concrete results for biodiversity and human livelihoods through an integrated on-the-ground approach.	§ "Success Story Details" document § Rainforest Challenge brochure § RCP pre-proposal
	GLOBAL Potential Impact	ASB has influenced (see examples below) global negotiations on deforestation and climate change mitigation, enhancing the quality of debate and of its negotiated outcomes by bringing a unique set of empirical data collected at the watershed/landscape level to the table.	§ "Success Story Details" document § ASB Policybrief Series
	GLOBAL Outcome	ASB is analyzing options for carbon-offset projects that meet carbon sequestration objectives while providing profits to farmers. The ASB working group contributes to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) debate. The ASB Global Coordinator serves on the advisory committee to the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund. He also participated as a resource person at a training workshop for African climate change negotiators, organized by ICRAF / UNEP.	§ ASB Working Group report § Contact Tom Tomich
	GLOBAL Potential Impact	ASB is a member of the Forest Landscape Restoration partnership, helping shape the practice of FLR as well as how it is interpreted in policy arenas. The FLR partnership is a network of governments, organizations, communities and individuals who recognize the importance of forest landscape restoration and want to be part of a coordinated global effort. The partners learn from one another's experiences and identify, undertake and support forest landscape restoration activities. The partnership serves as a model of how the international forest community can move constructively from dialogue to action by linking policy and practice.	§ FLR Website: www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/restoration/globalpartnership/ § Contact Carole Saint-Laurent, Coordinator, Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, and Senior Forest Policy Adviser, IUCN, CarSaintL@bellnet.ca
	GLOBAL Potential Impact	In a further effort to translate its results into widespread impact, ASB has been accredited officially as a non-governmental organization (NGO) with the Global Environment Facility (GEF). ASB's membership and participation in this global network should expand the scope for the mainstreaming of ASB ideas and objectives into broader, international discussions.
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	The government of Peru is incorporating ASB recommendations regarding tree genetic resource management in its new national forestry laws.	Peru Synthesis Report
	AMAZON Outcome	Sustainable alternative settlement schemes in the Brazilian Amazon: New approach to colonization, aiming to be more sustainable. The idea of developing "alternatives" was inspired by Indonesia experience with transmigration, seen by Judson Valentim of Embrapa on an ASB-sponsored field visit in Indonesia. The idea of "sustainable" settlement schemes draws on insights from the ASB matrix work. The sustainable settlements model in Acre won a "promising initiatives award" from USAID in Brazil.	Contact Judson Valentim
	GLOBAL & SOUTHEAST ASIA & W & C AFRICA & AMAZON Outcome	In many of the places where ASB works, there are examples of individuals (ASB Champions) who have risen in the ranks of government, or in research organizations, who know ASB and its work and promote it actively. These include the following ASB partners: Achmad Fagi (Indonesia), Daniel Murdiyarso (former Deputy Minister of Environment, Indonesia), Judson Valentim (Acre, Brazil), Chaweewan Hutacharern (Thailand), Tatiana Sa (Brazil), Jean Tonye (Cameroon), Angel Salazar (Peru).	§ "Success Story Details" document § Contact with ASB Champions
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB research has had a discernible impact on policy related to imperata grasslands in Indonesia. Dr. Achmad Fagi convinced the government that imperata grasslands can become productive land again, based on ASB findings. This prompted the launch of a new Ministry of Forgotten Lands, which aims to restore degraded areas into productive agricultural land.	§ ASB Video - Achmad Fagi "Imperata Grasslands" § Chapter in Slash and Burn book: "Smallholder options for reclaiming and using imperata cylindrical (alang-alang) grasslands in Indonesia"
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB results have supported the official promotion of rubber agroforests in Indonesia. Dr. Achmad Fagi translated to Bahasa Indonesia the Tomich et al. chapter in the collection "Tradeoffs or Synergies: Intensification, Economic Development and the Environment (D. Lee and C. Barrett, eds.). In February 2001, he personally briefed the President and Cabinet members on these ASB results, which showed that it was an asset to maintain rubber agroforests, as well as improve the quality of the germplasm. As a result, the government implemented a national programme on smallholder rubber agroforests, called Integrated Rubber Forest Management.	§ Contact: Achmad Fagi § ASB Video - Achmad Fagi "Rubber Wood" § Chapter in Slash and Burn book: "Permanent Smallholder Rubber Agroforestry Systems in Sumatra, Indonesia"
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Impact	Dr. Achmad Fagi's efforts to disseminate ASB policy research on the environmental and economic benefits of marketing agroforestry timber provided a key ingredient in Indonesia's decision to reform trade and marketing policies for rubber wood. The rubber wood trade policy reform has potential to directly improve livelihoods of many of the estimated 7 million people in Sumatra and Kalimantan who make their living from rubber agroforests.	§ ASB Policybrief #3 § ASB Video - Achmad Fagi "Rubber Wood" § ASB Indonesia country synthesis report for Phase 2
	AMAZON Activity Potential Outcome	ASB partners in Peru will be part of a major outreach effort to Parliamentarians on natural resource management 9-11 May 2005. It will include an exhibition where the Amazon Initiative will be presented.	Contact Jonathan Cornelius
	GLOBAL Outcome Potential Impact	ASB Global Coordination Office has been consulted on the ASB Matrix method, for potential use in the redesign of the forestry sector in Kenya. A member of the twelve person committee formed to restructure the Kenyan Forestry Sector discovered the matrix on the ASB website and was interested in its application to evaluate the Kenyan shamba system in comparison to other potential land uses.	Benjamin Wamugunda Geteria (personal communication, meetings, August 2004)
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	ASB partner and senior Embrapa scientist Judson Valentim participated in a 2003 meeting with policymakers to develop an Amazon regional proposal to present to the Brazilian President and the National Congress regarding proposed constitutional reforms. One of the proposals that came out of the meeting was to include in the Brazilian Constitution under Article 170 on the economic order an appendix to create incentive mechanisms for farmers or enterprises to adopt environmentally and socially superior production systems. This approach has been endorsed by some policymakers but it will take some time before it becomes law.	Email from Judson Valentim (2003)
	GLOBAL Outcome Potential Impact	ASB scientists were recruited by the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department to play a lead role in background analysis for the World Bank's forest policy review.	Contact Tom Tomich, Steve Vosti, Jim Gockowski
	GLOBAL Output	ASB will produce a strategic typology of key stakeholders for the tropical forest margins and understanding of the most effective and efficient means to secure their participation in natural resource management solutions when there are conflicting interests.	Contact Dagmar Timmer
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB researchers in Southeast Asia have had a notable impact on understanding the underlying causes of forest fires that produce smoke pollution. A concerted research effort made clear policy links. Specifically, they have helped clarify the policy problems underlying the recurring regional problem of air pollution from biomass burning in SE Asia, which produced one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time in 1997/98.	§ ASB Policybrief #4 § Section in AGEE special issue: "Smoke Pollution" particularly "Managing Smoke: bridging the gap between policy and research" § Materials from Suyanto § Contact Tom Tomich
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome and Impact	The Krui case in southwest Sumatra shows how scientists helped win the argument on behalf of community management by documenting the environmental and social benefits of the Krui agroforests. This work produced immediate benefits from increased security for at least 7,000 families in the 32,000 hectares of reclassified Krui lands. This work won the national environmental award, "Kalpataru." This principle of local management could be extended to benefit hundreds of thousands of rural Indonesians in similar areas. Indonesian NGOs have identified at least 50 other communities across the archipelago that have developed production systems comparable to the Krui case. Jeffrey Campbell, Deputy Director, Ford Foundation: "The process has started in which people are beginning to regain their legal access to the forest." ICRAF's 1998 External Programme and Management Review called this ASB policy research "groundbreaking in that it showed how analysis incorporating biophysical and socio-economic information could lead to fundamental changes in the ways governments viewed forest lands and the role of people in preserving biodiversity in existing agroforests." (p. 41)	§ ASB Policybrief #2 § "Success Story Details" document § "Farming the Forest", article in Ford Foundation Report (Summer 2000) online at www.fordfound.org § EPMR of ICRAF (1998)
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ICRAF / ASB researchers participate in the Department of Forestry's Hutan Kemasyrakatan (HKM) policy working group and continue to be central players in efforts to strengthen this community forest management programme in Indonesia. In Lampung Province in Sumatra, these researchers are leading members of a consortium of government, institutions and NGOs working to develop this programme in watershed areas. They have also been at the centre of efforts to develop a policy of recognition of customary rights inside the State Forest Zone and assisted the Ministry of Forestry to convene a working group that drafted this policy. This was done in consultation with clan leaders, representatives of the wood industry, the Ministry of Home Affairs and selected provincial officials.	Contact Chip Fay
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Impact	In hopes of securing rights to contested land in Sumber Jaya, Lampung Province, Indonesia, groups have formed to apply for stewardship contracts through the community forestry programme (HKM). ASB researchers are working with several of these groups, local government, and the Forestry Department to facilitate negotiation for HKM status. The overarching goal is to develop a process by which the Government can meet its environmental objectives to protect watersheds and park boundaries, while also enabling established settlers to make a living by managing their coffee systems in ways that are environmentally sound.	§ ASB Voices #8 - Dwi and Anton § Contact Chip Fay
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Impact	In 2003, ASB researchers read in a newspaper of a conflict between the forest service and coffee farmers in Mangarai, on the island of Flores, Indonesia. A number of people were killed in a "classical" eviction case from what forestry officials considered to be a "protection forest" and what local farmers see as their coffee farms. Two ASB partners, Fahmuddin Agus and N. Gintings, followed up directly with information on the Sumberjaya case, explaining that coffee-based agroforestry and watershed protection are compatible (within certain constraints). Dr. Gintings was able to assure his forestry colleagues of the validity of the Sumberjaya story because of extensive ASB research, and those insights have helped resolve the conflict in Mangarai. Meine van Noordwijk, Regional Coordinator, ICRAF Southeast Asia, and Regional Facilitator, ASB: "Will we ever be able to say how many such conflicts (and associated human and physical damage) our work is able to avoid?"	§ Meine van Noordwijk (personal communication, 18 September 2004) § Contact Fahmuddin Agus and N. Gintings
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Potential Impact	In the Philippines, farmers' organizations at ASB sites are leading the spread of new "Landcare" practices that have become the basis for national watershed policies. The 'Landcare approach' has been successful as a community-based, farmer-led social organization for developing and spreading positive natural resource management practices in agriculture, agroforestry and watershed management. One example is the dissemination of NVS (natural vegetative strips) technology for open-field agriculture on sloping lands. They are also looking at policy and institutional issues affecting adoption.	§ Contact Dennis Garrity § Book about Landcare Philippines § ASB Project Descriptions § "Managing Resources Locally" by Queblatin, Catacutan, Garrity § ASB Videos - Romulo Aggangan: "Landcare" and "Selling Seedlings through Landcare" § Impact case study in progress (contact Frank Place)
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Impact	Bernardino Dumo, farmer and President of the Mapawa Landcare Group, Sungco, Lantapan, Bukidnon, Philippines: "In ten months time, since we started our Landcare Nursery Project, members of our group have already planted 16,000 seedlings of timber trees in the buffer zone of the national park. This is a big step for us to finally secure land tenure in the area. Our next step is to develop a community resource management plan for the buffer zone. We believed that the trees we planted will provide us a strong bond into this land for which we depend on our living. If I have only planted trees combined with the crops I grow every season 10 years ago, I could have been better off this time, but now, I feel happy that I have something prepared for my children."	§ ASB Voices #7 - Bernardino Dumo § Quote from interview with Bernardino Dumo, by Delia Catacutan (ICRAF), March 2000
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Impact	Moises Abarquez, Landcare farmer cooperator in Sungco, Lantapan, Bukidnon, Philippines: "I feel so lucky as a farmer-cooperator of ICRAF's research. I know I could not have learned to apply conservation farming on my farm without the research being conducted on my land. I saw the benefits of NVS [natural vegetative strips], so I readily adopted the technology on my farm, next to the research site. Now, I feel so attached to this technology that even if the research is over, I am committed to continue adopting the technology on my other parcels. I'm also happy that my neighbours are already slowly adopting the technology. You see around us some small parcels with NVS, that's already a good start."	Quote from interview with Moises Abarquez, by Delia Catacutan (ICRAF), March 2000
	W & C AFRICA Potential Impact	The domestication of cane rats is an alternative to bushmeat hunting in Cameroon and is being promoted alongside pig domestication by ASB partner, IRAD (the national agricultural research organization). IRAD senior researcher and ASB national facilitator Jean Tonye: "Now that the forest is disappearing we have started domesticating [cane rats] at the farmer level and this is going to be a source of animal protein for those poor farmers who do not have money to go to the market and buy meat."	§ ASB Project Descriptions § ASB Videos - Jean Tonye "Cane Rat Domestication" and "Cane Rat Domestication (2)"
	W & C AFRICA Potential Impact	Cassava is the most important food crop in the forest zone of Cameroon. Improved varieties of cassava developed by the national research institute were introduced to ASB farmers who had their yield increase from 7 to 16 tons of tubers per hectare. From 2000 - 2004, the area under improved cassava increased from 5 to 40 hectares in ASB villages.	ASB Project Descriptions
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB partners are conducting socio-economic and environmental research on independent smallholder oil palm production in Indonesia. There are substantial growth opportunities for smallholders because of increasing demand for palm oil. However, there is a lack of public debate on the role of smallholder production in a market dominated by large-scale operators. ICRAF is developing links with the Indonesian Palm Oil producers organization, and discussing involvement in a new oil palm assessment project with the Global Forest Watch program of the World Resources Institute.	Contact Meine van Noordwijk
	W&C AFRICA Potential Impact	The oil palm has been identified as the main income provider to ASB villages. At Kaya watershed, that was the ASB representative of the oil palm based system, improved oil palm was introduced into farms, increasing the small farm revenue by 30%.	§ ASB Project Descriptions § ASB Video - Jean Tonye "Oil Palm Prediction Model"
	W&C AFRICA Activity Potential Impact	Plantains are the most important commercial food crop in southern Cameroon. They are planted after forest clearing, thus have an impact on tropical deforestation. ASB partner IITA researches fallow length and response to nutrients (including retaining rather than burning the slash). They also conduct research on integrated pest management for plantain in the humid forest zone. These activities are geared toward developing viable plantain production systems which reduce forest clearing without compromising output. They also explore how to rehabilitate plantain production to economically viable levels in degraded land, especially peri-urban areas. Good uptake encouraged IITA to continue with dissemination in 2004, with larger demonstration areas and more treatments, such as fertilizer application.	§ Contact Stephan Hauser § Video from the IITA / ASB project "Negotiating the Future: People on the Forest Margins of the Congo Basin" (2003)
	W & C AFRICA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB partners are working with M&M Mars to improve the production and marketing of cocoa in West Africa. This work was heavily based on the ASB Matrix for Cameroon. The STCP (Sustainable Tree Crops Programme) is currently active in: developing and strengthening community-focused groups; transferring the best available technology packages to farmers; creating regional marketing and information systems to enhance efficiency of the tree crops sector; preventing and eliminating the worst forms of child labor on farms; identifying and promoting sound policy options for tree crops.	§ Sustainable Tree Crops Programme brochure § ASB Project Descriptions § Materials from Jim Gockowski § Contact Stephan Weise § STCP Website: http://www.treecrops.org/
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	Through its work in Acre, ASB has contacts with Marina Silva, Minister of Environment, and former senator from Acre, voice in government for rubbertappers, indigenous peoples, landless workers, minorities, women and other forest peoples. Judson Valentim: "Regarding.who in the Ministry of Environment is aware of ASB activities in Acre and Rondonia, Minister Marina Silva herself participated in the two workshops that we had in Acre. She actually was the guest speaker at the opening ceremony of the first workshop. She and some of her assistants are also aware of some of the research projects that have been supported by ASB such as: 1) low impact forest management in legal reserves of small farmers in settlement projects; 2) improved grass-legume pasture management; 3) low impact technologies for reclamation of degraded pastures; 4) zoning of actual and potential edaphic risk of death of pastures."	Contact Judson Valentim (personal communication, 15 March 2005)
	AMAZON Potential Impact	Embrapa scientists, with the support of ASB research, collaborated with Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture and the Joint Commission of the Senate and House of Representatives in the revision of the National Forest Code, which will have widespread implications for Brazil's land-use and deforestation policies.	§ "Success Story Details" document § Contact Judson Valentim
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Potential Impact	Developed based on ASB's work in Southeast Asia, RUPES (Rewarding the Upland Poor for Environmental Services) is building working models of best practices for successful environmental transfer agreements adapted to the Asian context at real sites through targeted participatory research. ICRAF senior researcher and ASB regional facilitator, Meine van Noordwijk: "What we learned in ASB Phase 1 and Phase 2 is that a lot of the things that happen after the forest is converted still maintain a lot of the environmental services. The analysis of tradeoffs between the profitability and the service showed that these systems really are very useful from a broad society perspective yet they are under threat because options like oil palm may be slightly more profitable from a private perspective. We think it is very useful to get mechanisms to reward the upland poor, the farmers that do those jobs, for the environmental services and make sure that the greater good of the world is preserved in that way."	§ "Success Story Details" document § RUPES website § ASB Videos - Meine van Noordwijk "Evolution from ASB to RUPES" and "Sharing Lessons from RUPES" § Chapter in AGEE special issue: "Environmental Services and Land Use Change in Southeast Asia: from recognition to regulation or reward?"
	W & C AFRICA AMAZON Impact	ASB partners are helping conserve important genetic resources and earn extra income by promoting on-farm domestication of valuable trees, with excellent results in Cameroon and Peru. Participatory tree domestication of wild trees supports biodiversity conservation as well as building up a more sustainable agroforestry system based on local species (e.g., Prunus Africana, Allenblackia, Dachoides edulus, Kola nuts). Researchers work with farmers on their own land to identify priority agroforestry trees, based on local preferences and constraints. Cameroonian farmer Comfort Lo-ah-Mifacig explains how quickly these trees bear fruit: "Normally in this community most of the farmers around don't have plums or safu in their farms.the reasons being the safu tree will take 8 or 9 years before it starts giving fruit. But with the technology we have here, the safu tree will start giving fruits from 3 to 4 years.It will help that farmer to pay his student school fees, pay hospital bills and pay electricity bills." Another Cameroonian farmer, Christophe Missé, says: "This year we earned more from selling plants [from our nursery] than we did from our cash crop, cocoa."	§ "Success Story Details" document § ICRAF 2 Pager: "Farmer-driven strategy is rebuilding valuable tree diversity on farms" (2003-4-TM-LA) § ICRAF article, "Kola nuts - a cultural treasure, a potential goldmine" (Joan Baxter) § ICRAF article, "From bad to good news - saving the prunus tree" (Joan Baxter) § ICRAF article, "Agroforestry trees add value to cocoa and coffee systems" (Joan Baxter) § Highlights from Cameroon § Video about Cameroon work aired on the BBC to promote the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment § ASB Videos - Zac Tchoundjeu § ASB Videos - Ebenezar Asaah
	W & C AFRICA Potential Impact	About 70 per cent of all Cameroonians still depend largely on traditional medicines and healers. ASB partner ICRAF has joined forces with these traditional healers, training them in vegetative propagation and nursery techniques that allow them to multiply particularly valuable medicinal trees and plants. Renowned healers in the country are already domesticating and cultivating these trees in medicinal gardens and agroforestry systems.	§ ICRAF article, "Traditional healers bring rare medicinal plants and trees home to root in agroforestry 'farm-acies'" (Joan Baxter)
	W & C AFRICA Potential Impact	ASB partners are leading domestication of *Prunus africana* in Cameroon. Charly Facheux, a marketing specialist for ICRAF: "We have found that it is easy to propagate the tree using marcotts...and using these to produce cuttings that can easily be rooted in simple and inexpensive.village nurseries." Charly is especially keen to see the cultivation of prunus to be a major industry in Cameroon: "In ten years, with all these prunus trees that farmers are planting in their agroforestry systems, you will see that it is the farmers sending out medicine to heal prostate ailments to the whole world."	§ ICRAF article, "From bad to good news - saving the prunus tree" (Joan Baxter) § ICRAF article, "Traditional healers bring rare medicinal plants and trees home to root in agroforestry 'farm-acies'" (Joan Baxter) § Contact Charly Facheux
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Impact	Communities in Thailand are working to scale up the knowledge acquired through watershed monitoring by establishing watershed management networks. The importance and potential role of such networks is being recognized by local leaders elsewhere in Mae Chaem, as well as by high-priority national efforts coordinated by Thailand's new Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to develop river basin and sub-basin management approaches. Sub-catchment management networks are seen as the basic building block for larger-scale watershed management. Approaches developed by villagers in pilot sub-catchments of Mae Chaem are expected to be a major example for other parts of the larger Ping River Basin. Moreover, efforts in the Ping basin are serving as a pilot project for further efforts in the other 24 designated river basins in Thailand.	§ "Success Story Details" document § ASB Policybrief #7 § ASB Video - Pornchai Preechapanya "Scaling up Watershed Monitoring" § Video for TVE Hands On
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome	Supporting ASB/ICRAF's work to establish and empower watershed networks in Northern Thailand, Hon. Pongpol Adireksan, former Minister for Agriculture and Cooperatives in Thailand, states: "This is the type of information that is needed to improve the quality of debate and decision-making in the public policy process."	News article from ICRAF: "Convergence and Divergence"
	AMAZON Outcome	The idea of producing summaries of research results for policy makers in Acre, Brazil came from ASB, inspired by the Policybriefs series.	Contact Judson Valentim
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	ASB researcher David Thomas has been seconded for 6 months to the Royal Forest Department to advise on their national forest policy.	Contact David Thomas
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Activity Potential Impact	ASB is conducting research on jungle rubber agroforests in Jambi, Indonesia, including aspects of socio-economics, technological improvements (such as direct grafting and less intensive management options), biodiversity and other environmental services, growth modeling and farmer institutions related to jungle rubber agroforestry.	§ "Success Story Details" document § ASB Project Descriptions
	AMAZON Impact	Using participatory research methods, CARE, Winrock and ICRAF have helped farmers to significantly increase the historically low productivity of cocoa in Peru. Farmers involved, who live along the Pucallpa-Lima road, are members of the Association of Intensified Cocoa Producers of Padre Abad Province (ACTPA). In 2001, yields more than doubled as compared to those of a few years before because of the development of pest-resistant germplasm and introduction of other productive species as shade. In addition, this research helped recuperate degraded lands.	§ ASB Peru Synthesis Report § Ministry of Agriculture statistics 2001 § ASB Voices #5 - Nicanor Pinedo and Julia Espinoza
	AMAZON Outcome	ASB's work in the Amazon has improved brazil-nut production systems, a key non-timber forest product.	§ ASB Project Descriptions § Contact Marilia Locatelli
	AMAZON Impact	Gregorio Riquez and his family migrated from Peru's high jungle to Ucayali province in the Amazon basin. They didn't have the money for medicine for their children and two of their children died. The story of the Riquez family is not unique. ASB scientists collaborate with farmers to develop and promote sustainable land use systems that offer better livelihood opportunities. In the case of Mr. Riquez, for example, the use of 'vetiveria' grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) has been very effective in controlling erosion on plots where he is experimenting with new tree crops. He also sells the grass to producers who live on higher slopes where erosion poses a bigger problem.	ASB Voices #1 - Riquez Family
	AMAZON Outcome Impact	ICRAF/ASB started its Pijuayo (peach palm, Bactris gasipaes) domestication research in the mid-1990s in Peru, where a special spineless variety is in particular demand locally and internationally. Farmers prefer the spineless variety because it is easier to harvest the heart of palm (palmito). ICRAF scientists collected spineless Pijuayo of 400 mother trees in 6 zones in the Amazon region, asking farmers for seeds of their best trees. ICRAF technician Ocmin Raygada says: "The controlled Pijuayo domestication opens new opportunities to sell Pijuayo seeds to Brazil where there is continuing demand. Our Pijuayo seed is of very good quality and ICRAF can now guarantee that 99% of the seeds from orchards of farmers we work with are spineless Pijuayo."	§ ICRAF Transformations article "The thorny issues of exporting spineless Amazon peach palm" (Walter van Opzeeland, February 23, 2004) § ASB Voices #5 - Nicanor Penedo and Julia Espinoza
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	ASB researchers have been working to find the cause of pasture death in Western Brazil, which threatens 60 million hectares of pastures and leads farmers to convert new areas of rainforest. Their findings so far have been influential on the work of Embrapa as well as the Bra