Knowledge Generation & Use

Image	Where, What	Story	More Information
	GLOBAL Output Potential Outcome	In the ten years since 1994, ASB scientists have produced more than 700 publications and other scientific products, including over 200 journal articles and more than 90 books and book chapters, and a public website. These are widely distributed through our network of partners, including to the libraries of major universities (e.g. Cornell University) and international organizations (e.g. IUCN - World Conservation Union).	§ "Success Story Details" document § List of ASB synthesis publications § ASB Publications database § ASB Website, www.asb.cgiar.org
	GLOBAL Outcome Output	ASB has achieved sustained engagement between scientists and "policy shapers" over the past decade, including through the ASB Policybriefs Series. Policybriefs are distributed to more than 750 readers in institutions ranging from the World Bank to the Ministry of Environment in the Netherlands to the Ministry of Agriculture in Peru.	§ "Success Story Details" Document § ASB Policybriefs series
	GLOBAL Outcome Potential Impact	The ASB matrix method was adopted as a tool for sustainable land management (SLM) by the World Bank in 2004. Bank Land Resources Advisor Eric Fernandes to Kenneth Chomitz and other Bank officials: "The ASB consortium is one of the very few groups to have tackled this problem [of assessing synergies and tradeoffs] head on and they have developed a matrix and associated methods and indicators that facilitate tradeoff analyses. What do you think about using their matrix as a jump-off point for our continued discussions on environmental services and payments against a backdrop of the key biophysical, environmental, social, economic and institutional indicators identified in their work?"	§ "Success Story Details" document § Kenneth Chomitz (personal communication, 19 March 2004) § Eric Fernandes (personal communication 18 March 2004)
	GLOBAL Outcome	The ASB Policybriefs series has been used in courses at University of California ( Berkeley), Southern Cross University ( Australia), University of California ( Davis), Lund University ( Sweden), Cornell University, and others.	§ Chris Barrett ( Cornell University) § Robin Marsh (UC Berkeley, 2003) § Jerry Van Clay (Southern Cross, 2002) § Steve Vosti (UC Davis, 2003)
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome	The basic article describing the ASB matrix methodology is reprinted in The Economic Development of Southeast Asia (Hal Hill, ed., Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing). This multi-volume collection is intended to represent an element of a core collection for university libraries across Southeast Asia.	§ "Agricultural Development with Rainforest Conservation: Methods for Seeking Best Bet Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn, with Applications to Brazil and Indonesia" in The Economic Development of Southeast Asia (Hal Hill, ed., Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing)
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	ASB methodology (including the matrix) features significantly in the design of a $16 million, 7 year project being planned in Brazil through UNDP-GEF via Pro-Natura on "Promoting Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity in Frontier Forests in Northwest Mato Grosso".	Andy Gillison (personal communication - 30 June 2001)
	AMAZON Outcome	The "fundamental concepts and measurements contained in [a report on Ecuador produced for IDRC] have their origins in collaborative field research done by members of the ASB" team. They were used for socioeconomic analyses of production systems in Ecuador.	Final report to IDRC by Steve Vosti et al. (Summer 2004)
	SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome Potential Impact	The consultant leading preparation for a new Asian Development Bank project on "Flood Mitigation in Selected Watersheds" approached ICRAF/ASB to make use of research on upper watersheds in the design of these projects. Meine van Noordwijk, ICRAF Regional Coordinator and ASB Regional Facilitator: "Influencing the design of large development projects.have potential multiplier effects way beyond what we can plan and achieve ourselves."	Meine van Noordwijk (personal communication, May 2004)
	AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	The ASB Summary Report on Brazil is being used in the development of a management programme for the San Roque Lake Watershed in Brazil.	Andrew Hamilton Joseph, President, Los Algarrobos Civil Association (personal communication - 26 April 2003)
	GLOBAL Outcome	ASB has played a key role in shaping understanding of the driving forces of land use change at the tropical forest margins, which has informed debate regarding priorities and approach at the global level. This evolving understanding has influenced ASB's own scientific hypotheses, from a narrow perspective on smallholder productivity growth as the key to slowing deforestation; to a more complex understanding of the various conflicting interest groups causing deforestation and how supporting negotiation at a landscape level is more likely to lead to lasting change. ASB itself was formed as a result of an inaugural workshop held in Porto Velho, Rondonia, Brazil (February 1992) with 26 environmental policymakers and researchers. Porto Velho participants brought the issue to the Rio Earth Summit later that year. They succeeded in including two crucial recommendations about shifting cultivation and tropical forest margins as part of Agenda 21. Before that, the policy debate on how to slow tropical deforestation paid little attention to the needs of slash-and-burn farmers.	§ "Success Story Details" document § ASB History document § ASB Policybrief #5 § Evolution of ASB document - TPT draft 18 January 2005 § Chapter 1 (Sanchez et al) in ASB book
	GLOBAL & SOUTHEAST ASIA Activity Outcome Impact	ASB researchers developed a cost-effective method for rapid appraisal of vascular plant biodiversity which was developed and tested at all benchmark sites. The method was designed to assess the difference in species composition, functional attributes and structure along a landuse gradient from primary forest to degraded cropland. These ASB rapid survey methods have led to major progress on biodiversity conservation in Indonesia, most tangibly playing a key role in designation of a new national park in Sumatra, covering 33,000 ha presently and planned to expand by another 120,000 ha. ASB partner Andy Gillison conducted biodiversity assessments using ASB methods in the Tesso Nilo area of Central Sumatra, Indonesia. The results were influential in declaration of Tesso Nilo as a conservation priority area and national park in October 2003.	§ "Success Story Details" document § Contact Andy Gillison
	GLOBAL Output	ASB produces the ASB Voices series, to convey for a broad audience insights and perspectives from people's real-life experiences and challenges in the humid tropics. The idea of bringing voices from the field to a policy audience has been adopted by others now, including the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme in West and Central Africa.	§ ASB Voices § List of ASB Synthesis publications § STCP Voices
	GLOBAL Output	ASB has made seminal contributions to the evolving integrated natural resource management (INRM) paradigm that is characterized by a process-oriented, systems approach at multiple scales and an emphasis on measurement and scaling of tradeoffs and impacts across stakeholder groups. ASB will continue to build on and improve this innovative, integrated approach including through its contribution of a cross-cutting assessment entitled, "Forest and Agroecosystem Tradeoffs in the Humid Tropics (Tropical Forest Margins)" for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.	§ CGIAR meta-analysis hosted by World Bank (full report and thematic and working group papers) § Natural Resources Management Research in the CGIAR: A Meta-Evaluation by Christopher B. Barrett § Annex H of the EU Proposal for a graph of the INRM paradigm
	GLOBAL Outcome	Henzell Review (2000): "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 . This is very helpful for the global debate on sustainability issues."	§ CGIAR's "First Review of Systemwide Programmes with an Ecoregional Approach" (called the Henzell Review) in 2000
	GLOBAL Output Potential Outcome	ASB's contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) aims to synthesize results across ASB benchmark sites at the tropical forest margins and place these results within the broader context of relevant scientific evidence. ASB was chosen as the only sub-global assessment working across regions in the tropics.	§ ASB MA Status Report § ICRAF 2 pager: "Gauging the Planet's Health: ASB part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment" (2003-41-LA/SEA/HWA)
	GLOBAL Activity Potential Outcome	In 2003-4, ASB conducted user needs consultations through interviews in key countries to prepare the foundation for its MA contribution. It provides a solid idea of the real research questions of farmers and policy makers across the humid tropics.	ASB MA Status Report (Section on User Needs)

GLOBAL

Outcome

ASB was cited as one of only 3 examples of "Partnerships and Network Organizations Supporting Ecoagriculture", with the MA and IUCN's Sustainable Use Initiative.

Annex 7b in "Trends and Gaps in Ecoagriculture-Related Research" (2004) (Louise Buck, Thomas Gavin, David Lee, Norman Uphoff)

GLOBAL

Output

ASB methods are making it possible to accurately and quickly assess belowground biodiversity, an approach developed by a team of scientists during the benchmark site characterization phase of ASB. The work on belowground biodiversity is the subject of a major GEF-funded project, the "Conservation and Sustainable Management of Below-Ground Biodiversity" (CSM-BGBD) Project. The project is coordinated by ASB partner, the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of CIAT (TSBF-CIAT).

§ Chapter in Slash and Burn book: "Belowground biodiversity assessment: The ASB Functional Group Approach"

§ ASB Project Descriptions

GLOBAL

Product

ASB researchers evaluated various tree-based systems at benchmark sites and found comparable average carbon stocks during the course of rotations. In order to compare the potential for carbon sequestration in a system, a method was developed and validated for computation of time-averaged carbon stocks, or the average carbon stored in the system over the rotation time of the system. ASB calculations indicate that tree-based land uses sequester about 6 times more carbon that annual crops or pastures. ASB findings show that there is potential for increased C sequestration in soils through the rehabilitation of degraded pastures and grasslands, but the largest sequestration potential in the humid tropics is above-ground through the adoption of tree-based land uses.

§ ASB Climate Change working group report

§ Contact Cheryl Palm

GLOBAL Outcome	ASB's work on carbon stocks in different tropical land use systems was used as an input to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report on Land Use, Land-use Change, and Forestry.	IPCC Special Report, Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (2000)
GLOBAL Product	ASB Peru greenhouse gas flux measurements are being used by Colorado State University to create a new version of the CENTURY gas flux model for the tropics.	ASB Peru Synthesis Report
GLOBAL Outcome	ASB mapping efforts have explored overlays between population and deforestation; agricultural land use and tropical rainforests; and other issues. These have shed new light on the scale and scope of the domain which ASB and others are dealing with.	§ ASB maps online at www.asb.cgiar.org § Contact Kate Sebastian, IFPRI
AMAZON & SOUTHEAST ASIA Output	ASB partners are researching conditions under which coffee can be grown in shade tree systems, a more sustainable alternative to the prevailing monoculture coffee cropping in Brazil and Indonesia.	ASB Project Descriptions
W&C AFRICA Potential outcome	In Cameroon, ASB partners are modeling plausible scenarios involving oil palm development in Cameroon. They will be sharing these results with policy makers to support their planning efforts.	§ ASB Video - Jean Tonye "Oil Palm Prediction Model" § Report Christopher Legg, Innocent Bakkam
AMAZON Outcome	ASB Brazil results were directly applied in agro-ecological zoning in Acre State, including the first agroforestry potential map (potential land suitability for agroforestry) for Brazil.	§ Contact Judson Valentim § Chapter in Slash-and-Burn book (J. Valentim, S. A. Vosti, 2005)
GLOBAL Outcome	Louise Jackson of University of California, Davis is consulting ASB's process documentation to guide the reformation of DIVERSITAS, an interdisciplinary international research programme on biodiversity conservation.	Louise Jackson and Steve Vosti, personal communication (September 2004)
GLOBAL & SOUTHEAST ASIA Outcome	ASB's hydrological research on watersheds in Southeast Asia is helping debunk myths about tropical forests and water. Some specific quotes from an email about a 2005 briefing session at the World Bank: "We are getting enthusiastic reviews for the workshop: 'mind-blowing'; 'one of the best workshops I've ever attended at the Bank'; 'I learned a lot.which will certainly influence the preparation of [watershed projects].' It is clear that [the project results] are getting serious attention and are quite likely to change attitudes and practice." An earlier ASB hydrological study by Sampurno Bruijnzeel was picked up by Polex Listserver, CIFOR's forest policy expert listserver, which goes to many of the key thinkers on forest policy around the world. It referred to Bruijnzeel as "the world's leading expert on how deforestation, reforestation, and logging affect water in the tropics." World Bank senior environmental economist Gunars Platais commenting on a draft of Bruijnzeel's article "found it a great compilation and analysis of what is out there. Lots of debunking going on." He had it translated into Spanish for his work in Latin America.	§ "Success Story Details" document, which includes full email from Ken Chomitz (February 28) § World Bank BNPP Comprehensive Water Assessment § Chapters in AGEE special issue on Theme 3 Watershed Services, including: "Hydrological functions of tropical forests: not seeing the soil for the trees?" § CIFOR's Polex listserver: "Flip Flop Hydrology" (21 October 2004) § Gunars Platais (personal communication, 15 July 2003)
W & C AFRICA Output Outcome	The ASB Voices of the Future provides the perspective of younger members of rural households, especially adolescents. Cameroonian Prisca Oye's story contributed to a deeper understanding of young people's aspirations at the forest margins (leave the farm, become a teacher) and was the subject of some controversy when first released because of its implicit message that young people should have the skills and options to choose a future outside the farm.	ASB Voices of the Future series
AMAZON Outcome	ASB research (the linear programming model and other outputs) helped Embrapa analyze the potential contributions of increased rice yields to reducing deforestation, which turned out to be very low and ran counter to their expectations. Precisely the opposite happened in the context of managed forestry research, again in part due to ASB research that showed the results of research on managed forestry could be beneficial in terms of poverty reduction, growth and environmental sustainability. The usefulness of these approaches has helped raise the priority of social science research in Embrapa's programmes.	§ Steve Vosti (personal communication, March 2005) § Judson Valentim (personal communication, 2003) § Chapter in Slash-and-Burn book: "Resource Use and Human Welfare at the Forest Margins of the Western Brazilian Amazon" (J. Valentim, S. A. Vosti, 2005)
SOUTHEAST ASIA & AMAZON Outcome	ASB scientists in Southeast Asia and the Amazon are breaking new ground with their understanding and appreciation of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), the understanding that local people have gained through personal experience and sometimes centuries of learning, about the natural elements and processes of their specific agro-ecosystems. LEK is complementary to scientific knowledge, and helps researchers plan and implement projects and activities more quickly and successfully than in the past.	§ 2 pager from ICRAF "Farmers' Local Ecological Knowledge" (2003-24-ES-SEA/LA) § ASB Video - Pornchai Preechapanya "Linking Local Knowledge with Science" § Concept note § Article
SOUTHEAST ASIA Product	Econometric models developed by ASB researchers to analyze the evolution of customary land and tree tenure institutions in Sumatra, Indonesia, demonstrated the efficiency and adaptability of these institutions.	Various publications by Suyanto, Otsuka and Tomich
SOUTHEAST ASIA & AMAZON Product	Regionally disaggregated macroeconomic models were developed to assess the impacts of major macroeconomic shocks and policy changes on land use in Brazil and Indonesia with special attention paid to the Amazon and Sumatra. Land uses, including deforestation, incomes and wage rates were simulated for each region. Results suggest that major shocks in the late 1990s will have large and potentially lasting impacts on human welfare and the natural resource base.	§ Cattaneo and Nu Nu San chapter in the Slash and Burn book § IFPRI Research Report #129
AMAZON Outcome	The Tipitamba / SHIFT Project of Northeastern Amazonia promotes mulching equipment which allows for fire-free land preparation, providing an alternative to slash-and-burn. University of Bonn and Embrapa researchers replicated the ASB matrix and other methods for a site in the state of Para to undertake a broader analysis of these technologies, in particular bringing in economic analysis (purchase of equipment, returns to labour, etc.) and application of a bio-economic model adapted from one developed by ASB. ZEF News article: "The measurable social costs of slash-and-burn turned out to be lower than expected and do not call for immediate policy action.On the other hand, if this technology is adopted, due to favorable economic conditions, the environmental services of fallowing are reduced."	§ ZEF News, October 2004 "Technological innovations. Potential and Constraints: selected findings from a recently completed project on smallholder agriculture in the Eastern Amazon Region" § Contact Tatiana Sa § Contact Steve Vosti
AMAZON Outcome Potential Impact	As part of the Tipitamba / SHIFT Project in the Eastern Amazon, a study was carried out by the University of Bonn and Embrapa. It shows potential for exchange among ASB partners in East and West Amazon. ZEF News article: "Technological innovations emerging in the Eastern and the Western Amazon were juxtaposed to investigate options that one region could provide to the other.Improved pasture technologies for cattle production and legume-based fallow systems [developed by ASB partners] in the Western Amazon represent alternatives for larger and capital-endowed farmers in the Eastern Amazon."	§ ZEF News, October 2004 "Technological innovations. Potential and Constraints" § Contact Tatiana Sa § Contact Judson Valentim
SOUTHEAST ASIA Output	ASB undertook biodiversity assessments of land uses on the Thai and Sumatra forest margins, and did so at a landscape scale. This has set an example for how to work at a broader environmental and social context, as well as provide the basis for decision-making in these two countries. Similar assessments have been undertaken in Peru and Brazil.	§ Thai synthesis report (draft) § Indonesia synthesis report § Chapter in AGEE special issue: "Assessing biodiversity at landscape level in Northern Thailand and Sumatra: the importance of environmental context"
SOUTHEAST ASIA Output	ASB / ICRAF's work on rubber agroforestry ("jungle rubber") in Bungo district of Indonesia is now being shared more broadly through video. By highlighting results like how productivity of jungle rubber can be improved by better planting materials, the video is able to document, disseminate and advocate these activities in a way that easily understood by the target audience of farmer and decision makers at the local level.	§ Bogor Tales Vol 3(11) "Jungle Rubber Video" § Contact Susilo Adi Kuncoro (skuncoro@cgiar.org)