MONTPELLIER, France — As the world warms due to climate change, winemakers are struggling to maintain the quality of their product. But in the home of wine, agroforestry researchers are…
LOS ASIENTOS, Panama — It was auction day in the town of Santiago, and ranchers from the region gathered to buy and sell cattle. A metallic clatter rang out from…
DESULO, Italy — In a late 1990s photo, a little girl with a ponytail and white apron poses at the corner of a cheese-making machine. Two decades later, with the…
Appalachia is home to some of the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world, and it has a deep history of harvesting species like American ginseng for personal use and…
Amid a deluge of news during the U.N. Climate Summit last month, one major announcement went largely uncovered, yet is among the most important initiatives aimed at reducing the effects…
Agroforestry, or forest gardening, is the practice of growing of trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables together in a group mimicking a forest, or within an existing forest, with each plant…
Day two of the World Agroforestry Congress was in full swing today as the 1,200 plus attendees streamed into workshops and swirled among some 600+ posters hanging in the halls…
Dean Cycon is an environmental and indigenous rights lawyer by training who's been involved in community development since 1976. He founded or co-founded numerous international development groups, including Coffee Kids…
Agroforestry is an agricultural technique that combines trees with shrubs, crops and livestock in a system that produces food, supports biodiversity, builds soil horizons and water tables, and sequesters carbon from…
OUEZZANE, Morocco — Suisi Rheia was checking the olives on her tree in front of the community huilerie, or olive oil mill. It was already mid-November 2018, but some fruits…
ISFARA, Tajikistan — Ayubhudja Yahyehudjaev stands between rows of fruit trees in the hills above town, glad and proud that this agroforestry test garden of nearly 0.6 hectares (1.5 acres)…
LAE, Papua New Guinea — Across the more than 600 islands that make up Papua New Guinea, the majority of the country’s culturally diverse population relies on agriculture for both…
WONDO GENET, Ethiopia – Agroforestry has been the major agricultural farming system in southern Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) regional state for millennia, passed on from generation to…
BUTANDA, Uganda — On a forested hill in the highlands of Butanda, in western Uganda, James Rwebishengye and Florence Atwine have created a diverse forest canopy of more than 200…
BULE, Ethiopia — A small village 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of the capital, Addis Ababa, Bule is believed to be the birthplace of traditional “home garden” agroforestry in Ethiopia.…
COMBU ISLAND, Brazil - It is rare to find someone who doesn’t like chocolate. When the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave cocoa its scientific name in 1753, he chose Theobroma…
GILDIPASI, Papua New Guinea — After a short walk from his community on Papua New Guinea’s northern coast, Yat Paol clears away dried leaves from a shady patch of ground…
FAIZOBOD, Tajikistan — Mirzoli Azizov, a 54-year-old farmer, is sorting apples from the second harvest this year from his agroforestry gardens in this district 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of…
ORLEANS, California — Frank Lake stoops beside a low-growing shrub, cups one hand beneath a cluster of cobalt berries and swiftly claps it to his mouth. The purple-lipped grin he flashes…
KOK-TALAA, Batken province, Kyrgyzstan — The Batken region is located in the southern part of the Fergana Valley, on Kyrgyzstan’s border with Uzbekistan. Like the rest of Kyrgyzstan, much of its…
KYZL-UNKUR, Jalalabad region, Kyrgyzstan — The mountain road leading to Kyzyl-Unkur winds through a gorge. Three hours later, on a broken road, one finds the village surrounded on all sides…
Caura National Park is under pressure from gold miners, but Afro-Venezuelan and indigenous groups have teamed with NGOs and companies to do sustainable agroforestry and safeguard forests.
Mongabay editor Erik Hoffner wrote about the mismatch in funding priorities for climate mitigation solutions for the Washington Post’s global edition, the World Post, on September 11. Too often, he wrote,…
KERITA, Kenya — It is high noon at Samuel Rono’s farm in Kerita village in southern Kenya, but the cool breeze blowing through gives visitors a sense of nature’s comfort. Even the…
Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) of trees made headlines several years ago when 5 million hectares of Niger were found to have re-greened via the practice. FMNR is the encouragement of regeneration…
WEST POKOT, Kenya — The Cherangani people, an indigenous community in Kenya’s Rift Valley, have always called the Cherangani Hills Forest their ancestral home. Also known locally as the Sengwer,…
GUALCINCE, Honduras — The Lenca call it a sacrificial stone, where their indigenous ancestors went to make offerings to deities. A triangle of rock with different circles inscribed on its surface,…
PITEKELE, Sri Lanka — Visitors to the Sinharaja Man and Biosphere Reserve, Sri Lanka’s largest remaining primary rainforest, could easily miss the fact that adjoining the forest’s entrance is the old…
ZACATECOLUCA, El Salvador — The waist-high trees in Jose Francisco Merino Umaña’s field have sprouted branches and lush green leaves, but their modest size doesn’t convey the full value they…
There are two important answers to the question “why do we need more trees in farmland?” One is global and one is local. Globally, trees are often recognized as the…
