The European Tropical Forest Research Network (ETFRN) is a network on forests and development, which aims to ensure that European research contributes to conservation and sustainable use of forest and tree resources in tropical and subtropical countries.
ETFRN was established in 1991 in response to the growing concernes on the rapid deforestation occurring particularly in the tropics, and the European Commission's desire to mobilise European research to address this challenge.
Objectives: The goal of ETFRN is to ensure that European research contributes to conservation and sustainable management of forests and tree resources in tropics, subtropics & Mediterranean. ETFRN aims to achieve its goal by:
promoting forest research partnerships and collaboration between the South and Europe
developing and promoting dialogue between researchers, policy makers, and forest managers and others influencing the forest environment
promoting increased coherence and co-ordination of European research capability in tropical forest research
Tropenbos International is ETFRN's coordinating member and national focal point in the Netherlands.
ETFRN provides a range of services, including ETFRN News, which comprises theme-based issues on current research relevant to the international development agenda, such as Financing Sustainable Forest Management; Non-Timber Forest Products; Forests, Water and Livelihoods; Forests and the MDGs, and; Forests and Conflicts.
Members:
Resources
Displaying 1 - 5 of 12Restoration of agricultural landscapes and dry forests in Senegal. Included in Restoring African Drylands
In the above initiatives, self-motivated populations increased food security and reduced vulnerabilities to climatic shocks by restoring and sustainably managing local forest resources. To regenerate agroforestry parklands, farmers built on traditional systems to increase on-farm tree density and convert degraded lands to densely wooded savannas. These actions increased crop yields and produced new sources of livestock browse. The population of Sambandé restored the local forest and managed it to sustainably produce fuel and fruit.
History and impacts of dryland restoration in Yatenga, Burkina Faso. Included in Restoring African Drylands
Since the mid-1980s, the positive impacts of these simple, cost-efficient water harvesting techniques become clear, following their increasingly widespread adoption. Their use has allowed smallholders to reverse land degradation, improve soil fertility, sustainably increase crop production, achieve food security, and create more productive, diverse and resilient farming systems. At the same time, groundwater is recharged, improving access to drinking water for the entire year, and creating opportunities for irrigated vegetable gardening around wells.
Farmers’ strategies for adapting to climate change in Niger. Included in Restoring African Drylands
The West African Sahel is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due to land degradation, dependence on rainfed farming, political instability, poor governance, food insecurity, terrorism, poor infrastructure, and limited technical capacity. This has particular impacts on the agricultural sector (Sissoko et al. 2011; Zougmoré et al. 2016).
Post-project impacts of restoring degraded land in Tahoua, Niger. Included in Restoring African Drylands
When the IFAD-funded project started in 1988, few people could have imagined that 15 years later the degraded plateaus would be covered with trees on land restored to production by individual smallholder farmers. And no one imagined that a village on a barren degraded plateau would one day produce enough vegetables to meet its own needs and produce a surplus for sale, because water levels in the wells had risen so much.
Large-scale regreening in Niger: lessons for policy and practice. Included in Restoring African Drylands
Unless countries can manage to mobilize millions of land users to invest their scarce resources in protecting regenerating trees, the battle against land degradation cannot be won. These experiences from Niger show that hundreds of thousands of smallholder farm families have substantially increased tree cover on their farm land by investing in the management of on-farm trees. This has improved their production systems and their livelihoods. There is no reason to believe that similar success cannot be achieved in many more countries throughout African drylands and sub-humid area.