No trees on climate maps and not listening to farmers means fewer options for change

The benefits of harnessing scientific and local knowledge to enhance tree cover in farming landscapes are being overlooked primarily due to a lack of comprehensive data

The authors of the recent book, How trees and people can co-adapt to climate change: reducing vulnerability in multifunctional landscapes (World Agroforestry Centre 2011), argue that the micro-climatic effects of trees influence the properties assessed in climate-change prediction models, for at least as long as 30 years. These properties include shifts in daily average temperature, day–night temperature differential, humidity and wind speed. However, existing climate maps and climate-change projections are based on data and models that refer to ‘landscapes without trees’. This is the standard instruction for synoptic World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather stations: avoid locations where tree effects influence the results. Explicitly adding the effects of trees to climate maps will expand the range of adaptation options.

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No trees on climate maps and not listening to farmers means fewer options for change

Coastal trees would have somewhat reduced Indonesia's tsunami death toll

The 2nd Congress of the East Asian Association of Environmental and Resource Economics

National Conference on Forest, Environment and Climate Change: Issues and Challenges

• Mainstreaming climate change in biodiversity planning and conservation in the Philippines
  Funding partner: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
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• Power relations and REDD: unpacking 'carbon rights' and addressing the question of legality in Indonesia.
  Funding partner: David and Lucille Packard Foundation.
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• Toward a biodiverse rubber estate: quick biodiversity survey of Bridgestone Sumatra Rubber Estate, North Sumatra, Indonesia.
  Funding partner: Bridgestone Japan.
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