Planet Earth is natural biodiverse and it this biodiversity – the trees, birds, bees, mammals, snakes – that sustain life as we know it. The world’s forests are being lost at an alarming rate, in many cases for agriculture. This is in direct odds with our urgent need to feed growing populations around the world. If we do not get better at managing our resources, we will continue to find that our need to grow food conflicts with our need to protect our resources. We will continue to lose biodiversity, and as we continue to lose the ecosystems services that forests provide we will find it more and more difficult to grow our food.
Fortunately, farms can be managed to maximize their value in conserving biodiversity. Trees on Farms for Biodiversity (ToNF) is our solution.
TonF is funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and implemented by the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) in partnership with the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñza (CATIE), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Gorge-August-Universität Göttingen and Leibnitz Universität Hannover.
Increasing both the number of trees and species on farms helps conserve and restore biodiversity and improves agricultural productivity. We work with communities, governments and NGOs to promote this approach in Honduras, Indonesia, Peru, Rwanda and Uganda.
TonF will
“ TonF is a direct contribution to Aichi Target 7 of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (sustainably managed agricultural areas) by advancing the knowledge of the importance of trees on farms for biodiversity and human wellbeing.