Priority Science Can Accelerate Agroforestry as a Natural Climate Solution
Agroforestry could mitigate climate change (up to 0.31 Pg C yr−1), rivaling reforestation. Yet challenges remain in defining effective practices, measuring impacts, and tracking progress. This Perspective frames agroforestry as a natural climate solution, explores farm-scale potential, highlights remote sensing innovations, and identifies global opportunities and policy priorities.
Subject Tags
- Agroforestry
- Natural climate solutions
- Climate mitigation
Abstract
The expansion of agroforestry could provide substantial climate change mitigation (up to 0.31 Pg C yr−1), comparable to other prominent natural climate solutions such as reforestation. Yet, climate-focused agroforestry efforts grapple with ambiguity about which agroforestry actions provide mitigation, uncertainty about the magnitude of that mitigation and inability to reliably track progress. In this Perspective, we define agroforestry as a natural climate solution, discuss current understanding of the controls on farm-scale mitigation potential and highlight recent innovation on emergent, high-resolution remote sensing methods to enable detection, measurement and monitoring. We also assess the status of agroforestry in the context of global climate ambitions, highlighting regions of underappreciated expansion opportunity and identifying priorities for policy and praxis.
Citation
Terasaki Hart, D.E., Yeo, S., Almaraz, M., Beillouin, D., Cardinael, R., Garcia, E., Kay, S., Lovell, S.T., Rosenstock, T.S., Sprenkle-Hyppolite, S. and Stolle, F., 2023. Priority science can accelerate agroforestry as a natural climate solution. Nature Climate Change, 13(11), pp.1179-1190.
TNC Authors
-
Susan Cook-Patton
Lead Reforestation Scientist • Tackle Climate Change
The Nature Conservancy
Email: susan.cook-patton@tnc.org