Methods for environment: productivity trade-off analysis in agricultural systems

Trade-off analysis has become an increasingly important approach for evaluating system level outcomes of agricultural production and for prioritising and targeting management interventions in multi-functional agricultural landscapes. We review the strengths and weakness of different techniques available for performing trade-off analysis. These techniques, including mathematical programming and participatory approaches, have developed substantially in recent years aided by mathematical advancement, increased computing power, and emerging insights into systems behaviour. The strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches are identified and discussed, and we make suggestions for a tiered approach for situations with different data availability. This chapter is a modified and extended version of Klapwijk et al. (2014)

Asma e gravidez: repercussões no recém-nascido

OBJETIVO: Descrever, numa coorte de nascimentos, aspectos socioeconômicos e comportamentais de gestantes com asma e analisar as repercussões desta sobre alguns parâmetros perinatais. MÉTODOS: Estudo observacional, transversal e analítico a partir de informações de parturientes da coorte de nascimentos ocorridos no período entre 8 de março e 15 de julho de 2005 nas maternidades da Grande Aracaju (SE). A identificação de asma nas gestantes foi obtida segundo informação destas a partir do diagnóstico emitido anteriormente por um médico. Foram analisadas variáveis epidemiológicas, obstétricas e perinatais. RESULTADOS: Das 4.757 parturientes incluídas no estudo, 299 (6,3%) eram asmáticas. As mães asmáticas tinham menor renda familiar e mais frequentemente procuraram assistência no pré-natal e no parto em serviços públicos que as mães sem asma. Embora somente 9,4% das gestantes asmáticas fumaram, e 27,6% ingeriram bebidas alcoólicas, as proporções em relação ao grupo controle foram significativamente maiores. Não se detectou associação entre asma e problemas obstétricos ou do recém-nascido. Não foi encontrada associação entre asma e parto cesariano, prematuridade ou recém-nascido sendo pequeno para a idade gestacional. CONCLUSÕES: O nível socioeconômico inferior parece ser um fator de risco para a asma

Opportunities and challenges for an Indonesian forest monitoring network

© 2019, INRA and Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature. Key message: Permanent sampling plots (PSPs) are a powerful and reliable methodology to help our understanding of the diversity and dynamics of tropical forests. Based on the current inventory of PSPs in Indonesia, there is high potential to establish a long-term collaborative forest monitoring network. Whilst there are challenges to initiating such a network, there are also innumerable benefits to help us understand and better conserve these exceptionally diverse ecosystems

Co-existence of people and orangutan in Sumatra. Stabilising gradients for landscape multifunctionality

Multifunctional landscapes and species-rich agroforests can support biodiversity conservation. Command- and-control conservation approaches tend to create sharp distinctions between protected areas and surrounding agriculture. Can a village agroforest forest landscape gradient be stable? Or is it part of a continuous process of forest conversion that in the end will leave hardly any conservation values intact? The landscape of Batang Toru, Sumatra offers a case study. It is home to a genetically unique Sumatran orangutan population and to people of diverse backgrounds. It provides insight into the types of government policy and market-based instruments that are needed to stabilise the existing gradient

Constraints and opportunities for tree diversity management along the forest transition curve to achieve multifunctional agriculture

On-farm tree diversity patterns result from a social-ecological process shaped by different actors. Farmer preferences, tree-site matching, seed dispersal, tree domestication and delivery via nurseries all play important roles in forming these patterns. As part of a wider interest in tree cover transition curves that link agroforestation stages of landscapes to a preceding deforestation process, we here focus on ‘tree diversity transition curves’ i. as a conceptual framework to understand current processes and how shifts in drivers affect tree diversity and ii. to help identify constraints and opportunities for interventions. We provide some examples of current research efforts and make suggestions for databases and analyzes that are required to improve our understanding of tree diversity transitions. We explore drivers, consequences and entry points for tree diversity management to achieve multifunctional agriculture

Mud, muddle and models in the knowledge value chain to action on tropical peatland issues

Tropical peatlands are known not only for their high, area-based, carbon emissions in response to land-use change but also as hot spots of debate about associated data uncertainties. Perspectives are still evolving on factors underlying the variability and uncertainty. Debate includes the ways of reducing emissions through rewetting, reforestation and agroforestry. A knowledge value-chain that is long and complex links (a) fundamental understanding of peat and peatland processes leading to sciencebased quantification and default values, (b) willingness and (c) ability to act towards emission reduction, and ultimately (d) to local, national and global actions that effectively provide rules, incentives and motivation to conserve peat and reduce emissions. We discuss this value chain, its stakeholders and issues that still remain partially unresolved. We conclude that, to shorten the denial and conspiracy-theory stages of debate that otherwise slow down steps B and C, networks of international and national scientists have to be involved at the early stage of identifying policysensitive environmental issues. Models span part of the knowledge value-chain but transition of analysis units requires specific attention, from soil volumes through area and commodity flows to opportunities for reductions. While drainage of peatlands triggers landscape-scale increases in emissions, factors beyond drainage depth, including nutrient supply, may have a major influence on decomposition rates. Attempts to disentangle the contributions of plant and peat-based respiration in surface flux measurements involve assumptions that cannot be easily verified in comparisons between land uses. With progress on A leading to new internationally accepted defaults and with resistance on step B reduced, the reality of C and lack of working solutions for D is currently constraining further progress