Strategies Sustainable Management of Agroforestry in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Abstract

Global climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases are recognized as a serious environmental issue of the twenty-first century. Climate change leads to land degradation leads to adverse effects on the productivity of the crops thus ultimately affecting the food and livelihood security of the people. Although, agroforestry, the purposeful growing of trees and crops in interacting combinations, has been practised in the world since time immemorial as a traditional land-use system. It is a shining approach which merges century's old knowledge with modern science in a system and the concept of thinking small scale farmer's to achieve potentially big and transformative outcomes. In recent times agroforestry practices are receiving huge attention as a sustainable land-management option because of its ecological, economic, and social attributes. Also, agroforestry simultaneously offers large-scale diversification in agriculture to get supplement fuel, fodder, fruits and fibres on one hand and stabilizing the ecosystems (increase the tree cover, production of timber and other wood products thus reduces the pressure on the forests) on the other hand. Furthermore, agroforestry offers important opportunities to combat climate change by mitigation strategies like carbon sequestration potential and decreasing the greenhouse gases or by adapting to the changing climate like creating the microclimate and increasing the biodiversity. However, in association with this agroforestry also create synergies between both adaptation and mitigation actions which is the necessity of the current times. Especially, agroforestry approaches like the use of Multi-Purpose Tree Species (MPTs), relay-cropping, terracing and contour cultivation, strip and alley cropping are appropriate to fulfil the needs of low-resource farmers by restoring and increasing land productivity through climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Agroforestry Practices to Achieve Sustainable and Climate Resilient Forests

“…), Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.) and Casuarina (Casuarina equisetifolia L.) are well-known in countries like Pakistan and India for their economic and ecological usefulness in industrial agroforestry (Verma et al, 2021). Tree-crop plantation is also being examined for non-timber forest species, such as Moringa oleifera trees and Garcinia sp., whose entire plant is recognised for medicinal benefits and market value in India (Kumar et al, 2012;Murthy et al, 2013).…”

Carbon sequestration and credit potential of gamhar (Gmelina arborea Roxb.) based agroforestry system for zero carbon emission of India

“…The instant targets are reducing 1 bt carbon emissions by 2030 and reducing carbon intensity below 45 percent by 2030 at 2005 level. Agroforestry has emerged as a strategy for climate change mitigation by reducing greenhouse gases emission through sequestering carbon 4 .…”

A Review on Advances in Agriculture and Agroforestry with GPS and GIS

“…According to Sharma et al [2] the agroforestry system (AFS) is a well-known land use system that unites agriculture and forestry by generating a more integrated, diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land use system than the agriculture system. It has the potential to significantly improve a variety of social, environmental, and economic issues, including farm productivity and incomes [3], livelihood security [4], soil fertility decline [5], water conservation [6], climate change risk and variability [7], maintaining the atmospheric environment, and water quality [8], severe weather, greenhouse gas emissions [9], improvement of the microclimate [10], weed management [11], and provision of environmental values [12].…”