Research Projects
Nature-based Solutions in Tropical Agroforestry Landscapes
I am currently working on the Flourishing Landscapes Programme (FLP), which addresses the triple challenge of livelihoods, climate change, and biodiversity loss at tropical forest frontiers. FLP uses novel landscape-scale transdisciplinary research, via a network of scientists and practitioners, to investigate strategies to both promote biodiversity and the climate resilience of smallholder farmers. By investigating agroforestry and community-led reforestation as nature-based solutions (NbS), the FLP addresses key knowledge gaps regarding the role of biodiversity in maximising nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) in agricultural landscapes. FLP focuses on landscapes with agricultural land-use dominated by coffee and cocoa production. In particular, it focuses on agricultural-forest matrix landscapes in three biodiversity hotspots: 1) Napa Province, Ecuador (the Tropical Andes hotspot), 2) Ashanti Region, Ghana, (Guinean Forests of West Africa) and 3) Central Highlands, Viet Nam (Indo-Burma). These landscapes represent forest-frontier areas where agricultural production, particularly cocoa (Ghana and Ecuador) and coffee cultivation (Viet Nam), intersects with severe fragmentation of natural forests. |