Trees Outside Forests: Towards Better Awareness

This two-part document has deliberately focussed on two very different but complementary viewpoints, the general panorama and the detail. This approach, which makes it possible to establish the link between local situations and general trends, is also part of a recurring discussion. Part One, Trees outside forests, a key to integrated rural and urban land management, attemps to review the backlog of knowledge concerning tree and shrub resources outside forests, based on existing databases and work done in related sectors. Part Two, Trees outside forests, transmitting a universal lore, looks at these resources in concrete, localized situations based on national case studies. Both sections focuses on the characteristics and potential benefits of this highly dispersed, mostly cultivated, multi-purpose, non-forest tree resource which has been widely appropriated for its wealth of products and environmental services. Both sections appraise the contribution to local economies, suggest the impact at the country level, and give some hint of the impact at the international level. At this point it becomes apparent that Trees outside are very well-known to peasants, poorly-understood by managers, and mostly overlooked by national statistics and aid to development. The most prominent characteristics emerging from both the detailed and more general review are a certain blurriness of image concerning these resources (for lack of hard facts and figures, apart from their obvious potential and despite specific efforts to assess them), plus their clear and unquestionable importance in the struggle to achieve food security, reduce poverty and find a positive response to the challenge of environmental degradation.