World Agroforestry (a brand name used by the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, ICRAF) is an international institute headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and founded in 1978 as "International Council for Research in Agroforestry". The Centre specializes in the sustainable management, protection and regulation of tropical rainforest and natural reserves. It is one of 15 agricultural research centres which makes up the global network known as the CGIAR..
Rangelands are among the most extensive land use systems globally, supporting the livelihoods of billions of people, sustaining pastoral economies, conserving biodiversity, and providing critical ecosystem services. Despite their importance, they remain among the least consistently monitored ecosystems. This lack of standardized, high quality data constrains the ability to assess degradation, evaluate restoration efforts, and report progress toward national and global targets. We conducted a review of existing rangeland monitoring frameworks, standards, and remote sensing platforms to understand the methodologies used and indicators measured. Results highlight significant fragmentation and inconsistency in current approaches, underscoring the urgent need for standardized monitoring systems that can capture the complexity and variability of rangeland ecosystems. The Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) was developed in response to the need for systematic assessments of soil health, land degradation, and vegetation diversity within and across landscapes, including in rangelands. In this paper, we present the LDSF as a well-established, scalable approach for monitoring soil and land health, underpinning a globally harmonized rangeland monitoring system. Over the last two decades, the LDSF has been implemented in over 40 countries in the tropics and subtropics and has become an important database of georeferenced indicators of ecosystem health. In this paper we: (i) Report findings from a systematic review of existing rangeland monitoring frameworks, standards, and remote-sensing platforms; (ii) Synthesize the LDSF’s geospatially stratified, hierarchical sampling design and core indicator framework; and (iii) Demonstrate how LDSF field data and Earth Observation are combined to generate spatially explicit, statistically robust maps of soil and land health, including in African rangelands.
Maize (Zea mays L.) is a vital staple food crop for millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, but its productivity is affected by fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda, FAW), a transboundary pest native to the Americas. This study aimed to (i) assess the severity of foliar and ear damage caused by FAW under natural and artificial infestation and (ii) evaluate the grain yield (GY) performance and stability of three-way cross maize hybrids and agronomic traits across maize growing locations in East Africa. A total of 84 hybrids were evaluated over two years at 15 locations under natural and/or artificial infestation of FAW. Genetic variance was significant (p ≤ 0.01) for all traits under artificial and natural infestation. The phenotypic coefficient of variation was consistently higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all traits under both artificial and natural infestation experiments. Experimental hybrids were tolerant to moderately susceptible under artificial infestation as well as under natural infestation. Under artificial infestation, GY was positively correlated with ears per plant (EPP) (r = 0.37, p ≤ 0.001) and grain moisture at harvest MOI (r = 0.27, p ≤ 0.05) and negatively correlated with anthesis silking interval (ASI) (r = -0.31, p ≤ 0.01), ear Aspect (EA) (r = -0.57, p ≤ 0.001) and foliar damage at 21 days after infestation (FD3) (r = -0.27, p ≤ 0.05) under artificial infestation. Under natural infestation GY was positively correlated with anthesis date (AD) (r = 0.33, p ≤ 0.001), plant height (PH) (r = 0.43, p ≤ 0.001), and MOI (r = 0.43, p ≤ 0.001), while negative correlations were observed with (ASI) (r = -0.42, p ≤ 0.001), EA (r = -0.58, p ≤ 0.001), ear rot (ER) (r = -0.25, p ≤ 0.05), and gray leaf spot (GLS) (r = -0.43, p ≤ 0.001). Three experimental hybrids CKHFAW180299, CKHFAW190474 and CKHFAW190529 were among the highest-yielding genotypes under both artificial and natural infestation while CKHFAW190386 and CKHFAW190477 exhibited the highest yield stability. These hybrids are promising candidates for national performance trials and future commercialization as FAW tolerant hybrids in East Africa.
Abstract This report presents a field assessment of wild Coffea eugenioides , the diploid maternal progenitor of cultivated Arabica coffee, in Nyungwe Forest National Park and the adjoining, isolated Cyamudongo forest fragment in south-western Rwanda. The assessment targeted trees identified as candidate mother trees (individuals bearing fruit and therefore potential seed sources): 59 such trees were georeferenced and measured for structural, phenological and reproductive traits using a structured KoBoToolbox questionnaire (reproduced in Annex 1). The work was undertaken to inform the establishment of a seed orchard for this species under the RTRP-Seed (IKI) and TREPA (GCF) projects implemented by Landscape Alliance (CIFOR & ICRAF in action). On C. eugenioides , the cherry is the fleshy fruit that contains the seed, so cherry load is a direct measure of fruit and seed output. Reproductive output across the assessed trees is low, highly variable and weakly related to tree size. The median tree carried an estimated 29 cherries in the whole canopy, 31% of trees carried 15 cherries or fewer, and the coefficient of variation in cherry load exceeded 110%. Tree size explained little of this variation (stem diameter, the single significant structural predictor, accounted for under 10% of the variance; r = 0.31). Trees in the isolated Cyamudongo fragment carried significantly fewer cherries than those in the main Nyungwe block (medians 15 vs 32 cherries; Mann-Whitney p = 0.021), and every observation of sub-optimal on-tree seed quality occurred in the fragment. Low and asynchronous fruiting, together with the reduced fruit and seed set typical of small, isolated populations, makes large-scale seed collection an unreliable basis for an orchard. The original plan was to collect seed from wild trees and raise a Breeding Seed Orchard (BSO). On the evidence presented here, that plan should be redirected toward a Clonal Seed Orchard (CSO): rather than collecting seed, scions (budwood) are taken from selected wild trees and grafted onto vigorous local Rwandan Coffea arabica rootstock. This captures the full genotype of each selected tree, shortens the time to flowering, secures the germplasm of a threatened wild relative ex situ , and aligns with Rwanda’s restoration and climate commitments.
Highland bamboo (Oldeania alpina) is an important forest resource in North-west Ethiopia that has many versatile uses. Five harvesting treatments (involving 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% harvesting intensities of culms aged three or more years) were conducted in 300m2 plots set in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications, in unmanaged natural bamboo forest in the Mesela area of Ankesha district, Northwest Ethiopia. Data on culm regeneration, culm productivity (number of harvested culms per plot) and DBH of new culms were recorded for seven consecutive years. The data were analysed in R using a mixed-effects model, with harvesting intensity and year as fixed factors and block as the random factor. The number of emerging culms differed significantly with harvesting intensity as well as with harvesting year. Harvesting 100% and 75% mature culms resulted in higher numbers of new culms (189±70.5 and 189±87.3) than the 0% (160±73.1), 25% (169±89.8) and 50% (168.0±81.8) harvesting intensities. The greatest numbers of new culms emergence per plot were observed in the second year of harvesting followed by the fourth year and thereafter a decreasing trend was observed. The DBH of new culms increased up to the final year harvesting in all treatments. Moreover, harvesting 100% mature culms in the fifth year yielded more mature culms than 75%, 50% and 25% mature culm harvesting. Therefore, our study has an important implication for the sustainable management of bamboo forests, namely that O. alpina forests growing in similar environments can be managed through harvesting mature culms with higher harvesting intensities to ensure sustainable culm yield production.
