Forests, food security and nutrition

Through its research on sustainable landscapes and food systems, CIFOR is filling key knowledge gaps on the role of forests and agrobiodiversity at the landscape level in the diets of rural populations across the tropics – including how diets are affected by rapidly changing landscapes, and what can be done to address these changes.   

Linking landscapes and diet

Past CIFOR studies have investigated the role that forests play in enhancing food security and nutrition. Such work is continuing, particularly on the links between forests and wild capture fisheries. But new research is extending the focus to other parts of local food systems, such as agricultural diversity and local markets, looking at how these different components interact to influence food security and nutrition – and how land-use change and deforestation affect these interactions.

What’s nutrition without health?

Building on research showing that children who lived in communities in Africa with more tree cover had better diets compared to those who lived in less forested communities, CIFOR is now looking into the relative importance of wild meat, insects and fish – and their seasonal relationships – in the diets of mothers and young children in the Congo Basin. But there’s a new twist.

Diets can only tell part of the story about people’s nutritional status. Child malnutrition is common in many parts of the Congo Basin. It widely believed that this a result of lack of food, but it could also be affected by infection. Many forest communities lack access to clean drinking water and toilets, adding the risk of sanitation-related illness to the potential diseases found near forests.

CIFOR scientists have teamed up with experts in the fields of nutrition and medicine to untangle the ways forests, food and illness interact in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Such a holistic approach isn’t common, because it takes careful planning and coordination in order to produce information that is meaningful across disciplines. Scientists in the departments of nutrition and parasitology at national universities are working with CIFOR to investigate the links between local diets, infection, and child stunting. Together, they hope to produce knowledge to support the development of integrated nutrition and sanitation programs in the region.

Oil palm expansion is changing recipes – and diets – in Indonesia

Many communities in West Kalimantan get a significant amount of nutrition from eating forest foods, including fruit, vegetables, fish and meat. Women, most of them rice farmers,  will venture into the forest a few times per week in search of wild foods for their families. But in Indonesia, the fast-growing expansion of oil palm is clearing forests and changing what people grow, making some traditional recipes a thing of the past.

To find out how this change in the landscape is affecting local diets, CIFOR and its partners, the University of Brawijaya, Poltekkes Pontianak, Poltekkes Jayapura and Penn State University, are documenting the effect in indigenous communities in Borneo and Papua, Indonesia. Research is ongoing, but to raise awareness of the issue, CIFOR released a video from West Kalimantan, in which local residents talk about what they get from their forests and their fields and how this changes when their landscapes become dominated by oil palm.

Giving students a chance

Caleb Tata Yengo was interested in studying nutrition. But he’s an Anglophone Cameroonian, and there were no Masters-level nutrition programs available at English universities in the country. So CIFOR provided funding for him to attend the University of Ghana. Caleb finished first in his class and is now working with Forest Resources for People (FOREP) as a partner on the Governing Multifunctional Landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa project leading the nutrition work in Cameroon. He is also applying to PhD programs in nutrition.

At the University of Kisangani (UNIKIS) in DRC, there are no Congolese lecturers with Masters degrees to teach nutrition classes. But that will soon change, because CIFOR is supporting two lecturers from the university to pursue graduate-level studies in nutrition at the Faculty of Medicine in Kinshasa, so that they can return to UNIKIS and share their deeper knowledge of the field.

From caterpillars to elephants: Wild meat in the tropics

As surging urban populations drive up the demand for wild meat as a luxury item in many tropical countries, rural communities suffer as this primary source of protein is taken away from them. This uncontrolled commercial trade is also spreading to international markets and together can threaten many vulnerable species. For over two decades, experts at CIFOR have brought evidence to the global debate around wild meat, highlighting the nuances of a growing practice that still hides in the shadows.

A three-pronged approach to studying Cameroon’s Baka Pygmies

New research by CIFOR in partnership with the Darwin Initiative and the Spanish non-governmental organization Zerca y Lejos is taking a holistic approach to working with a number of Cameroon’s Baka Pygmy communities. A multidisciplinary team of experts in the field of medicine, agriculture and forest ecology are working with these communities so they can sustainably use the forest resources they depend on – wild meat, food plants such as wild yams, and medicinal plants – while also improving subsistence farming. With better access to both domestic and wild food resources, these communities can thrive.

New roadmap to a sustainable wild meat sector

In response to a call from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) secretariat, CIFOR and partners conducted a thorough review of available knowledge on wild meat use in tropical and subtropical regions, outlining key strategies for a more sustainable wild meat sector in a book jointly produced by CBD and CIFOR. The book details the technical steps to put in practice a set of guidelines that were endorsed by CBD member countries in Montreal in December 2017.

Tracking Ebola

A resurgence of the Ebola virus to an area CIFOR scientists and partners predicted as ‘highly favorable’ for outbreak affirms ongoing work conducted in partnership with scientists from the University of Malaga in Spain on biogeographical mapping of the disease, to more accurately predict areas at high risk of outbreaks.

CIFOR has investigated the links between wild meat and Ebola outbreaks since 2014, first defining the distribution of areas favorable to the presence of the virus and identifying mammals that may be affected or susceptible to it. They then examined the role of deforestation in predicting Ebola outbreaks, the possible link between fruit bats and the virus, and the role of atmospheric fluctuations in outbreaks.

Read more about CIFOR’s work on wild meat.

New project to put ‘landscape approach’ into action

Over the next five years, CIFOR and partners will test how well conceptual frameworks, tools and guidelines for landscape approaches actually work on the ground in three tropical countries – Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Zambia.

Livelihoods, food security and nutrition … over the years

CIFOR scientists have been investigating the links between forests, food and nutrition, uncovering the role of wild meat in both diets and disease, as well as the impact of landscape change on food security and nutrition.