Public Lecture by Prof. P.K. Nair

This ZEF public lecture has been held by Prof. P.K. Nair who is a distinguished Professor of Agroforestry & International Forestry on:

"The Role of Agroforestry in Land Management in the Future"

The lecture has been held on wednesday, March 7 at 6:00 p.m. at ZEF in Bonn.

Speaker's background:

P.K.R. Nair is a distinguished Professor of Agroforestry & International Forestry, and Director of the Center for Subtropical Agroforestry School of Forest Resources and Conservation at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (IFAS) of the University of Florida, USA. Prof. Nair is a world-class leader Agroforestry scientist, and co-founder of the Center for Research in Agroforestry, now, World Agroforestry Centre. His scientific experience extends internationally through more than 100 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. His current research focus on carbon sequestration and environmental quality under agroforestry systems. Other research interests include soil productivity, component interactions and agroforestry system design and evaluation.

Thematic background:

During the past three decades, agroforestry research has made significant progress in understanding the role of trees on farmlands and the ecological and economic advantages of integrated agroforestry systems (AFS). The environmental-quality benefits of AFS that transcend from local to global levels have received much attention lately; the major ones are climate change mitigation, soil improvement, water quality enhancement, and biodiversity conservation. In addition to the age-old and well-recognized benefits such as providing food- and nutritional security to low-resource farming communities, these recently recognized environmental benefits offer a unique role for agroforestry as a sustainable approach to land management in both developing and industrialized nations in the future.