News

ELTI and Visayas State University are celebrating their longstanding partnership in the Philippines. Since 2009, ELTI has partnered with the university’s Institute of Tropical Ecology and Environmental Management (ITEEM) with the shared mission of empowering local communities to design and implement sustainable land-use practices, and to conserve and restore tropical forests and native tree cover in human-dominated landscapes.

One of the key approaches used by ITEEM and ELTI is Rainforestation Farming. This agroforestry approach aims to restore ecosystem functions and services by harnessing the power of native species, local communities, and partner organizations to rehabilitate degraded landscapes. By providing more than 25 field trainings and reaching over 700 individuals, ELTI and ITEEM have demonstrated the potential of Rainforestation to address ongoing environmental challenges and to strengthen community resiliency in the Philippines. In light of the ten-year anniversary, ELTI will continue to conduct field trainings and hopes to conduct a nationwide survey of all ELTI alumni in the Philippines.

The ELTI Indonesia program in partnership with the Research Institute for Natural Resources Conservation Technology (Balitek KSDA) developed a leaflet to encourage ecotourism in the riparian forest of Sungai Hitam in Samboja, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The riparian forest of the Sungai Hitam River provides critical habitat for the endangered Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) but is threatened by the fact that the region is not part of a protected area. Currently, the riparian zone is fragmented by other land uses including plantations, agriculture, livestock, mining and municipal waste management. To address these habitat issues, tours in which visitors can watch monkeys and birds from the comfort of a boat will be offered, and funding for habitat restoration and protection will increase. In addition to increasing funding for the conservation of habitats of the Proboscis monkey, ecotourism is an important opportunity to gain local support to protect this important species, restore their habitat and enhance community livelihoods.

The work of ELTI teams and partners across the tropics received special attention in an article by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies this month. The article stressed that humanity is facing a crucial moment for tropical forests and that ELTI is supporting leaders to “restore and protect these threatened landscapes, providing them with the access to information and the tools to achieve more sustainable practices.”

A mini-documentary included in the article featured the on-the-ground results that ELTI alumni are achieving in Panama and the Philippines. ELTI also shared a vision for where the initiative is going next, “to support our alumni with project incubation, open-access information, networks and leadership development. It’s their time to shine and become global restoration leaders.”

Cattle farming is responsible for almost 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. Silvopastures offer a solution with multiple environmental benefits. In a BBC short video and podcast, ELTI alumni Sandra Carbonell (farm owner) and Carlos Mejía (sustainable ranching specialist), explain how cows that eat bushes and graze in woodland grow faster and produce less methane than cows in open pastures.

The video “How a new diet for gassy cows is helping the environment,” produced by Daniel Gordon for BBC World Service, shows the striking contrast between Sandra’s silvopastoral farm and a degraded conventional cattle ranch.

The episode “Reinventing the ranch,” aired on May 21, 2019, focuses on a project that is helping Colombian cattle farmers completely remodel their land to fight climate change. This podcast, called People Fixing the World, features brilliant solutions to global problems.

ELTI has offered a variety of training events for the technical team and several cattle ranchers involved in the Colombian Sustainable Cattle Ranching project, between 2011 and 2019.

The ELTI Restoration Boot Camp for Tropical Asian Forests brought together a wide range of committed practitioners to learn about managing Asian forest landscapes. After an engaging 6-week online course, participants met in Leyte, the Philippines, for a week of hands-on activities in the field. Amid the scenic tropical island, participants learned about nursery management, wildling collection and ways to collaborate with local communities. Check out a few pictures from the Philippines!

In 2016, ELTI alumna Evi Indraswati participated in an ELTI online course on forest restoration. She says, "At that time everyone felt that they were lacking a complete understanding of the forest restoration process. The knowledge about forest restoration that I gained through the course increased our team’s certainty about our ability to restore the forest of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park.” 

After the ELTI course, Evi published a book on her experiences restoring the forest in the park. Click here to view the full text.

ELTI is proud to announce the launch of a new online certificate program, in collaboration with the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, entitled: Tropical Forest Landscapes: Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use.

This comprehensive and interdisciplinary program is designed for professionals working to address the complex social, ecological and funding aspects of managing tropical forest landscapes. The yearlong program consists of four eight-week online courses, a capstone project and an optional field course in Latin America or Asia. Participants will learn from Yale faculty, ELTI team members and a network of international partners.

Applications open January 7, 2019. See more details on our website: https://tropicalrestorationcertificate.yale.edu/.

Please sign up for our mailing list to receive important program updates.

In 2016-17, ELTI partnered with the APASPE farmer's association in Panama to lead a series of workshops entitled, "Ecological Restoration Strategies for Cattle Ranching Landscapes of the Azuero." These workshops offered strategies to cattle ranchers to restore forest cover on their farms as a means to improve ecosystem services and increase productivity. ELTI's partnership with APASPE strengthened the capacity and leadership of local landowners and empowered them to become agents of change in restoring cattle ranching landscapes of the dry tropical forest.

Read more about our work with APASPE and the use of silvopastoral systems in a story written by the Global Environment Facility.

Agroecological restoration is an active dialogue that builds on the principles and values of agroecology and ecological restoration to promote healthy food production in revitalized landscapes. This transdisciplinary effort seeks to transform farms and agricultural landscapes for the well-being of rural and urban communities in a renewed relationship with nature.

The IV International Course on Agroecological Restoration: Resilience to Climate Change took place on July 23-27, 2018, at El Hatico Nature Reserve and the smallholder community of Bellavista (Valle del Cauca, Colombia). Food was a fundamental part of the curriculum. Each meal served throughout the field course was designed to celebrate ethical food production in rural communities. All ingredients were locally grown, sustainably produced, and in some cases, organic. ELTI alumni from previous Agroecology & Restoration courses (and one trainer) provided fruits, vegetables, wheat, cheese, yogurt, beans and fish from their farms. Meat and milk came from El Hatico’s amazing silvopastoral systems. Other products were purchased directly from farmers.

Delicious meals that give meaning to the term agrobiodiversity shared with friends in an open dining room have proved to be the right complement to the lectures and field exercises of our Agroecological Restoration course.

A rare, blue-winged pitta (P. moluccensis) was seen for the first time in 111 years in Liptong Woodland, a forest restored in 2006 by ELTI alumnus Rene Vendiola on the island of Negros in the Philippines.

ELTI and IPÊ – Institute for Ecological Research launched a field course for residents of agrarian reform settlements in the Pontal do Paranapanema, Brazil. In September 2018, we trained 20 small-scale farmers aged 15-69 years old who want to adopt sustainable practices to conserve biodiversity and increase productivity of their properties.

Dr. Arbainsyah ("Insya") will be attending the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, July 1-5, 2018. He has been accepted to give a presentation entitled, "Capacity-building to promote coal mine site rehabilitation in Kalimantan (Indonesian-Borneo)." His presentation will occur on Wednesday, July 4, as part of a series of talks on Seeding Resilient Forest Landscape Restoration and Its Contribution to Sustainable Development Goals.

A photo of an intensive silvopastoral system in Colombia from ELTI’s Colombia Coordinator and partner organization (Zoraida Calle; CIPAV - Colombia’s Center for Research on Sustainable Agriculture Production Systems) was featured in The Washington Post article highlighting the potential of silvopastoral systems for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

CIPAV designs, evaluates and promotes intensive silvopastoral systems that are able to boost per-hectare milk and meat production, while sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services. Silvopastoral systems can be used to rehabilitate lands degraded by extensive ranching and agriculture. At the same time, their efficiency allows farmers to release fragile and marginal lands for ecological restoration.

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies recently published an article highlighting ELTI and IUCN’s partnership to deliver online training on forest landscape restoration for 125 professionals from 32 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The article highlights the history and ongoing partnership between IUCN and ELTI, discusses the collaborative way in which ELTI’s online course approach was blended with IUCN’s Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM), and presents outcomes realized by participants as a result of the course series. Read the full article here.