Welcome to the WAFLA website
WAFLA is a project created under the “Co-ordination Action” Instrument which is supported by the European Commission in the 6th Framework Program of Investigation promoting of the European Union.
The overall objective of WAFLA-Coordination Action is to coordinate and integrate the current scientific research, technological innovation and social and policy development activities, creating synergies to promote the adoption of integrated water resource management and improved agroforestry systems in order to propose feasible solutions to combat the advancing desertification and degradation of the arid and semi-arid ecosystems and to enhance rural development in Latin America.
An agroforestry and integrated water resource management expert and co-ordination platform will be established in a Latin American scope, as well as a network of expertise, which will encourage the unification of efforts for the development of agroforestry and integrated water management systems in arid and semi-arid areas, by pointing out the future research and the needed synergies in order to promote the uptake of these ancient resource management strategies in these fragile ecosystems.
- WAFLA Partners at the Technical Meeting - Lima, Peru - June 2008
The WAFLA consortium is made up of 22 partners from European and Latin American countries with various background knowledge and expertise in fields ranging from forestry and agriculture research, to wastewater treatment, desertification and technology transfer. The partners involved have their general headquarters in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Germany, Spain, France, The Netherlands and England.
- Agroforestry system in Ecuador
Some of the results so far comprise the development of the WAFLA country profiles, which include a throughout evaluation of the water resources management practices in Latin American selected regions as well as the documentation and evaluation of traditional agroforestry practices. Furthermore, a vast identification of key actors and stakeholders has allowed preparing the strategies for the dissemination of the results that will be strongly perceived in the following months of the project; meanwhile a review of the policy and legislative frame regarding water and soil management will allow the identification of effective policy measures.
The second year of WAFLA is being devoted to the WP3 (Processing, marketing, trade and institutional frame) in which a marketing system of arid and semi-arid agroforestry products such as Algarrobo (Prosopis pallida), Leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala), Zábila (Aloe vera) and Cocuy (Agave cocuy) will be designed and tested. Furthermore an identification of suitable agroforestry systems for different ecosystems is being carried out considering climatic and soil conditions, adaptation of tree species, integration of local or native tree species in agroforestry systems, configuration of agroforestry systems, water use efficiency, cost for establishment, markets for agroforestry products, organizational structure for marketing, reduction of risk, and impact on livelihoods of farmers and rural poor.
- Agroforestry system in Zacatecas, Mexico
The main outcome of WAFLA Co-ordination Action will be the identification of management strategies and policy options in a multidisciplinary approach for the promotion of region-adapted agroforestry structures, by providing with a Latin-American Join Arid-Agroforestry Management Guidelines (LAJAM), based on the participatory management of agroforestry modules, with the involvement of local communities as the key factor to ensure the sustainability and perpetuation of the solution. This concept of bottom-up planning will harmonise technology, institution and environment, aiming to propose the basis for strategies of implementation based on local conditions, meanwhile generating appropriate scientific, technological, economical and social tools for operation.
The WAFLA coordination action will celebrate its Final Conference “Mainstreaming Agroforestry Systems for combating desertification, integrated water management, and sustainable livelihoods in agricultural landscapes of the arid and semi arid regions” on 14, 15 and 16 January 2009, Santiago, Chile.