Severe decline in large farmland trees in India over the past decade

• Published in: Nature sustainability Vol. 7; no. 7; pp. 860 - 868
• Main Authors: Brandt, Martin, Gominski, Dimitri, Reiner, Florian, Kariryaa, Ankit, Guthula, Venkanna Babu, Ciais, Philippe, Tong, Xiaoye, Zhang, Wenmin, Govindarajulu, Dhanapal, Ortiz-Gonzalo, Daniel, Fensholt, Rasmus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.07.2024
• Subjects: 704/158; 704/158/2458; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Sustainable Development
• ISSN: 2398-9629
• DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01356-0

Agroforestry practices that include the integration of multifunctional trees within agricultural lands can generate multiple socioecological benefits, in addition to being a natural climate solution due to the associated carbon sequestration potential. Such agroforestry trees represent a vital part of India’s landscapes. However, despite their importance, a current lack of robust monitoring mechanisms has contributed to an insufficient grasp of their distribution in relation to management practices, as well as their vulnerability to climate change and diseases. Here we map 0.6 billion farmland trees, excluding block plantations, in India and track them over the past decade. We show that around 11 ± 2% of the large trees (about 96 m 2 crown size) mapped in 2010/2011 had disappeared by 2018. Moreover, during the period 2018–2022, more than 5 million large farmland trees (about 67 m 2 crown size) have vanished, due partly to altered cultivation practices, where trees within fields are perceived as detrimental to crop yields. These observations are particularly unsettling given the current emphasis on agroforestry as a pivotal natural climate solution, playing a crucial role in both climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, in addition to being important for supporting agricultural livelihoods and improving biodiversity. Agroforestry practices represent important natural climate solutions, in addition to providing a variety of socioecological benefits. This study evaluates spatiotemporal agroforestry patterns in India by tracking the fate of large farmland trees over the past decade.