Indigenous Successional Agroforestry: Integrating the Old and New to Address Food Insecurity and Deforestation

An interest in developing successional agroforestry systems has emerged in response to a need for agricultural systems that conserve forests, offer sustainable livelihoods, and provide food security. Successional agroforestry offers an innovative solution to improve degraded landscapes by replicating the spatial and temporal characteristics of a developing secondary forest. In light of this interest, it is important to bring attention to a long list of indigenous successional agroforestry systems (indigenous SAF) that have been practiced for centuries. Although existing under different names, or none at all, many of these traditional systems, practiced around the world, demonstrate similar management practices. These practices continue to reveal a strong power of observation and intuition to mirror the local forest processes. This chapter aims to review several well-documented indigenous successional agroforestry systems and to demonstrate the similarities of practice and the consistent benefits to the environment and to the people who manage them.