Integrated Management for Sustainable Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
workshop 28 - 31 August, 2001 CIAT, Cali, Colombia

Improving management for sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries, is a central challenge for the twenty-first century. Problems of soil erosion, nutrient depletion, loss of biodiversity, water pollution, declining agricultural productivity,

and the poverty of millions of people in degrading environments make it imperative that the best available international scientific capability addresses this challenge. Integrated management is an optimal, framework for addressing NRM problems with multiple stakeholders, who have compelling interests for use of the same resources and it is a central issue for the broad field of integrated natural resource management (INRM).

CGIAR research on INRM is distributed across 16 centers, and conducted by programs with mandates ranging from potato crop improvement to forest management. This involves transaction costs for centers and partners especially in the identification of strategic research foci, which institutions have comparative advantage for a given focus and for assembling the critical mass of scientific capability around a problem. Better organization could improve the pay-off to INRM research in the CGIAR.