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The importance of agroforestry hay and walnut production in the walnut-fruit forests of southern Kyrgyzstan

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Abstract

Walnut-fruit forests (WFF) in Kyrgyzstan are biodiversity hotspots, provide important ecosystem services, and are of economic value yet currently suffer from a lack of sustainable management. We analysed current agroforestry practices through a series of interviews with farmers and reviewed the input–output data for 5 years of hay and walnut production for three case studies. The interviews showed that hay-making and walnut collection are the primary agroforestry practices in the WFF and have clear economic importance. Walnut in particular is a source of additional income for farmers and hay-making activities are strongly influenced by the need to winter cattle in these regions. The low reliability of interview data limited the planned analysis of profitability of case studies. Walnut production, however, is difficult to calculate because it is highly dependent on weather conditions and cropping practices between walnut trees (Juglans regia L.). This study highlights the need for improved agroforestry technologies in the WFF and identifies potential means for a sustainable, multi-purpose management of the WFF with a special focus on income generation.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our thanks to the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Karl Popper Foundation and the Vontobel Foundation for their financial support. This study was conducted in the framework of the project "ORECH-LES". We would like to thank numerous colleagues for helping in the organization of this work and for providing us with field data, and for constructive comments on a previous draft of the manuscript, Jerry Van Sambeek, Ruedi Felber and another anonymous reviewer for providing insightful comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Groupe de foresterie pour le développement, Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Maik Rehnus & Jean-Pierre Sorg

  2. Laboratory of Forest Resources, Forest Research Institute, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

    Davlet Mamadzhanov

  3. Fund “Forest Protection”, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

    Bronislav Ivanovitch Venglovsky

Authors
  1. Maik Rehnus
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  2. Davlet Mamadzhanov
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  3. Bronislav Ivanovitch Venglovsky
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  4. Jean-Pierre Sorg
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Correspondence to Maik Rehnus.

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Rehnus, M., Mamadzhanov, D., Venglovsky, B.I. et al. The importance of agroforestry hay and walnut production in the walnut-fruit forests of southern Kyrgyzstan. Agroforest Syst 87, 1–12 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-012-9516-6

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