In response to an article in the Financial Review, titled Investors wary of going back to the land, Tony Simons, Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre has argued for the importance of investing in sustainable land use.

“By ignoring the connections between the 1.5 billion hectares of the earth’s croplands to the 10.7bn hectares of rangelands, forests, wetlands and deserts, investors make it even harder on themselves,” Simons writes.

He outlines how trees can help tackle problems over the long term through improving soils and productivity and reducing reliance on inputs. “Innovative investment vehicles designed to finance sustainable land use at a global scale show the way.”