This paper identifies sixteen cases of large-scale actions in the agriculture and forestry sectors that have adaptation and/or mitigation outcomes, and distils lessons from the cases. The cases cover policy and strategy development (including where climate-smart objectives were not the initial aim), climate risk management through insurance, weather information services and social protection, and agricultural initiatives that have a strong link to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Key lessons learned include:

Trade-offs can be avoided, at least in the near-term and over limited spatial scale
We need cost-effective and comparable indices for measuring GHG fluxes and for monitoring adaptive capacity
Strong government support is crucial to enable large-scale successes
Upfront costs may be substantial and can be met from multiple sources
An iterative and participatory learning approach with investment in capacity strengthening is critical.