TY - JOUR
T1 - Can tropical farmers reconcile subsistence needs with forest conservation?
AU - Knoke, Thomas
AU - Calvas, Baltazar
AU - Aguirre, Nikolay
AU - Román-Cuesta, Rosa María
AU - Günter, Sven
AU - Stimm, Bernd
AU - Weber, Michael
AU - Mosandl, Reinhard
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - If tropical farmers cannot be provided with sustainable land-use systems, which address their subsistence needs and keep them gainfully employed, tropical forests will continue to disappear. We looked at the ability of economic land-use diversification - with reforestation of tropical "wastelands" as a key activity - to halt deforestation at the farm level. Our ecological-economic concept, based on land-use data from the buffer area of the Podocarpus National Park in southern Ecuador, shows that stopping deforestation after 10 years is possible without violating subsistence demands. Tropical, farm-level diversification may not only reduce total deforestation by 45%, but also increase farmers' profits by 65%, because the formerly unproductive wastelands have been returned to productive land use. We therefore conclude that a "win-win" scenario is possible: the subsistence needs of people can be reconciled with conservation objectives. However, inexpensive microcredits (at interest rates below 6%) and experience on alternative land-use opportunities must be offered to farmers.
AB - If tropical farmers cannot be provided with sustainable land-use systems, which address their subsistence needs and keep them gainfully employed, tropical forests will continue to disappear. We looked at the ability of economic land-use diversification - with reforestation of tropical "wastelands" as a key activity - to halt deforestation at the farm level. Our ecological-economic concept, based on land-use data from the buffer area of the Podocarpus National Park in southern Ecuador, shows that stopping deforestation after 10 years is possible without violating subsistence demands. Tropical, farm-level diversification may not only reduce total deforestation by 45%, but also increase farmers' profits by 65%, because the formerly unproductive wastelands have been returned to productive land use. We therefore conclude that a "win-win" scenario is possible: the subsistence needs of people can be reconciled with conservation objectives. However, inexpensive microcredits (at interest rates below 6%) and experience on alternative land-use opportunities must be offered to farmers.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77149123941&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1890/080131
DO - 10.1890/080131
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:77149123941
SN - 1540-9295
VL - 7
SP - 548
EP - 554
JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
IS - 10
ER -