Can tropical farmers reconcile subsistence needs with forest conservation?

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.