Suchergebnisse

Tropical ecosystem conversion to agriculture has caused widespread habitat loss and created fragmented landscapes composed of remnant forest patches embedded in a matrix of agricultural land uses. Non- traditional agricultural export (NTAE) crops such as pineapple are rapidly replacing multiuse landscapes characterized by a diverse matrix of pasture and smallholder crops with intensive, large-scale, monoculture plantations. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we conduct a case study to examine the coupled social and ecological implications of LUCC and agricultural intensification in this region, with larger application to regions experiencing similar patterns. Guided by frameworks from both political and landscape ecology, we: (1) describe the social and economic implications of pineapple expansion, specifically the concentration of land, labor and financial resources, (2) quantify pineapple cultivation's spatial characteristics, and (3) assess the effects of pineapple expansion on surrounding forest ecosystems, on the agricultural matrix and on biodiversity conservation. Our results indicate that pineapple production concentrates land, labor, and financial resources, which has a homogenizing effect on the agricultural economy in the study region. This constrains farm-based livelihoods, with larger implications for food security and agricultural diversity. Landscape ecology analyses further reveal how pineapple production simplifies and homogenizes the agricultural matrix between forest patches, which is likely to have a negative effect on biodiversity. To offset the effects of pineapple expansion on social and environmental systems, we recommend developing landscape level land use planning capacity. Furthermore, agricultural and conservation policy reform is needed to promote landscape heterogeneity and economic diversity within the agricultural sector. Our interdisciplinary research provides a detailed examination of the social and ecological impacts of agricultural intensification in a tropical landscape, and offers recommendations for improvement relevant not only to our study region but to the many other tropical landscapes currently undergoing non-traditional agricultural export driven agricultural intensification.

Conversion of tropical ecosystems to agriculture over the past century has created patchwork landscapes of agriculture and remnant forest where stakeholders struggle to balance production and conservation. Recently, agricultural intensification in these landscapes has been replacing heterogeneous mixtures of smallholder crops with intensive, large-scale monoculture plantations of export crops such as oil palm, soybeans, and pineapple. We develop an interdisciplinary approach to examine the coupled social and ecological implications of this process in an agricultural landscape in Costa Rica, with broader application to regions experiencing similar patterns of intensification. We hypothesize that the spread of intensive monoculture pineapple plantations is driving demographic and economic change in local communities, affecting the structure and function of remnant forest, and contributing to the decoupling of social and ecological resilience. To test these hypotheses, we develop a conceptual model linking social and ecological systems, and identify qualitative and quantitative measures to characterize the strength and resilience of these links. We employ methods from political and landscape ecology to collect empirical field data for each measure, and integrate these data to: (1) describe social and economic implications of pineapple expansion, (2) quantify the spatial characteristics of pineapple cultivation, (3) assess the effects of pineapple expansion on biodiversity conservation. Findings are presented back to stakeholders in a series of workshops to strengthen the weak but critical feedback from ecological to social systems. This research answers the urgent call to develop interdisciplinary approaches to understand the complex patterns and processes that drive coupled social and ecological systems. (Texte intégral)

Human wellbeing depends on nature, but in spite of much work by and since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, it is not clear whether existing frameworks adequately analyze this relationship given our increasing market based societies. We report on a reassessment of this situation, developed at the recent workshop "Quantification of Ecosystem Services: concepts and measurement", co-organized by the World Agroforestry Centre, the Centre for International Forestry Research, Bioversity International and Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre. We assessed the need for a new framework, and sought consensus on the meaning of the term "ecosystem services" (ES), on approaches to their measurement and valuation along the full gradient of human modification of landscapes and on how to capture this vital knowledge in green accounting in a way that speaks to policy makers. A new framework is presented that combines both the ES and the livelihood capitals approaches. The ES concept emphasizes the benefits obtained by people from ecosystems and their economic value. In contrast, the multiple-capital livelihood framework has reframed debates on poverty by focusing on assets and resource access, not just on income. However, to maintain ES we need investment in natural capital. New standards for green accounting require clarity on "stocks", "stock change" and "flows". The agro-ecosystems managed to maximize "provisioning services" are both recipients and providers of ES - understanding and managing these dual roles require a framework that can apply to all phases of "forest and rural transitions", as well as the processes of change, so that strategic interventions can be planned. The proposed framework includes direct and indirect ES where benefits are derived from presence of natural capital respectively without and with the involvement of market economy. Thus human, social, cultural and political capitals (human wellbeing) are directly affected by natural capital, and indirectly affected through built and financial capitals (market economy). The benefits derived from ecosystem services must somehow lead to incentives to maintain and restore the natural capital that provides such services. By integrating the livelihood capitals approach, including a revised definition of natural capital, this new framework is applicable across the forest transition curve, and appropriate for assessing changes in importance and interactions of different capitals as societies pass from subsistence to market-based economies. It will also provide insight regarding interactions between people, nature and economy under different scenarios, including payment for ecosystem services schemes, green accounting and others. (Texte intégral)