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Agroforestry in the western Amazon – opportunities for new markets and threats from expanding natural resource extraction
Focali researcher Torsten Krause reports about his research findings
The western Amazon region is an area of astounding diversity. However, the region undergoes dramatic changes and forests are cleared for conversion to large scale agriculture, forests are fragmented by roads, and at risk from oil production and mining.
Many studies depict multistrata agroforestry systems, also referred to as home or forest gardens, as a potential and more sustainable forest land-use option, compared to intensive agriculture, with long term environmental and social benefits.
This is due to that these systems represent a source of income under a more sustainable land-use while possibly helping to curb tropical deforestation. But despite its social and environmental benefits many current conservation and development initiatives fail to acknowledge the importance of maintaining agroforestry systems. Thus, there is a gap between strict environmental protection policies on one hand and the support of sustainable natural resource management for local food production on the other hand.
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