Journal
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Volume 7, Issue 10, Pages 548-554Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1890/080131
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [FOR 816]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
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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.
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