Unsustainable landscapes of deforested Amazonia: An analysis of the relationships among landscapes and the social,economic and environmental profiles of farms at different ages following deforestation

In Amazonia, our knowledge of the trade-offs and possible thresholds in the relationships among social, economic and environmental parameters remains quite limited and hinders the design of sustainable socio-environmental systems. To fill this gap, we analyzed relationships among landscape metrics, socio-economic patterns, biodiversity and soil-based ecosystem services within a total of 51 farms located at 6 sites of the Colombian and Brazilian Amazon. Farms were representative of an initial set of 274 and they represented colonization ages from 10 to 80 years and a range of public policies found in the region.Cluster analysis separated farms in 7 types of production systems according to 5 main criteria (size of the farm, human capital, incomes, farm products and production intensity) selected from an initial set of 18 criteria. Biodiversity was summarized into a composite index Bd built with data from 8 different groups: trees, shrubs, grasses and forbs, birds, Saturnidae and Sphingidae moths, Drosophilidae, earthworms and ants. Provision of ecosystem services was quantified by a composite indicator of 6 sub-indicators of soil hydrological functions, C storage and chemical fertility. Increasing intensity of production systems was linked to a significant decrease of indicators of natural capital biodiversity (Bd) and soil based ecosystem services (Es) with 20% and 37.3% variance explained, respectively. No relationship was observed between production systems and an indicator of human wellbeing (Sb) based on a set of 5 criteria identified with the farmers. Findings indicate that early colonizers migrate when a certain level of development has been achieved (as a result of their activities) and are replaced by wealthier populations.An overall indicator of sustainability (Su) – that combines production efficiency (Ep), Sb, Bd and Es indices (ranging from 0.1–1.0) – decreases significantly with the landscape intensification (Li) with 18.7% variance directly explained by this relationship. Su was also significantly related to production systems (36.4% variance explained): while this indicator remained relatively stable with a value of 0.5 across the early and intermediate phases following deforestation, it dropped down considerably (0.2) for production systems based on cattle ranching on highly degraded pastures with less than 2% forest cover remaining. Restoration with sylvopastoral systems allowed some farms of this former group to increase sustainability to a value of 0.35 after less than 5 years. Agroforestry systems on sites deforested at the same time maintained values around 0.5, as they allowed the maximum production efficiencies and maintained relatively high values of the Biodiversity (Bd) and Ecosystem services (Es) indexes. This is evidence that beyond the general negative trade-off between human development and natural capital observed in Amazonia, agro ecological options to revert the trend are quite promising. A general methodological approach for the reconstruction of sustainable landscapes in farms of the deforested Amazonian region is proposed as a conclusion.     

能登里山和里海的保护与复兴工作(英文)

在日本石川县能登半岛的"能登里山和里海系统"是在人类长期影响之下形成并维持的与高产的沿海地区互联的社会生态生产景观,不仅支撑了传统而多样的农业、林业和渔业产业,同时也维持了当地的生计和丰富的生物多样性。自2011年"能登里山和里海系统"成为全球重要农业文化遗产,地区政府、当地社区、学者、国际机构和私营部门都为其保护和复兴工作积极努力。已采取一些举措如成立"石川里山创成基金"、促进维持与保护石川的里山的点数换礼券制度、"能登米"品牌建设、大学培训课程等等。本文通过近期新计划和已有框架下的保护与复兴工作的案例研究来讨论能登全球重要农业文化遗产的发展。本文还将介绍联合国大学高等研究所石川金泽分所进行的可持续第一产业(SPI)研究项目中有关能登全球农业文化遗产的研究成果和未来方案。