Details about publication
| Author(s): | Tomich TP, M van Noordwijk, SA Vosti and J Witcover |
| Title: | Agricultural development with Rainforest Conservation: Methods for Seeking Best Bet Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn, with Applications to Brazil and Indonesia |
| Publication: | Agricultural Economics 19: 159-174. Reprinted in The Economic Development of Southeast Asia. In Hal Hill, ed., Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Type: | Journal Article |
| Abstract: | Forests continue to fall for agricultural purposes throughout the humid tropics, with immediate and potentially large consequences for climate change and biodiversity loss¯¯issues of key interest to the international community. Some of the actors directly responsible for forest conversion fell trees to meet food security needs and alleviate poverty¯¯issues of urgent interest to them and also to national policymakers. This multiplicity of groups with differing (often conflicting) interests in the multifarious goods and services produced by tropical forests complicates the search for alternative agricultural activities for forest margins since these alternatives must satisfy such divergent objectives. This paper sets out a conceptual framework for comparing the impacts of different land use systems and agricultural practices at the margins of tropical rainforests in terms of the concerns and objectives of two key interest groups: small-scale farmers seeking livelihoods at the forest margins and the `international’ interests in the global public goods and services supplied by tropical rainforests. This framework should be useful to a third key group, the national and regional policymakers who must consider these and other policy objectives and then decide on courses of action. The paper identifies data needs and analytical methods capable of supplying an empirical base for this conceptual framework, based on quantifiable indicators. It then presents preliminary results of the application of this conceptual framework in Indonesia and Brazil in association with a global, collaborative, multidisciplinary research program. Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved |
| Keywords: | Rainforests; upland farming systems; agricultural development; agronomic sustainability; climate change; biodiversity; amazon; brazil; sumatra; indonesia |
| Corresponding Author: | Thomas Tomich (T.Tomich@cgiar.org) |
| See also: | Agricultural Economics |
| Region: | Amazon Southeast Asia Global |
| Topic: | Climate Change Biodiversity Sustainability Poverty, Policy and Deforestation |