TY - JOUR
T1 - Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests
AU - Pratzer, Marie
AU - Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro
AU - Meyfroidt, Patrick
AU - Krueger, Tobias
AU - Baumann, Matthias
AU - Garnett, Stephen T.
AU - Kuemmerle, Tobias
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 101001239 SYSTEMSHIFT). Á.F.-L. was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). This work contributes to the Global Land Programme ( https://glp.earth ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - Agricultural intensification, an increase in per-area productivity, may spare forests otherwise lost to agricultural expansion. Yet which conditions enable such sparing or whether intensification amplifies deforestation through rebound effects remains hotly debated. Using a multilevel Bayesian regression framework, we analyse the effects of agricultural intensification on deforestation in the world’s understudied and threatened tropical dry forests. We find that, overall, intensification has not lowered deforestation in tropical dry forests, particularly in countries where commodity crop production dominates—a situation typical for many areas where agriculture is expanding. However, country-level intensification reduced deforestation in areas where Indigenous land stewardship is widespread. More appropriately acknowledging the critical role of Indigenous peoples in preventing rebound effects, either on their lands or on the wider surrounding area, as well as recognizing and enforcing their rights, could thus translate into major opportunities for agricultural intensification to deliver positive outcomes for people and nature.
AB - Agricultural intensification, an increase in per-area productivity, may spare forests otherwise lost to agricultural expansion. Yet which conditions enable such sparing or whether intensification amplifies deforestation through rebound effects remains hotly debated. Using a multilevel Bayesian regression framework, we analyse the effects of agricultural intensification on deforestation in the world’s understudied and threatened tropical dry forests. We find that, overall, intensification has not lowered deforestation in tropical dry forests, particularly in countries where commodity crop production dominates—a situation typical for many areas where agriculture is expanding. However, country-level intensification reduced deforestation in areas where Indigenous land stewardship is widespread. More appropriately acknowledging the critical role of Indigenous peoples in preventing rebound effects, either on their lands or on the wider surrounding area, as well as recognizing and enforcing their rights, could thus translate into major opportunities for agricultural intensification to deliver positive outcomes for people and nature.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147742207&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41893-023-01073-0
DO - 10.1038/s41893-023-01073-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147742207
SN - 2398-9629
VL - 6
SP - 671
EP - 682
JO - Nature Sustainability
JF - Nature Sustainability
IS - 6
ER -