Abstract
Chinese torreya (Torreya grandis cv. Merrillii) is an important cash tree in southeastern China and this species plays a major role in local economy. Establishing new plantations of Chinese torreya would be necessary in order to receive more economic benefit. However, expanding the area of torreya plantations would conflict with other land-use and also affect regional biodiversity. Under this context, local people and government made a paradigm shift from nuts productivity to sustainable practices. They explored the multi-functionalities of Chinese torreya forests, such as the social, cultural, environmental and health functionalities, and developed ecotourism as a breakthrough. The development of multi-functionalities of torreya plantations greatly improved the local economy and led a success in the local society. The strategy of this case completely followed the principles of sustainable intensification of agriculture and translational ecology, which involve scientists, stakeholders and policy makers to emphasize landscape multi-functionalities and minimize environmental impacts of operations. The knowledge from this study may be helpful to research in other regions.
Highlights
Agriculture is mainly to provide sufficient food for the growing human population, which is predicted to require an increase of global food about 60~110% by 2050 (Foley et al, 2005; Pardey, Beddow, Hurley, Beatty, & Eidman, 2014)
Through collaboration of stakeholders, scientists and decision makers, the local society has been exploring the multi-functionalities of Chinese torreya forest with the goal of gaining more income and minimizing environmental impacts
Under the context of maintaining the resilience of local landscape to biodiversity and rapid global environmental change and satisfying human needs, a paradigm shift to sustainable intensification of agriculture should be enhanced by exploring the multi-functionalities and with less environmental impacts
Summary
Agriculture is mainly to provide sufficient food for the growing human population, which is predicted to require an increase of global food about 60~110% by 2050 (Foley et al, 2005; Pardey, Beddow, Hurley, Beatty, & Eidman, 2014). Sustainable intensification of agriculture is to enhance agricultural productivity while reducing environmental impacts (e.g., water supply, gas emissions, and pollutions) (Conway, 1997; Godfray & Garnett, 2014) To achieve this goal, agriculture needs to incorporate approach from landscape ecology, which smartly use ecological functionalities of natural ecosystems. Merrillii) is an important cash tree and a main source of income for the local farmers in southeastern China (Figure 1) It was developed from a quality grafted tree species through carefully artificial selecting in a long time ago (e.g., a thousand years ago) at Kuaiji Mountain area in China (Li & Dai, 2007). There are several problems have to be solved before creating new torreya plantations
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