Abstract
Many forests under community use in tropical countries become degraded and lose carbon stocks as a result of agricultural activities such as shifting cultivation and cattle grazing, although these processes rarely result in deforestation. A better understanding of processes specifically causing forest degradation may be of interest to policy makers concerned with the design of programs to conserve forests, for example under international policy on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). On the basis of data from a farmer survey carried out in the western Pacific area of Mexico, this study uses a cross-sectional regression model to identify the variables that explain variations between groups of farmers in the amounts of land temporarily cleared for shifting cultivation, which results in decreasing the density of forest biomass. We found that, contrary to common perception about shifting cultivation, within each community, many farmers, both richer and poorer, carry out shifting cultivation. Moreover, it is the wealthier farmers that are making more temporary clearances for such activities when compared with those with less resources. We conclude that, for effectiveness in the design of national programs for REDD+, intra-community differences in farmer status should be taken into account. Moreover, REDD+ interventions should consider the impacts of this program on farmers without rights to land.
Highlights
In many regions around the world, services and products of forests play an important role in the maintenance of the livelihoods of households living in the local communities and may be an important component in communities’ economic development [1,2,3,4]
The group that had cleared land was divided into those who cleared only to establish permanent cultivation or pasture, those who cleared only for shifting cultivation, and those that cleared both for shifting cultivation and permanent cultivation or pasture (Figure 2)
Similar to the shifting cultivation (SC) regression model, the amount of tropical dry forest (TDF) owned by farmers in the Permanent Agriculture and Shifting Cultivators (PA&SC) group was positive and significant at the 1% level (β = 0.08, p < 0.01), suggesting that the availability of TDF
Summary
In many regions around the world, services and products of forests play an important role in the maintenance of the livelihoods of households living in the local communities and may be an important component in communities’ economic development [1,2,3,4]. Deforestation is the major contributor to carbon emissions in many tropical countries, degradation (understood here as the loss of woody biomass in forest that remains forest, and often referred to by foresters as ‘disturbance’) is a considerable source of emissions at a national level [8,9,10]. This is because activities which cause degradation result in relatively low carbon stock losses per hectare per year, such activities are very widespread and affect a large proportion of all forests. There have been large numbers of studies investigating causes and costs of deforestation [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]
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