I’ve somewhat neglected my blog of late, thanks to the hectic combination of a stint of fieldwork in the Southern Ethiopian highlands followed closely by the hustle and bustle of moving city to start my PhD.
Over the past few years, I’ve done quite a bit of fieldwork in remote forest regions. I’ve looked at ways we can speed up forest regeneration in heavily logged forest in Borneo, how climate change might affect treetop-dwelling amphibians in Madagascar, and what forest regeneration could mean for carbon capture, orchids, birds and dung beetles in the Colombian Andes. Truth is, I love nothing more than walking through and working in large areas of contiguous forest.
But as much as forests are really what make me tick, it’s impossible to work on the conservation of tropical rainforests without noticing how all of them, pretty much everywhere, are being imperilled by the same thing. Agriculture.
In Borneo, it’s oil palm and timber plantations. In the Andes, it’s cattle ranching. And in Madagascar, as in many other places in the developing world, it’s poverty driven subsistence farming along with a whole slew of other threats like artisanal mining that are chiselling away at remaining forest fragments.
That’s why increasingly I’ve come to the (admittedly not ground-breaking) conclusion that to save forests, you have to work with farmers.
Why farming will determine the future of conservation
As I see it, the trajectory of conservation over the next hundred years can go one of two ways. The first is that we continue along our current pathway of being shackled to unsustainable growth and consumption, committing untold species to extinction and undermining the key life support systems we depend on . The second is that we can get our act together and change how we do things.
How and what we farm, more than anything else we do, will decide which fork in the road we choose to follow. Agriculture is far and away the strongest engine of extinction on our planet. But at the same time, if we can simply improve how we get our food (as well as change what we eat, how much food we waste, and how we distribute food according to needs), we can put less pressure on existing natural ecosystems, and even get started on the wholesale restoration of previously wild places.
Two ways farmers determine conservation outcomes.
Getting food from a smaller area of land can defend natural ecosystems.
The evidence at this point is fairly overwhelming that the best way to help the most wildlife (and particularly rare species) is to separate the areas we do conservation in from the areas where we farm. If we can meet food demands across a smaller area of farmland, this can free-up space for conservation of forests and other ecosystems .
This is called land-sparing agriculture, and for it to work two things are needed. First, farmers have to deploy any of a whole number of strategies for improving farmland yields, from better irrigation and cropping practices to the introduction of better-adapted crop varieties. And second, active mechanisms have to be put in place to ensure that more food produced per unit of land over here leads to more forest being helped over there.
The benefits of land-sparing agriculture can be significant. In the Philippines, introduction of irrigation helped lowland farmers double their yearly rice production, whilst halving deforestation in upland regions.
Farmers as agents of restoration.
We live in exciting times. Never in human history has so much human power been directed towards attempting to recover degraded landscapes. By 2030, scores of nations from around the world have made commitments to restore a total land area larger than India.
Ostensibly, the benefits of restoration activities could be huge for people and the planet. The regrowth of forests on farmlands reconnect species habitats, defending them from the impacts of climate change, whilst also reducing soil erosion and improving water availability for nearby people. Restoration activities can improve crop yields. And there’s even tentative evidence that restoration can improve certain aspects of human health!
Again though, the success of gigantic restoration agendas rests mainly on farmers realising and receiving its benefits. In Northern Ethiopia, farmers assist natural regeneration of trees on their farmlands by building fences. This prevents over-grazing and in turn creates ore fertile soils. In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, forest restoration is being used as a way of lessening the severity of wildfires. And in Brazil, farmers are planting native trees along rivers to secure water quality in return for small yearly payments.
It’s quite simple really.
Since much of the extinction and climate crises of today are being driven by agriculture, it stands to reason that we stand little chance unless we start engaging and working much more with farmers.
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