Marquardt, Kristina
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Amazon ecosystem degradation profoundly impacts life supporting processes of global importance such as climate regulation, as well as local conditions for livelihoods. In Peru’s highland jungle, an expanding deforestation front of forest conversion to agriculture has vastly transformed the landscape. Small-scale farming, the main driver of forest degradation, and consequently household natural resource management affect ecosystem functionality. To investigate farmers’ attitudes and priorities to services provided by the ecosystems (ES) we interviewed 51 farmers, both local and colonists. They strongly agreed that over the last three decades, local conditions for livelihoods have deteriorated following forest degradation and climate change. The latter was reported the primary contributor to an impaired life quality and their greatest concern. Overall, local farmers perceived greater environmental change than did colonists who were also more positive towards intensive agriculture and forestry. This should be considered in environmental conservation efforts in the upper Amazon.
Keywords
sustainable development; deforestation; land-cover change; climate change; attitudes; perceptions; migration; colonists; tropical humid forest; agricultural resources; smallholders; rural livelihoods; environmental change; ecosystem services
Published in
International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology
2014, volume: 10, number: 4, pages: 394-418
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG8 Decent work and economic growth
SDG15 Life on land
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJARGE.2014.066258
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/65965