Resilience of Amazonian landscapes to agricultural intensification

Summary

ISBN: 978-94-6257-443-4

Author: Catarina C. Jakovac

Title: Resilience of Amazonian landscapes to agricultural intensification

Swidden cultivation is the traditional agricultural system in riverine Amazonia, which supports local livelihoods and transforms landscapes. In the last decades, riverine Amazonia has been undergoing important transformations related to population migration and market integration. In this study I investigated whether these socio-economic transformations could be inducing agricultural intensification and what are the consequences of such intensification for the resilience of the swidden cultivation systems in the region of the middle-Amazonas river, Brazil. This region is one of the largest producers of cassava flour (farinha in Portuguese) in the Brazilian Amazon, which is the local staple food. By combining information from field surveys, farmers interviews and remote sensing time-series, I investigated how agricultural intensification is taking place at the landscape level, and what are the consequences for secondary forests (fallows) regrowth and swiddens productivity.

The results of this study show that swidden cultivation has been intensified in the last three decades, evidenced by an increase in the frequency of swidden-fallow cycles and a decrease in the length of the fallow period, from 9 to 5 years on average. I also found that agricultural intensification was associated to land accessibility and market orientation. Across the region, swiddens are dominated by a single cassava variety that is preferred by the market, reducing the possibilities for adaptation to pests outbreaks and environmental variations. At the field level, repeated swidden-fallow cycles under a short-fallow-period regime (of 5 yrs) leads to a decrease in the recovery capacity of secondary forests (reduced regrowth rate, lower species alpha- and beta-diversity, and changed species composition). Intensification also leads to a reduction in the labour productivity of swiddens (reduced cassava yield and higher weeding labour demand), and consequently in household income.

I found that management-environment feedbacks play a key role in the decrease of swiddens and fallows productivity. The sprouting and persistent species favoured by cutting, burning and weeding practices are slow growing and form secondary forests with limited potential to fertilize the next cropping field and to suppress weeds. This results in a higher demand for weeding, which in itself will further favour strong-sprouting species. Such feedbacks reinforce the adverse effects of intensification on the environment and for livelihoods. Although farmers recognize thresholds for managing resilience, such as the formation of tired lands (terras cansadas in Portuguese), the combination of a low-nutrient-requiring crop, increasing farinha prices and shortage of accessible land, is encouraging farmers to keep on cultivating in already exhausted lands, and is pushing the system over such threshold.

To enhance the resilience of swidden cultivation systems in the context of riverine Amazonia, management-environment feedbacks should be broken and market opportunities should be broadened beyond cassava, to include forest products that can be harvested within the swidden-fallow landscape, such as nuts, fruits and timber from fast-growing species. Thus, the proper management of secondary succession is key for assuring resilience to swidden-fallow landscapes and for promoting the integration of production and nature conservation in human modified landscapes.