A Look at Amazon Basin Seasonal Dynamics with the Biophysical ...

Can traditional agroforestry practices stabilize forest borders, reduce edge effects andfire hazards while increasing community wellbeing ? The case of rubber agroforestsin the Tapajós National Forest, ParáGötz Schroth and Paulo CoutinhoBiological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, National Institute for Research in theAmazon, C.P. 478, 69011-970 Manaus-AM, Brazil; Tel.: 55-92-642 1148, Fax: 55-92-6422050, Email: schroth@inpa.gov.brAbstractThroughout the tropics, farmers threaten primary forests with conversion into slash-andburnplots and pastures and expose forest borders to the degrading effects of timberextraction, hunting, wind damage and fire. However, certain traditional agroforestrypractices may have the potential to "soften" the edge between forest and agriculture and, inconcert with effectively enforced conservation legislation, may help to protect forests fromdegradation. At the same time, they may offer income opportunities for farmercommunities at the forest frontier. The traditional rubber agroforests in the lower Tapajósregion, which have been studied in a farm survey comprising the Tapajós National Forestand neighboring areas, are a case in point. On the margins of the Tapajós river, where in the1930s and 40s attempts to establish industrial rubber monocultures in Amazoniaspectacularly failed, small farmers have been cultivating the rubber tree for over a centuryby sowing locally collected seeds into their slash-and-burn plots. Extensive management ofthe plantations and their periodic abandonment at times of low rubber prices favor thedevelopment of secondary forest-like systems, where rubber trees are associated withvariable amounts of spontaneous regrowth, often including large forest trees. In parts of thepopulation zone of the Tapajós National Forest, these systems form the transition betweenagricultural land and forest. We hypothesize that the small-scale mosaic of permanentagroforests and slash-and-burn plots which can be found along the forest boundariesobliges the farmers to closely control the use of fire, thereby also protecting the forest.Furthermore, while the otherwise very similar "jungle rubber" systems of south-east Asiaare clear-felled and burnt every few decades because of exhaustion of the rubber trees,locally developed management practices allow to maintain Amazonian rubber agroforestsover much longer time periods. We propose the integration of local agroforestry practicesinto forest management plans as a step in the harmonization of forest conservation andcommunity development.