Economically viable forest restoration in shifting cultivation landscapes

Abstract

Shifting cultivation is a predominant land use across the tropics, feeding hundreds of millions of marginalised people, causing significant deforestation, and encompassing a combined area of land ten-fold greater than that used for oil palm and rubber. A key question is whether carbon-based payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes can cost-effectively bring novel restoration and carbon-sensitive management practices to shifting agriculture. Using economic models that uniquely consider the substantial area of fallow land needed to support a single cultivated plot, we calculated the break-even carbon prices required for PES to match the opportunity cost of intervention in shifting agriculture. We do so in the North-east Indian biodiversity hotspot, where 35.4% of land is managed under shifting agriculture. We found net revenues of US$829.53-2581.95 per 30 ha when fallow area is included, which are an order of magnitude lower than previous estimates. Abandoning shifting agriculture entirely is highly feasible with break-even prices as low as US$1.33 t −1 CO 2 , but may conflict with food security. The oldest fallow plots could be fully restored for US$0.89 t −1 CO 2 and the expansion of shifting agriculture into primary forest halted for US$0.51 t −1 CO 2 , whereas abandoning short-fallow systems would cost US$12.60 t −1 CO 2 . A precautionary reanalysis accounting for extreme economic uncertainty and leakage costs suggests that all interventions, excluding abandoning short-fallow systems, remain economically viable with prices less than US$4.00 t −1 CO 2 . Even with poorly formed voluntary carbon markets, shifting agriculture represents a critical opportunity for low-cost forest restoration whilst diversifying income streams of marginalised communities across a vast area.

Secondary tropical forests recover dung beetle functional diversity and trait composition

“…This offers great conservation promise given the expected increase in the extent of secondary forest cover via further land abandonment and FLR programmes. The low profitability of marginal agricultural land in the Tropical Andes (Gilroy et al , 2014) and elsewhere (Morton et al in press), combined with high rates of land abandonment, suggest that these regions likely represent strong opportunities to promote low‐cost forest regrowth. With additional carbon sequestration benefits (Gilroy et al , 2014; Poorter et al , 2016; Lennox et al , 2018), promotion of natural forest regrowth offers an attractive opportunity for conservation to recover and protect high levels of species and functional diversity.…”

The value of shifting cultivation for biodiversity in Northeast India

“…First, ~93% of forests in Nagaland are owned and managed by village councils (Bhupathy et al, 2013) and vary in their protection status. Incorporating mature secondary or old‐growth forest areas in protected area networks co‐managed with local communities can be effective in conserving forest cover (Oldekop et al, 2016; Sze et al, 2022) at minimal cost given that shifting cultivation is subsistence‐based farming mainly practised in remote regions with low crop yields (Borrego & Skutsch, 2014; Morton et al, 2020). However, the opportunity costs of PES implementation to local communities could be high due to limited market access and structural barriers to adopting alternative livelihoods (e.g., Poudyal et al, 2016).…”

Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes

“…Opportunity costs of restoration also vary enormously. They can be substantially greater than implementation costs 113 but can be particularly low when allowing natural regeneration on marginal ll R1334 Current Biology 31, R1326-R1341, October 11, 2021 Review agricultural lands, such as remote pastures in the Colombian Andes ($1.99 t À1 CO 2 ) 32 and the oldest fallow plots in shifting cultivation in North-east India ($0.89 t À1 CO 2 ) 114 . Restoration will often make economic sense to society as a whole, but not necessarily to local communities, making long-term fiscal transfers essential if restoration is to be equitable or sustained 115 .…”

“…Natural regeneration can be extremely cost-effective 32,76,114 , reducing implementation costs by $US$90.6 billion across the Brazilian Atlantic compared with tree-planting approaches 76 . Costs of assisted natural regeneration, especially liana cutting or thinning of competing vegetation, are also modest.…”