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Trade-offs between multifunctionality and profit in tropical smallholder landscapes.

Authors :
Grass, Ingo
Kubitza, Christoph
Krishna, Vijesh V.
Corre, Marife D.
Mußhoff, Oliver
Pütz, Peter
Drescher, Jochen
Rembold, Katja
Ariyanti, Eka Sulpin
Barnes, Andrew D.
Brinkmann, Nicole
Brose, Ulrich
Brümmer, Bernhard
Buchori, Damayanti
Daniel, Rolf
Darras, Kevin F. A.
Faust, Heiko
Fehrmann, Lutz
Hein, Jonas
Hennings, Nina
Source :
Nature Communications; 3/4/2020, Vol. 11 Issue 1, p1-13, 13p
Publication Year :
2020

Abstract

Land-use transitions can enhance the livelihoods of smallholder farmers but potential economic-ecological trade-offs remain poorly understood. Here, we present an interdisciplinary study of the environmental, social and economic consequences of land-use transitions in a tropical smallholder landscape on Sumatra, Indonesia. We find widespread biodiversity-profit trade-offs resulting from land-use transitions from forest and agroforestry systems to rubber and oil palm monocultures, for 26,894 aboveground and belowground species and whole-ecosystem multidiversity. Despite variation between ecosystem functions, profit gains come at the expense of ecosystem multifunctionality, indicating far-reaching ecosystem deterioration. We identify landscape compositions that can mitigate trade-offs under optimal land-use allocation but also show that intensive monocultures always lead to higher profits. These findings suggest that, to reduce losses in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, changes in economic incentive structures through well-designed policies are urgently needed. Identifying economic and ecological trade-offs of land-use transitions is important to ensure sustainability. Here, Grass et al. find biodiversity-profit trade-offs in tropical land-use transitions in Sumatra, and show that targeted landscape planning is needed to increase land-use efficiency while ensuring socio-ecological sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20411723
Volume :
11
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Nature Communications
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
142062252
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15013-5