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Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 671–682 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Agricultural intensification, an increase in per-area productivity, may spare forests otherwise lost to agricultural expansion. Yet which conditions enable such sparing or whether intensification amplifies deforestation through rebound effects remains hotly debated. Using a multilevel Bayesian regression framework, we analyse the effects of agricultural intensification on deforestation in the world’s understudied and threatened tropical dry forests. We find that, overall, intensification has not lowered deforestation in tropical dry forests, particularly in countries where commodity crop production dominates—a situation typical for many areas where agriculture is expanding. However, country-level intensification reduced deforestation in areas where Indigenous land stewardship is widespread. More appropriately acknowledging the critical role of Indigenous peoples in preventing rebound effects, either on their lands or on the wider surrounding area, as well as recognizing and enforcing their rights, could thus translate into major opportunities for agricultural intensification to deliver positive outcomes for people and nature.

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Fig. 1: Framework for assessing how agricultural intensification relates to forest loss.
Fig. 2: Yield change and forest loss dynamics.
Fig. 3: Conditional interaction effects of market orientation and Indigenous land stewardship across continents.
Fig. 4: Social–ecological context in TDF regions.
Fig. 5: Potential future forest loss associated with agricultural intensification.

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Data availability

Datasets used in this analysis are publicly available. Forest cover and loss data are available at https://data.globalforestwatch.org/; agricultural production statistics are available at https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data; population density data are available at https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/gpw-v4-population-density-rev11; accessibility data are available at https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Travel_time_to_cities_and_ports_in_the_year_2015/7638134; agricultural suitability data are available at https://www.gaez.iiasa.ac.at/. Indigenous peoples’ lands data were derived from the spatial layer created in https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0100-6, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data. However, data are available from the corresponding author S.T.G. of the original paper upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 101001239 SYSTEMSHIFT). Á.F.-L. was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). This work contributes to the Global Land Programme (https://glp.earth).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Marie Pratzer, Tobias Krueger, Matthias Baumann & Tobias Kuemmerle

  2. Integrative Research Institute for Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Marie Pratzer, Tobias Krueger & Tobias Kuemmerle

  3. Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares

  4. Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Patrick Meyfroidt

  5. F.R.S.-FNRS, Brussels, Belgium

    Patrick Meyfroidt

  6. Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, Northern Territory, Australia

    Stephen T. Garnett

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Contributions

M.P., P.M. and T. Kuemmerle conceived the research idea. M.P., Á.F.-L., M.B. and S.T.G. collected the data. M.P. led the design of the analytical framework, the data analysis and the writing. T. Krueger contributed to the data analysis. Á.F.-L., P.M., T. Krueger, M.B., S.T. G. and T. Kuemmerle contributed to the interpretation of results and the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Marie Pratzer.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Conditional effects of market orientation and Indigenous land stewardship across continents.

Curves show the mean effect and shadows the 95% credible interval of the posterior distribution when all model predictors, besides the one of interest, are set to their mean value or reference category. Green curves represent the average continent-level effect of yield change on forest loss on lands without Indigenous land stewardship. Red and blue curves show how the relationships between yield change and forest loss is affected by high (1 standard deviation above mean) or low (1 standard deviation below mean) values of market orientation, or presence of Indigenous lands.

Extended Data Fig. 2 High influence of rice classification on modelled effect of share of non-staple crops (approximating market orientation) in Asia.

a, With rice classified as non-staple crop, interaction effect of share of non-staples reinforces positive relationship of yield change and forest loss in Asia. b, With rice classified as staple crop, share of non-staples has a dampening effect on the positive relationship of yield change and forest loss in Asia.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Modelled effect of yield change from earlier time periods on forest loss in the study period.

The modelled effect of yield change on past time periods showed the same trend and was of comparable magnitude as the effect of yield change in the study period, thus strengthening the assumption that the temporal design of our analysis did not miss significant time lag effects of intensification on deforestation.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Predictive checks.

a–b, Comparing observations to a sample of 100 a, prior model predictions generated according to our final prior specifications, and b, posterior model predictions based on priors and data, provided insights about the plausibility of model assumptions and the reliability of model results.

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Supplementary Notes 1–7, Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2, and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2.

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Pratzer, M., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Meyfroidt, P. et al. Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests. Nat Sustain 6, 671–682 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01073-0

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