Balancing rainforest conservation and poverty reduction

The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Pro-gramme is a global alliance of more than 80 local, national, and international partners dedicated to action-oriented integrated natural resources management (INRM) research in the tropical forest margins. ASB research in Cameroon and Indonesia has revealed the feasibility of a middle path of development involving smallholder agroforests and community forest management for timber and other products. The Brazilian Amazon, in contrast, presents much starker trade-offs between global environmental benefits and the returns to smallholders’ labor. Here, the most commonly practiced pasture-livestock system, which occupies the vast majority of converted forestland, is profitable for smallholders (at least in the short term) but entails huge carbon emissions and biodi- versity loss. The land-use alternatives that are attractive pri- vately are at odds with global environmental interests. Results from ASB research at all the benchmark sites show that attempting to conserve forests in developing countries is futile without addressing the needs of poor local people. The issues are well illustrated by a study of options facing settlers in Brazil’s Acre state. Using a specially developed bioeconomic model, ASB researchers showed that only in the unlikely event that prices quadrupled over their current level might the rate of deforestation slow. Even in that case, the braking effect is slight, and the modest sav- ing in forestland would probably be short-lived

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