AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY

Abstract

Biodiversity conservation and food production involve a balance with simple route solutions, however, a change from conventional agrarian models and animal breeding to agroforestry is important to reach a balance between the economy and conservation. Agroforestry systems (AFS) of tropical countries provide an old approach renovated to face the need to feed a growing population and avoid damage to the ecosystems where food production is achieved. New studies have increased the evidence that it is possible to consider the potential of agroforestry since the decade of 1980, to improve the status of biodiversity without stopping agricultural production, and the countries of Costa Rica, México and Nicaragua stand out in this practice. Notably, researchers of biological diversity associated to Mesoamerican agroforestry systems have centered their attention primarily on nine biological groups: ants, bats, birds, butterflies, dung beetles, mammals, soil macrofauna, mollusks and land plants. There is an increasingly large tendency of studies about biodiversity conservation in areas under cultivation or livestock production, and in both cases trees are included. AFS can only help to reduce the negative impact that agriculture and grazing systems have on biodiversity, in conjunction with the network of protected areas in a region, and this synergy can increase the ability for biological conservation of the territory, together with an increase in economic benefits for the rural society.