The use of farmers' knowledge in coffee agroforestry management: implications for the conservation of tree biodiversity

In agroforestry systems, the survival of shade trees is often the result of farmers' deliberate selection. Therefore, how communities generate knowledge and apply it to resource management practices influence the potential for biodiversity conservation of agroforestry systems. In this study, we investigated the use of knowledge by farmers to manage coffee (Coffea arabica) agroforests and the consequences for the conservation of tree biodiversity and composition of surrounding forests. We interviewed 50 coffee farmers to investigate their shade tree preferences and sources of knowledge of the properties of shade trees and coffee management practices; we also conducted tree inventories in 31 coffee farms and 10 forest sites in La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico. Our results showed that farmers are modifying agroforests according to their knowledge and tree preferences, and that the resulting agroforest is lower in tree diversity and dominated by pioneer and farmers' preferred tree species as ...

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  Ecosphere

• Publication date

  2015-07-01

• Fields of study

  Agricultural and Food Sciences, Geography, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1890/ES14-00428.1
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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