Agroforestry as a strategy for the recovery and conservation of carbon stocks in Amazon forests

Abstract

Continuous changes in land use in the Amazon in recent years, mainly due to the conversion of forests through agricultural and extractive practices, have resulted in serious alterations in the structure and functioning of ecosystems with impacts at regional and global scales. The replacement of tropical forests by itinerant agricultural systems is one of the main reasons contributing to carbon emissions into the atmosphere and becoming one of the most important environmental impacts. However, there are documented mechanisms for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+), i) controlling the emission reduction sources through conservation and sustainable management of the forest, and ii) recovering and increasing plant biomass as important sinks through forest restoration strategies. In order to increase efficiency in the recovery and conservation of carbon in vulnerable deforested and degraded forest areas of the Amazon, our objective was to develop an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of agroforestry as a REDD+ alternative, through i) rehabilitation of degraded areas subjected to successive fire and crop cycles, ii) passive restoration of secondary forests, and iii) implementation of improved fallows managing agroforestry species. Agroforestry is an important alternative to recover and conserve carbon stocks through REDD+ activities against the shifting cultivation in the Amazon.