Agroforestry in tomó-aíu: An alternative to pasture in the Amazon

Abstract

This chapter focuses on historical perspectives of land use in Tomó-aíu using remote sensing as a tool to assess land use/land cover and ecosystem goods and services such as carbon sequestration. The results show that agroforestry systems in Tomó-aíu play an important role at the property and landscape scales, trends that should be monitored as they appear to offer an alternative to conversion of forest to pasture. The Amazon-wide dominant trajectory toward conversion to pasture, based on reduced labor needs, if compared to intensive agroforestry systems, requires much more land to yield the same returns to a household at current management levels. If one considers the potential of agroforestry as a source of carbon sequestration, the returns are even higher and may contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse effects.