Integrating Agriculture, Conservation and Ecotourism: Societal Influences

295 Pages·2012·2.14 MB·English

by  Charles Francis

Integrating Agriculture, Conservation
and Ecotourism: Societal In fl uences
Issues in Agroecology – Present Status
and Future Prospectus
Volume 2
Series Editors
W. Bruce Campbell and Silvia López Ortíz
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/8794
W. Bruce Campbell • Silvia López Ortíz
Editors
Integrating Agriculture,
Conservation
and Ecotourism:
Societal In fl uences
Editors
W. Bruce Campbell Silvia López Ortíz
Colegio de Postgraduados Range Ecology and Management
Campus Veracruz Colegio de Postgraduados
Veracruz, Mexico Campus Veracruz
Veracruz, Mexico
ISSN 2211-2405 ISSN 2211-2413 (electronic)
ISBN 978-94-007-4484-4 ISBN 978-94-007-4485-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4485-1
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012940848
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
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Foreword
Managing for sustainability is a necessary adaptive strategy
Agriculture is a human practice that provides for human needs (e.g., Pretty 2008).
Early forms of agriculture were rooted under natural conditions, and date back over
10,000 years (Rowley-Conwy 2009; Pringle 1998); practices which provided for
the needs of the small human populations/settlements in existence at the time.
Natural ecosystem services (e.g., pollination, regeneration of soil fertility, pest
control, and water) maintained the signi fi cant and natural productivity of the small-
scale agrarian and agroforestry practices. Yet, as millennia passed, human societies
evolved and grew, eventually forcing these practices to become uncoupled from
their original societal locations, and from nature in size and scope, and in complexity
and longevity (by doing the same thing for a long time within and over years).
Over the last 300 years, agriculture has expanded globally, with the tropics currently
expanding rapidly while Europe and North America have substantially reduced
their rate of expansion (Johnson et al. 2011). Crop variability and heterogeneity
have declined over space and time, production has become primarily a resource
extraction industry, and distribution of food often is not equitable. Over the last
65 years (post World War II), the increased availability of pesticides, fertilizers, and
ever-more technical machinery have strongly promoted agricultural intensi fi cation,
simpli fi ed management and landscapes, and increased the extent of monocultures.
These commercial operations, although successful at feeding much larger and
rapidly growing human populations, quickly depleted the soils of natural nutrients,
requiring ever-growing quantities of industrial fertilizers and water to compensate,
as well as the expansion, shift, or conversion of areas into those for new cultivation.
Yet, such verdant growth over abnormally large spaces and long time-periods, while
bene fi cial to human society, also provided an increasing attraction for invasive pests,
leading to increased pesticide use to control them. Although the publication of
‘Silent Spring’ (Carson 1962) resulted from the response to a culmination of envi-
ronmental effects caused by society as a whole, modern agriculture at the time played
the largest role in its development (e.g., the use of DDT as a universal insecticide).
v
vi Foreword
This moment in time marked a turning point for human society in industrialized
regions of the world toward a reduction of environmental impact and an improvement
in the quality of life; a reconnection between agriculture, society, and environment/
ecology, and formalized the different but interwoven trajectories of agroecology
as a practice, as a movement, and as a science. Yet, change at the societal level is
much slower due to entrenched societal dependencies (e.g., market stability and
expectations, product availability) and the large and complex spatial and temporal
scales involved (e.g., Jackson and Hobbs 2009). Although progress is being made,
some species and habitats have never recovered from this historic growth of human
in fl uence, and more are likely to re fl ect a similar fate in the future; a time-delayed
legacy of negative impact.
Very rapidly, agriculture and society responded by regulating the use of pesticides,
managing ef fl uent discharges into the environment, and banning the use of some
chemicals. In addition, given the negative impacts brought about by some agricultural
techniques (e.g., increased nitrates in groundwater, increased soil erosion), many
fi eld practices were improved to reduce off-farm impacts (e.g., increased use of
compost, altered tillage practices). Gradually, a greater degree of appreciation for
less resource/energy-intensive agriculture was promoted, including that of organic
cultivation and ranching, indicating a movement toward a re-coupling of agriculture,
society, and the environment for improved sustainability and quality of life
(e.g., Robertson and Swinton 2005); although the continued rise in human population
on the planet and in violations of planetary thresholds (e.g., biodiversity, freshwater,
nitrogen; Rockstrom et al. 2009) may yet impede this progress. While developed
countries bene fi ted from these capacities to buffer against such negative changes
and began to reduce the amount of land used for agriculture, underdeveloped or
developing regions were quickly growing their capacities because of previous
investments based on future international commercial trade and growing domestic
and international usage as means of alleviating poverty. Such regions of the world
very often have a predominance of poverty, sociocultural and political divisions,
and cultural and gender inequities, and are now experiencing additional in fl uences
with delayed effects and uncertain and complex consequences. On the one hand,
there is great investment in their development and cultivation of products for export,
and a general bene fi t in the quality of life for these areas due to greater income and
capital; provided this economic injection is equitably distributed (gender equity
included). Many people see the bene fi ts gained by earlier efforts in the Global North
and seek to promote similar improvements in the Global South. At the same time,
however, the tropics and other similar regions are subject to a greater rate of loss of
biodiversity (e.g., Bradshaw et al. 2009), unequal access to environmental resources
(e.g., clean freshwater) or production equity (food or revenue), loss of environmental
quality as a result of rapidly expanding societies and agricultural production, and
insuf fi cient infrastructures for constructing adequate levels of treatment for the
resultant wastes or damage. Such declines have fueled the rise in sustainability
certi fi cation programs to ensure an ever-more consumptive public that the commodities
for sale were produced under conditions that did not promote negative in fl uences.
Yet, such programs are themselves subject to different dynamic socio-economic
Foreword vii
pressures within developed, developing, and underdeveloped regions and countries,
leading to distributors and consumers increasing their doubts that sustainability
efforts are satisfactory or being made at all. This overall situation provides the
general backdrop for both Volume 1 – I ntegrating Agriculture, Conservation, and
Ecotourism: Examples from the Field , and Volume 2 in the series – I ntegrating
Agriculture, Conservation, and Ecotourism: Societal In fl uences . Both volumes
approach the issues and recovery (advances and setbacks, costs and bene fi ts) from
different angles, but without losing connections with or necessities for the other;
human beings and their activities are inextricably part of the agroecological land-
scape. Clearly, agroecological concepts, de fi nitions, and processes are complexly
intertwined with social, political, economic, and cultural issues across dynamic
spatial and temporal scales, and this perspective is very different from that envisioned
nearly 40 years ago.
Our intention here is to present progress in agroecology (as a science, movement,
or practice) as sets of signi fi cant positive deviations from past trajectories connected
with negative impacts and lack of sustainability (agricultural, environmental/
ecological, societal). Increases in sustainable agriculture through conservation efforts,
the injection of economic bene fi ts, ecotourism and agritourism, certi fi cation, and
food, fi nancial and gender equity represent substantial and tangible means of acquir-
ing capital and infrastructural support that may not otherwise have been or currently
be available for many people. This is especially true with regard to the high interna-
tional values of large-scale agricultural conservation strategies (e.g., shade coffee,
cacao, agroforestry, birds, and pollinators); small-scale commodities may not be as
well-bene fi ted unless they can, for example, be coalesced into regional cooperatives
that hold similar value, or be independently provided with suf fi cient access to the
diverse domestic and international markets that contain greater fi nancial opportunities.
While not every method employed to improve sustainability will be equal in bene fi t,
or be a ‘magical cure’ for what ails us in all circumstances, it is important to see
these attempts, long- or short-lived, slow or rapid to develop, as means of continually
moving forward (e.g., Tomich et al. 2011), of constantly exploring novel in-roads in
the search for improvement; of becoming or being more adaptive to changing or
evolving needs. In this sense, such attempts are the results of experiential learning
exercises built collaboratively from science, agriculture, education, society, eco-
nomics and trade; exercises that span large spatial and temporal scales, and multiple
stakeholders from all walks of life both young and old. Given that society, people,
and nature are indeed dynamically intertwined and changing, the exercises and
results they deliver must also be, and by their very nature, are adaptive. The continued
progress toward improved sustainability can thus be seen as a necessarily adaptive
strategy (e.g., Nyberg and Taylor 1995; Walters 1997), but one that must be hastened
with rules and regulations modi fi ed to be more adaptive if we are to signi fi cantly
stem the negative effects from past, present, and future sources of in fl uence.
This series was developed not only to provide timely reviews of important issues
involving agroecology, but to identify gaps in knowledge, novel routes of valuable
information in the pursuit of sustainability, and avenues of investigation and appli-
cation that continue to help keep our focus on the path ahead. As well, the design of
viii Foreword
this review series is such that topics can be revisited rapidly with new information,
thus assisting routes of investigation and application by providing an adaptive
in fl uence. It is our sincerest wish that the reviews contained in these and succeeding
volumes of this series provide a signi fi cant boost in achieving this objective.
Dr. W. Bruce Campbell
Dr. Silvia López Ortíz
CoEditors-In-Chief
References
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Front Ecol Environ 7(2):79–87
Carson RL (1962) Silent spring. Houghton and Mif fl in Co., New York
Jackson ST, Hobbs RJ (2009) Ecological restoration in the light of ecological history. Science
325:567–569
Johnson RJ, Jedlicka JA, Quinn JE, Brandle JR (2011) Global perspectives on birds in agricultural
landscapes. In: Campbell WB, López Ortíz S (eds) Issues in agroecology – present status and
future prospectus, Volume 1, Integrating agriculture, conservation and ecotourism: examples
from the fi eld. Springer Science + Business Media B.V., Dordrecht, pp 55–140
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(2009) Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecol Soc
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Tomich TP, Brodt S, Ferris S, Galt R, Horwath WR, Kebreab E, Leveau J, Liptzin D, Lubell M,
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Acknowledgements
The realization of this review series constitutes a signi fi cant step forward for
agroecology as a science, a movement, and a practice on an international scale, as
well as for its sustainable evolution. Such endeavors require a great deal of continuous
and tireless collaborative effort from a diverse array of people. Hence, we are indebted
to Dr. Maryse Walsh, Jacco Flipsen, Albert Paap, and Melanie van Overbeek of
Springer Science and Business Media B.V., Dordrecht; to Raaj Vijayalakshmi
(Project Manager, Springer Publishing, SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd., Pondicherry);
and to the many manuscript referees and reviewers of the initial series plans whose
past and present commitment to the concept and publication of this series has been
and continues to be invaluable. We thank the members of the international editorial
committee, Dr. Alexander Wezel, Dr. Louise Jackson, Dr. Ted Lefroy, and Dr. Juan
J. Villalba, who have given of themselves tremendously to promote the birth and
continued production of this series. Lastly, we thank the authors not only for their
tireless commitment to their respective reviews, but to their fi elds of study and work
as a whole. Our efforts lay bare the paths before us all…
Dr. W. Bruce Campbell
Dr. Silvia López Ortíz
CoEditors-In-Chief
ix