BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN AGROFORESTRY LANDSCAPES

Human welfare depends on biological diversity, which is declining despite worlwide conservation efforts. Nowadays, besides relying on protected areas, biodiversity conservation will require to focus on productive lands. Agro-forestry plantations are usually considered “biological deserts” as they tend to hold impoverished assemblages of the original biota. However, growing evidence suggets that, pending on management stretegies, species from different taxa could inhabit agro-forestry systems, seuggesting that production of comocities and some conservation goals could be achieved in the same plantation.
This volume summarizes the clallenges and opportunities biodiversity conservation faces in agro-forestry plantations. Basically, our aim was to review biological, social and economic conditions under which plantations can be enhanced to support native biodiversity, embrancing examples from different plantations, regions, taxa and ecological process around the world. This volume should inform policy makers and managers and scientists as well, providing the basis for a sustainble agro-forestry activity, reducing biodiversity loss, a fact which will benefit us all.
El bienestar humano depende de la biodiversidad biológica, la cual está disminuyendo a pesar de los esfuerzos mundiales de conservación. Hoy la conservación de la biodiversidad requerirá centrarse en áreas productivas. Este volumen resume los retos y oportunidades que la conservación biológica enfrenta en las plantaciones agroforestales. Además informa a los responsables políticos, gestores y científicos, en sentar las bases para una actividad agroforestal sustentable y reducir la pérdida de biodiversidad.