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The Contribution of Traditional Agroforestry to Climate Change Adaptation in the Ecuadorian Amazon: The Chakra System

Background

Open access copy available

Designing pest-suppressive multistrata perennial crop systems: shade-grown coffee in Central America

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Open access copy available

Shade-grown coffee in Puerto Rico: Opportunities to preserve biodiversity while reinvigorating a struggling agricultural commodity

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Coffee has been a traditional crop in Puerto Rico since the mid-1700s. As the global market became more competitive in the 20th century, the Puerto Rican government provided subsidies and policies to protect the sector as well as promoted the transition to shade grown coffee for higher yields in the 1980s. The researchers surveyed 100 farms and 5 agronomists to determine attitudes about this transition.

Open access copy available

Ecological Restoration and Sustainable Agricultural Landscapes

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Strategies and innovations for capacity building on ecological restoration

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Impacts of payments for environmental services on local development in northern Costa Rica: A fuzzy multi-criteria analysis

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Strengthening the national restoration strategy

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In response to the launch of the Bonn Challenge, El Salvador committed to restoring one million hectares. The country's Ministry of Natural Resources and IUCN applied Restoration Opportunity Assessment Methodology (ROAM) to El Salvador in order to determine and analyze restoration options based on biophysical, social and economic criteria. The paper summarizes the main results generated in the ROAM application. 

Open access copy available

Business models for sustainable investments in the context of tropical forest restoration

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This paper outlines the context and approaches of effective business models for sustainable investments in Tropical Forests. Triple bottom line business opportunities are defined and identified through a review of literature and analysis of three case studies (InIkea, FCFR Project, and Sustain Project). The conceptual frameworks surrounding sustainable business models are examined. Challenges and opportunities into the future are also explored.

Open access copy available

How pervasive is biotic homogenization in human-modified tropical forest landscapes?

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Land-cover change and ecosystem degradation often lead to biotic homogenization. Yet, there is knowledge gaps regarding this phenomena, which this study seeks to fill. Solar et al. (2015) monitor the change in biodiversity along a land use gradient ranging from primary forest to severely degraded and human dominated landscapes.

Open access copy available

Protocol for Monitoring Tropical Forest Restoration: Perspectives from the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil

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This article highlights the need for standardized monitoring protocols in forest landscape restoration projects and uses the example of the protocol developed by the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil.

Open access copy available

Diversity enhances carbon storage in tropical forests

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Tropical forests are extremely important due to the ability to sequester large amounts of carbon and provide habitat for high levels of biodiversity, particularly tree species. Still there is limited understanding of the relationship between biodiversity and carbon. This study seeks to study this relationship and examine the forest attributes and environmental drivers for ecosystem functioning.

Open access copy available

Leaders in Action: Success Stories from the Tropics

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Small-scale disturbance and regeneration dynamics in a neotropical mangrove forest

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This study focuses on regeneration dynamics of mangrove species in lightening-created gaps, in the Dominican Republic.

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Variation in the population structure between a natural and a human-modified forest for a pioneer tropical tree species not restricted to large gaps

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The study evaluates the distribution of Cyperus floribundus (a long-lived pioneer tree specie) individuals in the gaps and compared the plant density between a primary and an early successional forest to understand the pioneer plant distribution and niche preference under the variable environmental and biotic conditions generated by natural or anthropogenic disturbances.

Open access copy available

Drug Policy as Conservation Policy: Narco-Deforestation

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Central America exploded into prominence as a drug trafficking corridor in the last decade. The authors documented that an unprecedented flow of cocaine into Central America “coincided with a period of extensive forest loss”. The authors discuss the evidence that supports the idea that "trafficking of drugs (principally cocaine) has become a crucial—and overlooked—accelerant of forest loss” in Central America.

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Industrial Resource Extraction and Infrastructure Development in Tropical Forests

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Tropical Montane Forest Restoration in Costa Rica: Overcoming Bariers to Dispersal and Establishment

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Targeted habitat restoration can reduce extinction rates in fragmented forests

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Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation

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The authors examined the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances within a forest on the ability of the forest to conserve biodiversity and provide ecosytem services. The research used large data sets of plants, birds, and dung beetles and used them as indicators of biodiversity change in the forest.

Open access copy available

Functional divesity changes during tropical forest succession

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Open access copy available