How agroforestry helps to conserve biodiversity?

How agroforestry helps to conserve biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the variety and variability of plants, animals and microorganisms. Our planet’s essential goods and services depend on the variety and variability of genes, species, populations and ecosystems. The loss of world’s biological diversity is mainly from habitat destruction, over harvesting, pollution, environment change and inappropriate introduction of exotic species.

To overcome the problems of resource depletion and biodiversity loss, efforts are needed to conserve and maintain gene, species and ecosystem with a view to sustainable management and use of biological resources. In situ protection and exsitu conservation of biological and genetic resources can help in sustaining biological and genetic resources.

Agroforestry can play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity within deforested, fragmented landscapes by providing habitats and resources for plant and animal species, maintaining landscape connectivity, making the landscape less harsh for forest-dwelling species by reducing the frequency and intensity of fires, potentially decreasing edge effects on remaining forest fragments and providing buffer zones to protected areas (Schroth et al., In press).

Agroforestry systems cannot provide the same niches and habitats as the original forests and should never be promoted as a conservation tool at the expense of natural forest conservation. However they do offer an important complementary tool for conservation and should be considered in landscape-wide conservation efforts that both protect remaining forest fragments and promote the maintenance of on-farm tree cover in areas surrounding the protected areas.

The degree to which agroforestry systems can serve conservation efforts depends on a variety of factors, including the design and origin of the agroforestry systems, its permanency in the landscape, its location relative to remaining natural habitat and the degree of connectivity within the habitat, as well as its management and use, particularly pollarding, use of herbicides or pesticides, harvesting of timber and non-timber products and incorporation of cattle, goats, etc.

Home gardens provide a variety of niches and resources that support a high diversity of plant and animals, though usually less than that of intact forest (Perfecto et al., 1996; Rice and Greenberg, 2000). However, even agroforestry systems with low tree densities and low species diversity may help in maintaining biotic connectivity.