Conscientes do colapso civilizacional com que nos defrontamos como espécie humana e inspirados pela Campanha da Fraternidade deste ano, cujo tema é Fraternidade: Biomas Brasileiros e Defesa da Vida e que tem como lema Cultivar e Guardar a Criação (Gn 2,15), a edição de número 500 da revista IHU On-Line debate o tema que também é assunto central do ciclo de conferências promovido pelo Instituto Humanitas Unisinos – IHU a partir do dia 15 de março até o final do mês de junho deste ano.

Soil carbon is important for soil structure and related nutrient and water holding properties. Increasing soil carbon stocks results in improved crop growth and contributes to enhanced climate resilience. In addition, the increase in soil organic carbon through sustainable agricultural land management (SALM) practices, such as the use of cover crops, residue management and agroforestry, will also reduce the need for synthetic nitrogen fertiliser at a given level of crop production.

La experiencia está ubicada cerca a la propuesta de área de conservación regional Señor de la Cumbre – Inambari, en provincia Tambopata, Perú, donde ocurren y se desencuentran diferentes actividades económicas y formas de organización social que se sujetan a los procedimientos oficiales de acceso a la tierra, pero también que ejercen formas de control social y alternativas al extractivismo.

Los quilombolas -descendientes de los esclavos negros- de Erepecuru (Brasil) viven en el medio de la selva amazónica, en una región que abriga el mayor mosaico de áreas protegidas del mundo que incluyen 12,8 millones de hectáreas de unidades de conservación estatales, 1,3 millón de hectáreas de unidades de conservación federales, 7,2 millones de hectáreas de Tierras Indígenas.

Peru is promoting the adoption of agroforestry systems with the aim to halt the deforestation of tropical forests caused by smallholder farmers. However, deficient soil conservation practices and nutrient management are common among the targeted smallholders, hampering the success of this strategy. In this study, we explore the potential of valorizing municipal biowaste as compost to be used as soil amendment in coffee agroforestry systems and in silvopastoral systems. The analysis was concentrated in four Peruvian regions and the most populous city in each of them.

Globally, in the coffee sector and smallholder agriculture in developing countries, there is a distinct gender gap in key factors that enable women’s active participation in and contribution to the coffee value chain and in farm and domestic decisions, such as decisions over credit, agricultural inputs, and training opportunities and division of labor and time. This study assesses Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) impacts and related training on gender equality and women’s access to coffee markets in an ongoing coffee- project in northwest Vietnam.

Agarwood resin, produced by certain evergreen tree species native to Southeast Asia, is used for making incenses, medicines and fragrances. A precious commodity for centuries, it has a current market value of USD 32 billion, projected to reach USD 64 billion by 2029 (Ash and Nguyen 2020). However, high trading frequency has led to agarwood species being threatened with extinction in the wild. In response, the Government of Indonesia is promoting agarwood plantations to decrease overexploitation on wild agarwood trees.

Biodiversity is recognized as an essential part of sustainable development efforts, however reducing biodiversity loss is a key global challenge that requires updated data on biodiversity status at different scales. Cocoa agro-forests include tree species besides cocoa, a practice beneficial to biodiversity, ecosystem conservation and farming households. We present a stepwise procedure to test and select a method that rapidly assesses biodi-versity in cocoa agroforests based primarily on species richness and counts of non-cocoa trees.

Previous research indicates that some important cocoa cultivated areas in West Africa will become unsuitable for growing cocoa in the next decades. However, it is not clear if this change will be mirrored by the shade tree species that could be used in cocoa-based agroforestry systems (C-AFS). We characterized current and future patterns of habitat suitability for 38 tree species (including cocoa), using a consensus method for species distribution modelling considering for the first time climatic and soil variables.

Ghana is one of the world’s leading cocoa producers. Between 1994 and 2018, the area under cocoa production has nearly ripled. This has increased income, but it has also imposed costs. As rainforests have been converted into land for cocoa farming, habitat for species has decreased and become increasingly fragmented in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Rainforest loss also has huge implications for the ability of land to capture carbon and mitigate climate change globally. Expansion of cocoa farming is expected to aggravate these issues further.

Forest degradation causes carbon loss and indirectly contributes to climate change. Thus, the objective of this study is to assess the contribution of land use systems in the commune of Coumbacara to climate change mitigation through an estimate of woody diversity and their carbon stock. Thus, an inventory of woody vegetation was carried out on 72 plots of 30 m x 30 m in the forests adjacent to the fields and 50 m x 50 m in the hut and bush fields.