PART III
The Biodiversity of
Agroforestry Systems: Habitat,
Biological Corridor, and Buffer
for Protected Areas
This section of the book reviews the effects of some important and widespread
agroforestry practices on the biodiversity of human-dominated landscapes in
the tropics. Chapter 8 looks at the most widespread and one of the oldest agro-
forestry practices: shifting cultivation. Landscapes dominated by shifting culti-
vation cover vast areas in the tropics and are therefore of particular importance
for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes. Although previous
studies have often emphasized the threats that this land use practice poses for
tropical forests, this chapter shows that traditional shifting cultivation (as
opposed to land uses often practiced by immigrants) can be surprisingly stable
over time and maintain a high percentage of the landscape under tree cover.
The chapter reviews the diversity of plants and animals in the patchwork of
crop fields, fallows of variable age, secondary and primary forest that is charac-
teristic of shifting cultivation landscapes, and the factors that determine the
abundance and diversity of organisms present. It also identifies management
options that might help increase the conservation value of this land use type.
Chapter 9 focuses on the conservation potential of coffee agroforestry sys-
tems, which have attracted interest and numerous scientific studies because
they cover large areas of the tropics and often overlap with areas of high bio-
diversity. The history of coffee growing, which has led to a wide range of shade
use and management practices, is summarized, and the diversity of floral and
faunal groups in coffee plantations as affected by their degree of shading,
shade species composition, and management is reviewed. Trade-offs and
synergies between biodiversity conservation and production objectives are
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