Ecosystem Services Trade-Offs and Synergies of Rubber Agroforestry under Uncertainty

Abstract:

LAND USE change is one of the major causes of global environmental change. In the case of Jambi province, Indonesia, where rapid replacement of agroforests by oil palm and other monoculture plantations leads to environmental degradation, we investigated economic incentives via payments for ecosystem services (PES) to establish rubber agroforestry for sustainable development.

To explain farmers’ land-use decisions and determine appropriate payments, it is necessary to focus on uncertainty in profits of land uses coming from the variability in yield, and prices of yield and input. Multi-period linear programming that combines Monte Carlo simulation was used to derive range of conditions for determining payments required to guarantee that the environmentally preferred land use dominates.

An empirical application to establish rubber agroforests in Jambi province show that environmental payments for reduction in carbon emissions and biodiversity increase would substantially vary due to the uncertainty in revenues, which in turn would affect negatively or positively the income of farmers. At the same time, maintaining rubber agroforestry would lead to land use diversification of farmers, and consequently allow mitigating revenue risks.[]

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Grace B. Villamor & Utkur Djanibekov, “Ecosystem Services Trade-Offs and Synergies of Rubber Agroforestry under Uncertainty”, Paper presented at World Congress on Agroforestry in Delhi, India, February 10-14, 2014.


Program of the conference is available here.