Land-use trajectories for sustainable land system transformations: Identifying leverage points in a global biodiversity hotspot.

ABSTRACT: Sustainable land-system transformations are necessary to avert biodiversity and climate collapse. However, it remains unclear where entry points for transformations exist in complex land systems. Here, we conceptualize land systems along land-use trajectories, which allows us to identify and evaluate leverage points, i.e., entry points on the trajectory where targeted interventions have particular leverage to influence land-use decisions. We apply this framework in the biodiversity hotspot Madagascar. In the northeast, smallholder agriculture results in a land-use trajectory originating in old-growth forests and spanning from forest fragments to shifting hill rice cultivation and vanilla agroforests. Integrating interdisciplinary empirical data on seven taxa, five ecosystem services, and t

SUBMITTER: Martin DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8851510 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature