MAYA PROJECT RESULTS: Hands-on Habitat Conservation
Efforts
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Vinicio Montero, agricultural extensionist for CARE
International, explains to farmers the advantages
of using green manure cover
crops.
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1. Alternative agricultural methods--saving forest through
use of "green manure" cover crops
How much forest might be spared by use of appropriate
alternative farming methods--especially "green
manure" cover crops?
Our efforts in the agricultural sector were geared toward
answering this question and toward demonstrating the power of
this approach in one small section of the farming landscape.
We worked in three small villages just south of Tikal
National Park, focusing in the village of El Caoba. This
village is typical of many small villages in the moist tropics
of Latin America, and we may take this case as an example of
what might be achievable elsewhere.
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Several years of alternating corn and
frijol abono
have produced rich,
dark humus and robust ears of corn.
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Our efforts may be divided into four parts. First, by
consultation with agronomists, we sought to verify whether the
use of "green manure" cover crops would likely
permit the continued cultivation of the same acreage over a
multi-year time span. If so, then the potential would seem to
exist for saving a great deal of forest that would otherwise
by cut down for farming purposes.
Second, we sought to promote the use of one such cover
crop--frijol abono (Mucuna species: also known
as velvet bean)--by farmers in our focal village, in order to
help save forest there.
Third, we conducted trials, comparing corn yields in
association with use of frijol abono with yields
without frijol abono, in order to evaluate the
magnitude of the potential benefit of this farming method to
farmers.
Finally, we sought to calculate how much forest would be
spared if all the farmers in one small village ceased to cut
additional forest, using cover crops instead, to permit
sustained cultivation of the same acreage. In order to achieve
this estimate, we conducted a detailed survey of farming and
land-use practices in our focal village.
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Distributing frijol abono (Mucuna sp.)
seed to
farmers.
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The answer we received to the initial question was yes,
many instances exist demonstrating that use of green manure
cover crops can make long-term cultivation of the same plot of
ground both feasible and economically advantageous. In
addition, we found one local farmer who had used frijol
abono for years, allowing him to repeatedly grow corn on
the same acreage. Soil in his corn fields was rich with dark
humus, and greatly impressed the farmers with whom we visited
his fields.
Based on this encouraging evidence, we proceeded, and
worked with some 120 farmers in three villages, providing them
(through the assistance of CARE) with frijol abono
seed, and advising them in its use. Thirty farmers
participated in a most sustained fashion and, over a period of
three years, several of them became enthusiastic devotees of
this technology, declaring toward the end of the period that
they would never again cut down mature forest for farming
purposes--that there was simply no reason to do so, given the
potential of the frijol abono system.
Are the advantages of this technology sufficiently
compelling to farmers, in order to gain their acceptance?
Through controlled trials, we found that use of frijol
abono resulted in a 47% increase in corn yields.
Certainly many farmers find this prospect attractive.
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A farmer shows off a vigorous new stand of frijol
abono in a slash-and-burn corn field.
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Regarding the farming landscape where we worked, how much
forest might be spared if all farmers ceased cutting forest
for farming purposes? In 1994, of the 194 families comprising
the village of El Caoba, 181 families engaged regularly in
farming, mainly subsistence corn-farming. On average, these
families cultivated 2.23 hectares each year (about 5.4 acres),
felling 2.43 hectares of forest yearly--0.63 hectares of
primary forest and 1.8 hectares of woody regrowth. Assuming
the year 1994 was typical of recent patterns, and assuming
results of our door-to-door survey are reasonably accurate,
the farmers of this village currently fell about 115 hectares
or 283 acres (nearly half a square mile) of mature forest each
year--as well as 326 hectares (805 acres, or more than one
square mile) of successional forest.
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During end-of-season field trip, farmers proudly show
one another the results of their efforts combining frijol
abono and corn.
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If use of frijol abono or other green manure crops
could permit continued cultivation of crop fields, then the
amount of primary forest that might be spared by this single
village is roughly 115 hectares yearly. Over a 10-year period,
this amounts to 11.5 square km of forest. Clearly, this would
be a significant achievement for conservation. For example,
our data on densities of Kentucky Warblers wintering in forest
at Tikal (0.96 birds per hectare of mature forest) indicate
that a savings of 11.5 km2 of forest over a
10-year span amounts to winter habitat for 1100 Kentucky
Warblers. No doubt thousands of other species of plants and
animals would also benefit.
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Nothing succeeds like success; corn fields
with frijol abono yielded 47% more corn
than did fields without.
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To conclude this section, we consider it entirely feasible
for farmers in this area to completely cease cutting of
primary forest, and to greatly reduce their cutting of young
second-growth, through the use of green manure cover crops.
In our opinion, a great deal of tropical forest can be
saved by changing the dynamics that today lead to continual
deforestation by peasant farmers. At the local, grassroots
level, making appropriate alternative farming technologies
available to farmers can help them farm for the long term on
the same acreage, doing away with the need to cut down
additional forest for strictly agronomic reasons. At the
nation-wide, political level, dealing with social issues such
as skewed land ownership patterns and poor availability of
education, health services, and jobs can also help defuse the
demographic and societal pressures that result in landless
farmers migrating into remaining forests in search of land to
farm.
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Pristine forest on karst terrain
in western Belize.
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We feel that international conservation and development
agencies would do well to put increased attention into this
avenue of forest conservation.
Some Factors Affecting Farmer Acceptance of Cover Crops
Promoting greater use of "green manure" cover
crops is not without its challenges.
The enhanced corn production we observed in our trials is
certainly attractive to farmers, but obtaining such results
depends on additional factors, principally rainfall, which is
notably variable in our project area.
Also, there is a certain amount of work and persistence
involved in establishing a stand of frijol abono.
Hence, not every farmer is necessarily willing to stay the
course and give this method a fair trial.
A major factor, however, is likely the following: so long
as mature forest is freely available for the felling, many
farmers may elect to continue felling forest each year, rather
than switching to use of cover crops. This may occur for
various reasons, perhaps mainly because farmers prefer methods
with which they already have firsthand experience.
However, where primary forest is already scarce, or where
adequate control is exerted by government in order to prevent
its felling, then green manures unquestionably offer a viable
alternative to farmers. Our feeling is that with sufficient
promotion of green manures, sufficient investment in agronomic
research and extension, and sufficient legal mechanisms
discouraging felling of primary forest, it should be possible
to cease all felling of primary tropical forest worldwide,
without suffering any decline of global crop yields.
Research is needed, especially to tailor practices to local
conditions. No single green manure plant is a universal answer
to farmers' needs everywhere. Rather, different species and
management practices are preferable under different
conditions.
Technical assistance must be made available to farmers
through local, field-oriented extension programs. A program of
small, low-interest loans to farmers could also help stabilize
land use and decrease deforestation rates. In many tropical
nations, additional government investment is badly needed in
agricultural research and extension.
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