Principales hallazgos y retos en la implementación de la matriz de indicadores (Elaborado por CONEVAL)

A limitation of this study was that to assess the impact of different land uses in the most rigorous way possible, it would be necessary to have large continuous blocks of natural habitats as control, and large areas of oil palm and cattle ranching, none of which was available, as different land covers were mixed in the landscape. Future research should be carried out under these conditions and should incorporate other land uses such as soy, coffee, cocoa, rubber, and pine and eucalyptus plantations. Similarly, repeated surveys before and after conversion would be extremely valuable to assess impact robustly, while subsequent surveys in post conversion areas would enable to explore phenomena of extinction debts (Tilman et al., 1994).

More jaguar density estimates are needed across the range and different land uses to build range-wide population estimates, while finer scale connectivity studies should be carried out to identify critical corridors at the regional scale. In the meantime further studies should quantify the habitat requirements and potential habitat loss thresholds of priority species across the biodiversity spectrum to identify optimum levels of habitat conversion, ultimately informing land use planning.

In lucrative agricultural sectors such as oil palm, research should identify and possibly value ecosystem services and yield benefits provided by sustainable practices. Landscape certification schemes should also be piloted and explored, as they work at a scale that is more appropriate for conserving wide ranging species like jaguars and for safeguarding vital ecosystem services. On the demand side, it would be valuable to understand further what are the best ways to raise awareness and generate a demand for certified products.

The open question remains of how conservation can compete with the cash revenue generated by production systems. Current evidence suggests a mixed approach, including green markets and price premiums, ecotourism, sustainable use of land as opposed to no use, national government funding, payment for ecosystem services schemes, non-governmental organizationsÕ funds, and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation mechanisms (Koh & Wilcove, 2007; Venter et al., 2009; Wilcove & Koh, 2010; Abram et al., 2014). Furthermore, identifying which mechanisms and policies can couple higher production with biodiversity and habitat preservation should be a priority, exploring the synergies between biodiversity, carbon, and food security (Phalan et al., 2016).

This thesis combined methods and analysis from different disciplines to generate new ecological knowledge and management and policy recommendations across tropical agricultural landscapes, including increasing oil palm areas. Achieving biodiversity conservation in the face of rapidly expanding agricultural areas is one of the greatest challenges conservation is facing (Tscharntke et al., 2012), but in a time of needed conservation optimism, it is not impossible. As protected areas only cover 18% of tropical forests (Bicknell, 2015) and 10% of ColombiaÕs area (Forero- Medina & Joppa, 2010), the integration of unprotected and agricultural regions into conservation strategies and land use planning is key, in the Neotropics and elsewhere. Understanding how species use these human-dominated landscapes and how to better design them to deliver multiple objectives is equally important. Finally, jaguars and other mammal species can co-exist with agriculture if the appropriate conditions are in place. Following this thesisÕ recommendations there is potential to achieve sustainable agricultural landscapes that are able to provide for both biodiversity and people.

6.5 References

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