Global economic trade-offs between wild nature and tropical agriculture

Global demands for agricultural and forestry products provide economic incentives for deforestation across the tropics. Much of this deforestation occurs with a lack of information on the spatial distribution of benefits and costs of deforestation. To inform global sustainable land-use policies, we combine geographic information systems (GIS) with a meta-analysis of ecosystem services (ES) studies to perform a spatially explicit analysis of the trade-offs between agricultural benefits, carbon emissions, and losses of multiple ecosystem services because of tropical deforestation from 2000 to 2012. Even though the value of ecosystem services presents large inherent uncertainties, we find a pattern supporting the argument that the externalities of destroying tropical forests are greater than the current direct economic benefits derived from agriculture in all cases bar one: when yield and rent potentials of high-value crops could be realized in the future. Our analysis identifies the Atlantic Forest, areas around the Gulf of Guinea, and Thailand as areas where agricultural conversion appears economically efficient, indicating a major impediment to the long-term financial sustainability of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) schemes in those countries. By contrast, Latin America, insular Southeast Asia, and Madagascar present areas with low agricultural rents (ARs) and high values in carbon stocks and ES, suggesting that they are economically viable conservation targets. Our study helps identify optimal areas for conservation and agriculture together with their associated uncertainties, which could enhance the efficiency and sustainability of pantropical land-use policies and help direct future research efforts.Author summary: Tropical forests are often destroyed to clear land for agriculture or to harvest forestry products, such as timber. However, the benefits derived from agriculture and these products are countered by the costs to the environment and the loss of ecosystem systems (the benefits that nature provides to humans). Little is known about how the economic benefits and costs of deforestation vary on a global scale. Knowing the distribution of benefits and costs would help identify regions where deforestation is most and least beneficial and thus could help select areas to focus conservation efforts. We studied the trade-offs between agricultural benefits, carbon emissions, and losses of multiple ecosystem services (ES) in tropical deforested areas around the world. We find large differences between costs and benefits globally. For instance, we identify the Atlantic Forest, areas around the Gulf of Guinea, and Thailand as areas where the benefits from agricultural conversion are greater than environmental costs, which could make it difficult to incentivize and implement biodiversity conservation strategies that are based on payments to farmers. By contrast, Latin America, insular Southeast Asia, and Madagascar represent areas with low agricultural benefits and high environmental costs. This suggests that these regions are economically viable conservation targets. Our study helps identify strategies to enhance the sustainability of land-use policies in the tropics.