Despite all the efforts to reduce the destruction of tropical forests and protect the natural habitats and the wildlife populations in all humid tropical areas, the beginning of the new century does not look more promising for the preservation of tropical rainforests and biodiversity. Classical approaches to conservation, such as attempts to preserve pristine habitats within national parks and other protected areas, have largely failed both in scale and in acknowledging the dynamics of the local communities. Driven by a variety of social and economic pressures, local settlers continue their expansion into the last remnants of native forests, and in many cases the prevailing land use patterns are both inefficient from an economic perspective and environmentally harmful.

Throughout Latin America , rainforest conversion is dominated by the establishment primarily of pastures but also cropland, irrespective of the characteristics of soils, climate regimes, and topography. Pasture occupies the largest proportion of the agricultural land in the region and to a large extent the profitability of cattle as a productive venture is low. However, this venture is highly lucrative if it ensures land occupation and ownership and thus access to profits due to ensuing land price increases. The negative environmental impacts resulting from this form of land use are serious and are responsible, among other causal factors, for threats to biodiversity conservation in the Neotropics.

About 38 percent (94 million hectares out of 248 million) of Central America 's total land area is used as permanent pasture. Land used for extensive grazing has increased continuously over the past decades and most of this increase has been at the expense of forests. Ranching-induced deforestation is one of the main causes of loss of some unique plant and animal species in the tropical rainforests of Central America and South America . In the past, government-supported conversion of forests to other land uses, such as large-scale ranching, was one of the leading causes of deforestation. Today poverty, unemployment and inequitable land distribution is forcing many landless peasants to clear the forest for subsistence farming. The decline in productivity and the lack of appropriate technologies in the agricultural frontier force many small farmers to sell the cleared land to livestock farmers.

The high costs of establishing silvo-pastoral systems, as well as their considerable knowledge requirements, are a barrier to their adoption while conventional cattle raising is at an advantage in this regard. One of the key components of the GEF project is the establishment of a compensation scheme for the payment of environmental services to livestock farmers to tip the balance towards adoption of sustainable technologies for cattle production in the region. Silvo-pastoral systems are attractive to smallholder farmers as they are labour intensive ; this should enable benefits from the project to accrue to the poor.

From this standpoint, it is urgent that alternatives to extensive livestock production in Latin America are found, which, while helping people to improve their living conditions, also reduce negative impacts on nature and even restore to some extent impaired environmental services. Intensification of livestock production, particularly on the feed supply side through deferred grazing and other forms of pasture management and silvo-pastoral systems, are capable of sustaining a multiple of stocking rates compared to unimproved pasture, and it has been hypothesised that a higher output per unit of land would help spare land that otherwise would be put into production. However, the counter-argument is that such intensification would only happen if leading to increased profit, would consequently attract additional capital and labour, and would ultimately result in an even more rapid deforestation.

LEAD has entered this debate and is currently following two tracks . First, it has been catalysing the preparation of a project submitted for GEF funding (final approval received 2 May 2002) entitled, “Integrated Silvo-Pastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management” for a total GEF contribution of U$4.5 million. The proposed use of silvo-pastoral systems would be one of the most promising holistic approaches to achieve sustainable environmental and social development. Silvo-pastoral systems provide a vegetative land cover which largely mimics forest vegetation. They provide a deep rooting, perennial vegetation which is persistently growing and they have a dense but uneven canopy. Silvo-pastoral systems are thus an alternative to prevalent cattle production in Latin America and have the potential to produce environmental services and improve people's livelihoods.

The second track of activity is LEAD's recent involvement, together with the World Bank, in a study into the agents of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon that will be concluded in October 2002. This is likely to follow a similar path as the Central American project, and will be followed up by the development of technology and policy options for field testing.

LEAD partner organisations: CATIE Costa Rica, CIPAV Colombia, NITAPLAN Nicaragua, ABC USA, CIAT and ICRAF.

1-Collection and provision of basic data: baseline data on the hotspot is collected and shared with partner organisations through the LEAD Virtual Research and Development Centre.

2- Analysis and assessment: the data is analysed and the causes and effects of the environmental degradation in each hotspot is assessed.

3- Design of policy and technology options: using this analysis, tools are developed to facilitate the design of policy and technology options for consideration by decision makers at national and local level.

4- Testing, validation and up scaling of options: the identified options are tested and validated. The project scales-up the approach from national level to regional level with the aim of impacting on eco-systems and exploit the benefits of cross-boundary interactions.

5- Provision of decision-support tools: tools are made available to decision-makers to assist them to analyse critical livestock-environment-poverty interactions and to perform an ex-ante analysis of considered policy and technology options.

6- Development of guidelines: facilitates the adoption of tools and their use within the wider context, taking into account, for example, equity and health as well as the environment.

7- Capacity building and uptake: LEAD raises awareness of detrimental livestock-environmental interactions and provides its partner organisations with the skills and knowledge to carry out relevant research. In addition, it establishes effective uptake pathways for the adoption and application of results at local, national and regional levels.