1 Agroforestry and the conservation of forest cover and biodiversity in tropical landscapes – on-site and off-site effects and synergies with environmental legislation 1 G. Schroth 1 , M.S.S. da Mota 2 , A. Jerozolimski 3 1 Conservation International, 1919 M Street NW, Suite 600, Washington DC, 20036, USA, E-mail: g.schroth@conservation.org; 2 Forest Engineer, Alameda Joana Jennings 13, Alter do Chão, Santarém PA, 68109-000, Brazil, E-mail: msmota13@ig.com.br; 3 Conservation International, Avenida Governador José Malcher 652, 2 o andar, Belém PA, 66035-100, Brazil, E-mail: a.jerozolimski@conservation.org Introduction The need for development pathways that are compatible with the conservation of biodiversity is not restricted to the tropical world, but is particularly urgent in tropical forest countries because of the frequent coincidence of high levels of native biodiversity with urgent development needs. In tropical forest regions, the setting aside and effective protection of sufficiently large and strategically selected areas of forest and other natural habitat is an essential measure to conserve the full species set of plants, animals and microorganisms that occur in these areas, as well as their genetic variability and ecological interactions. However, even in inhabited areas where full protection is not an option, land use planning objectives should include the conservation of forest cover and biodiversity because people depend on these for their livelihoods and well-being and because such areas can complement the role played by protected areas in biodiversity conservation. This paper examines the conservation and restoration of forest cover and biodiversity in inhabited tropical landscapes, focusing on the role that agroforestry can play. Depending on the dominant land uses in a region, such inhabited landscapes may range from largely forested areas in the case of extractivist economies, through mosaics of fields, fallows and forest in areas of small scale farming, to largely deforested areas where pasture or mechanized agriculture predominate. Although this paper focuses on the role of forests and agroforests in biodiversity conservation, forests have many other important functions. Forests provide environmental services on which local livelihoods – and in certain cases agricultural production itself – depend. These include the provision of forest products, such as timber, fuelwood, bushmeat, fruits and medicine (Shanley & Luz, 2003); the maintenance of pollinator populations (a factor that increases coffee yields in the proximity of forest remnants; Ricketts et al., 2004); protection against soil erosion and the regulation and maintenance of waterflow and water quality (Bruijnzeel, 2004). Forests also have esthetic and spiritual values and provide ecosystem services that are important at regional, national and global scales, including the protection of regional scale watersheds and the maintenance of carbon stocks in forest vegetation and soils. Agricultural development in tropical forest countries is often accompanied by deforestation and thus constitutes a major threat to forest biodiversity and environmental services. In the Brazilian Amazon, a predominant development pathway over the past four decades has been the conversion of rainforest into cattle pasture, following logging (Andersen et al., 2002). Both large and small landholders are involved in the process. In the former case, forest is directly converted into pasture or agricultural fields, often accompanied by substantial social conflict, while in the latter case there is often an intermittent phase of slash-and-burn agriculture (Fujisaka et al., 1996). In the 1970s and 1980s, the expansion of cattle ranching in the western Amazon provoked strong resistance by traditional forest inhabitants, notably rubber tappers, and resulted in the creation of the first Extractive Reserves by the Brazilian government (Cardosa, 2002). 1 In: A.C. da Gama-Rodrigues, E.F. da Gama-Rodrigues, A.P. Viana, M.S. Freitas, C.R. Marciano, J.M. Jasmin, N.F. de Barros and J.G.A. Carneiro (Eds.) Agroforestry Systems: Scientific Bases for Sustainable Development . State University Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro and Brazilian Society of Agroforestry Systems, pp. 67-86.