Soil conservation strategies in Amazon agroecosystems: An ethnoecological approach

Soil plays a critical role in ensuring food security, carbon sequestration, and preventing the pollution of water sources. Conservation strategies are becoming increasingly urgent to maintain these critical functions. Soils of the Amazon region present challenging conditions for agriculture, such as low fertility and high acidity. Despite this, Amazonian communities have relied for centuries on practices to sustain food production and their livelihoods.

In recent decades, however, the Amazonian foothills have experienced a series of social transformations, such as colonization, armed conflict, deforestation driven by the expansion of the agricultural frontier and illicit use crops, and the establishment of grazing lands for livestock. Nevertheless, thanks to local, national, and international efforts aimed at climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and illicit crop substitution, many producers are now shifting away from extensive production practices and beginning to implement strategies focused on soil conservation and ecosystem restoration.

Supported by the CGIAR Science Program Climate Action and the CGIAR Initiative on Low-Emission Food Systems, our research aimed to explore the soil conservation and management strategies regularly implemented by farmers in the Amazonian foothills in the department of Caquetá, southern Colombia. The study adopted a complex and holistic perspective to examine the key factors influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt soil conservation practices.