Trade-offs and synergies between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation in socio-ecological landscapes of South-western Ethiopia:

Abstract

Food security and biodiversity conservation are among the core issues of the UN sustainable development goals, and also of the development agenda of the African Union. Achieving these important goals also constitutes the top critical challenge of the 21st century. As an effort towards achieving these goals, the discourse about the need to transform the widely recognized trade-offs between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation into overlaps or synergies is also receiving top attention from different actors at various levels in recent times. This paper is, therefore intended to make a literature review of empirical studies on the nexus between agricultural development expansion and biodiversity conservation; and thereby identify the trade-offs and synergies between them, with special emphasis on socio-ecological landscapes of coffee production systems in South-western Ethiopia. The review focused on the synthesis of the competitions and overlaps between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services represented by agricultural production and biodiversity conservation respectively. The review made indicated that there are different types and levels of trade-offs between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services that vary according to the multiple factors operating in the multi-functional socio-ecological landscapes. Creating synergies and harmony between these trade-offs, therefore, requires a sound landscape governance system
designed based on multi-criteria analysis. These criteria include socio-economic and demographic aspects; ecological aspects; as well as effective policy systems and institutional set-ups. Management interventions, such as natural or organic coffee certification; and promotion of climate-smart agriculture (such as agroforestry systems) can be used for reconciliation of the competing interests in the ecosystem services.