Trees on Farms Provide Both Wood Value and Conservation Value in a Tropical Forest System: A Case Study from Western Kenya

The false perception that preserving tropical rainforests must come at the expense of local community need creates an unnecessary dilemma for conservation. In fact, local communities frequently balance subsistence needs with ecosystem integrity. Agroforestry, both cultural and contemporary, is one system that can simultaneously enhance biodiversity and provide for human needs, but interactions between social and natural dimensions are relatively undescribed. In this study, we explore whether agroforestry practices in a moist tropical forest system and their surroundings in western Kenya can provide timber/fuelwood value to smallholder farmers while promoting biodiversity. We described agroforestry attributes on farms around Kakamega Forest, assessed relationships between tree biodiversity and the number and biomass of timber/fuelwood trees, and explored relationships among tree diversity attributes on a landscape scale. We recorded 58 forest- and 66 farm-tree species. There was no significant relationship between overall tree diversity and the number of farm trees used for timber/fuelwood. Complementarity analyses suggest that conservation outcomes for the region cannot occur without including the forest species found on agroforestry farms. Therefore, as agroforestry farms support regional biodiversity conservation, increased recognition must be given to farmers’ perception of tree value and their selection of species to maintain when devising regional biodiversity conservation targets.