Agroecologic and non agroecologic farmers’ willingness to recover forest areas of their properties

Abstract

Understanding that most of the remnants of Atlantic Forest in Santa Catarina are in private
properties where the true protagonist of management processes is the family farmer, we idealized
this study to access the degree of willingness of these farmers to recover forest remnants
and permanent preservation areas of their properties. Data collection in the field was done by
means of semi-structured interview application. Randomly, 20 agroecological family farmers
and 20 non agroecological family farmers from the Santa Rosa de Lima municipality, located in
the Serra Geral de Santa Catarina slopes region of the Ombrophylous Densa Forest, domains
of the Atlantic Forest Biome, Brazil, were selected and interviewed. The results of the study
indicate that both groups of family farmers use a variety of forest products and classify forest resources as important. Both groups of family farmers demonstrated willingness to reclaim
forest areas from their properties, but with greater willingness from agroecological farmers.
However, different situations motivate recovery in both groups; In addition to the payment for
environmental services, while the agroecological farmers would recover their areas from the
donation of seedlings and technical assistance, non agroecological farmers would do so by
supplying fences, seedlings and labor.