Losses of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning due to rainforest destruction and agricultural intensification are prime concerns for science and society alike. Potentially, ecosystems show nonlinear responses to land-use intensification that would open management options with limited ecological losses but satisfying economic gains. However, multidisciplinary studies to quantify ecological losses and socioeconomic tradeoffs under different management options are rare. Here, we evaluate opposing land use strategies in cacao agroforestry in Sulawesi, Indonesia, by using data on species richness of nine plant and animal taxa, six related ecosystem functions, and on socioeconomic drivers of agroforestry expansion. Expansion of cacao cultivation by 230% in the last two decades was triggered not only by economic market mechanisms, but also by rarely considered cultural factors. Transformation from near-primary forest to agroforestry had little effect on overall species richness, but reduced plant biomass and carbon storage by ≈75% and species richness of forest-using species by ≈60%. In contrast, increased land use intensity in cacao agroforestry, coupled with a reduction in shade tree cover from 80% to 40%, caused only minor quantitative changes in biodiversity and maintained high levels of ecosystem functioning while doubling farmers' net income. However, unshaded systems further increased income by ≈40%, implying that current economic incentives and cultural preferences for new intensification practices put shaded systems at risk. We conclude that low-shade agroforestry provides the best available compromise between economic forces and ecological needs. Certification schemes for shade-grown crops may provide a market-based mechanism to slow down current intensification trends.

Resolving ecological-economic trade-offs between biodiversity and yields is a key challenge when addressing the biodiversity crisis in tropical agricultural landscapes. Here, we focused on the relation between seven different taxa (trees, herbaceous plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, and ants) and yields in vanilla agroforests in Madagascar. Agroforests established in forests supported overall 23% fewer species and 47% fewer endemic species than old-growth forests, and 14% fewer endemic species than forest fragments. In contrast, agroforests established on fallows had overall 12% more species and 38% more endemic species than fallows. While yields increased with vanilla vine density and length, non-yield related variables largely determined biodiversity. Nonetheless, trade-offs existed between yields and butterflies as well as reptiles. Vanilla yields were generally unrelated to richness of trees, herbaceous plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and ants, opening up possibilities for conservation outside of protected areas and restoring degraded land to benefit farmers and biodiversity alike.

Significance: Finding entry points where policy has strong leverage to transform land systems for people and nature is pivotal. We develop an innovative framework to identify and evaluate such leverage points along land-use trajectories that account for path dependency. Applied to the biodiversity hotspot Madagascar, the framework reveals three leverage points: Two leverage points are associated with trade-offs between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and agricultural productivity, while the third entails cobenefits. Swift policy action is required, as path dependency caused by forest loss may soon put two leverage points out of reach. We argue that such closing windows of opportunity may be common, but often overlooked, calling for a wider consideration of path dependency in land-system science.

Graduates of university programs addressing sustainable resource management are likely to shape strategies for natural resource use in the future. Their academic training needs to foster student knowledge of the multiple dimensions of natural resource management. This paper investigates university student understanding of such challenges. We differentiated situational, conceptual, and procedural types of knowledge, and three domains of knowledge (ecological, socio-economic and institutional knowledge), and sampled beginners (third semester) and seniors (seventh semester) of seven natural resource related programs at the leading Indonesian institution of higher education in the field of natural resource management (IPB Bogor; n = 882). The questionnaire consisted of multiple choice and rating scale items covering ‘locally’ relevant open-access resource use issues. With a confirmatory tau-equivalent LISREL model, construct validity was assessed. The ability to extract relevant information from problem descriptions provided (situational knowledge) did not differ between third and seventh semester students. While it was high for ecological and socio-economic items, it was markedly lower for institutional knowledge. Knowledge of relevant scientific concepts (conceptual knowledge) increased in the ecological and socio-economic domains but the effect was small. Conceptual knowledge in the socio-economical and institutional domains tended to be lower than ecological knowledge. Although there was certain improvement, student judgments on the efficacy of resource management options (procedural knowledge) differed strongly from expert judgments for beginners as well as for senior students. We conclude that many of the university students in the sampled programs displayed substantial gaps in their capacity to solve complex, real-world natural resource management problems. Specifically, the socio-economic and institutional knowledge domains—and their integration with ecological knowledge—may require attention by educational planners.