Summary
The authors suggest silvopastoral systems (SPSs) as a strategy to conserve biodiversity in a key region in the Andes-Amazon foothills in Colombia, which is threatened by the expansion of pastures and illegal crops. They employ three types of analysis at different scales, starting with a broad look at deforestation trends in the Colombian Amazon, followed by an analysis of landscape fragmentation using land use/land cover maps, and finally a comparison of landscape connectivity under two different conditions at the farm level. They find that the greatest increases in connectivity were in highly degraded landscapes whilst landscapes with larger habitat areas and better connectivity saw smaller increases. Whilst SPSs could have the potential to improve landscape connectivity, more research is needed to understand their contributions.