The environmental impact of agricultural systems can vary very strongly.  For the Cerrado biome locally adapted silvopastoral systems are considered one of the most promising approaches to manage Cerrado forests more sustainably, restore degraded areas, nurture biodiversity, boost carbon stocks, improve smallholders’ livelihoods or foster resilience to climate change. However, under current conditions, these systems –  integrating sustainable livestock production with native tree species – are financially less profitable than intensively managed systems.

Against this background, EcoSiPaS aims to contribute to the sustainable management of the Cerrado through quantification and valorisation of ecosystem services provided by silvopastoral systems, and through monetizing these services, e.g. via product labels and certification, value-added processing of non-timber forest products or carbon credits. This should improve the profitability of silvopastoral systems relative to other land uses. To achieve this, the project consists of six interrelated work packages, combining intensive data collection and fieldwork with the utilization of existing data sets.