Trade-offs between land conservation and agricultural production: Case study of the Spanish Lookout area and the Belize Maya Forest Reserve

Abstract: Habitat destruction (evidenced in land use change) represents one of the biggest threats to environmental resources and biodiversity. In the tropics, this threat is maximized as deforestation frontiers have expanded into natural ecosystems at increasing rates over the last decades for agricultural cropping and livestock husbandry. Protected areas have been conventionally established against this growing threat, although their success is often not certain. Furthermore, they do not reduce nor address the drivers for agricultural expansion, thus exacerbating the conflict between the two modes of land management. This thesis will focus on the case of Spanish Lookout, an agricultural-based community located to the south of a newly-established protected area: The Belize Maya Forest. This thesis will aim to analyze the tradeoffs between agricultural production and conservation in the area of Spanish Lookout from 2000-2010 using remote sensing and statistical analysis.