management (farm management) in the Himalayas of India into ten different
branches. They are (1) Agriculture (AG), (2) Medicinal and aromatic plants cultivation (MAPs), (3) Horticulture (HR), (4) Vegetable cultivation (VEG), (5) Animal
Husbandry (AH), (6) Forest resource (FR), (7) Non-timber forest products collection (NTFPs), (8) Tourism (T), (9) Other occupation (OC), and (10) Migration to
outside (MR). Among all the stated options, farmers have to choose a few of them
at the higher scale, while visualizing their potential as a way to secure their
livelihood in times to come.
5.4 Indicators to Measure the Farmer’s Decision (T
4
, T
5 )
The farmers’ decisions make the overall impact on the landscape (Nautiyal and
Kaechele 2009). Hence, all possible activities should be evaluated from a socioeconomic and ecological point of view to measure all possible indicators thereby
offering the results to farmers so they may choose the most feasible options. This
approach enables the development of the general trend in landscape development
and examines the magnitude of use of the resources, such as land, and changes in
use of resource dynamics over time (for example, collection of forest resources to
sustain the traditional land use). The farm management in the region is assessed by
farmers in view of economics. Therefore, all the decisions by the farmers are
dominated by expected economic returns, tempered by attitude to the risk. At
present, empirical evidence shows that the agriculture sector seems very remunerative to farmers and therefore, they tend to focus their attention on
agriculture-related activities. To understand this phenomenon in our study region a
glimpse of the trade-off analysis of landscape scenario is presented in economic
(T
4 ) and ecological (T
5 ) perspectives as an outcome of farmers’ decisions on the
landscape and is briefly illustrated in Fig. 7. At present, relinquishment of the
benefit/advantage from land use has considerable ecological consequences. To
facilitate the whole evaluation process we could refer to them as sustainability
indicators (Stoorvogel et al. 2004) that make assessment criteria of the economic
evaluation, as well sustainability of the whole ecosystems. Thus, the hypotheses
framed regarding the relationships between socioeconomic indicators (such as
income, labor (female and male), land, and capital) and ecological indicators (such
as soil erosion, biodiversity, nutrients cycling, pollution, and soil fertility). In
general, we could conclude here that farmers’ economic intuition has negative
consequences, if envisaging the ecological angle of the landscape and, to some
extent, the same results relate to the socioeconomic scenario. Therefore, the analysis
of trade-offs of this nature means that multiple indicators need to be monitored
simultaneously to assess the management strategies; this is the key requirement to
understand the science behind the whole scenario results (Tittonell et al. 2007;
Nautiyal and Kaechele 2009),
Socioeconomic and Ecological Modeling for Sustainable …
611
branches. They are (1) Agriculture (AG), (2) Medicinal and aromatic plants cultivation (MAPs), (3) Horticulture (HR), (4) Vegetable cultivation (VEG), (5) Animal
Husbandry (AH), (6) Forest resource (FR), (7) Non-timber forest products collection (NTFPs), (8) Tourism (T), (9) Other occupation (OC), and (10) Migration to
outside (MR). Among all the stated options, farmers have to choose a few of them
at the higher scale, while visualizing their potential as a way to secure their
livelihood in times to come.
5.4 Indicators to Measure the Farmer’s Decision (T
4
, T
5 )
The farmers’ decisions make the overall impact on the landscape (Nautiyal and
Kaechele 2009). Hence, all possible activities should be evaluated from a socioeconomic and ecological point of view to measure all possible indicators thereby
offering the results to farmers so they may choose the most feasible options. This
approach enables the development of the general trend in landscape development
and examines the magnitude of use of the resources, such as land, and changes in
use of resource dynamics over time (for example, collection of forest resources to
sustain the traditional land use). The farm management in the region is assessed by
farmers in view of economics. Therefore, all the decisions by the farmers are
dominated by expected economic returns, tempered by attitude to the risk. At
present, empirical evidence shows that the agriculture sector seems very remunerative to farmers and therefore, they tend to focus their attention on
agriculture-related activities. To understand this phenomenon in our study region a
glimpse of the trade-off analysis of landscape scenario is presented in economic
(T
4 ) and ecological (T
5 ) perspectives as an outcome of farmers’ decisions on the
landscape and is briefly illustrated in Fig. 7. At present, relinquishment of the
benefit/advantage from land use has considerable ecological consequences. To
facilitate the whole evaluation process we could refer to them as sustainability
indicators (Stoorvogel et al. 2004) that make assessment criteria of the economic
evaluation, as well sustainability of the whole ecosystems. Thus, the hypotheses
framed regarding the relationships between socioeconomic indicators (such as
income, labor (female and male), land, and capital) and ecological indicators (such
as soil erosion, biodiversity, nutrients cycling, pollution, and soil fertility). In
general, we could conclude here that farmers’ economic intuition has negative
consequences, if envisaging the ecological angle of the landscape and, to some
extent, the same results relate to the socioeconomic scenario. Therefore, the analysis
of trade-offs of this nature means that multiple indicators need to be monitored
simultaneously to assess the management strategies; this is the key requirement to
understand the science behind the whole scenario results (Tittonell et al. 2007;
Nautiyal and Kaechele 2009),
Socioeconomic and Ecological Modeling for Sustainable …
611