Society and the environment co-evolved through feedbacks between human demands for natural resources and environmental carrying capacity. Coupled socio-ecological systems are complex, adaptive and delimited by spatial or functional boundaries surrounding ecosystems (Glaser et al., 2008) in which natural components (e.g., water, land, forest) are affected by human interactions (Liu et al., 2007). Globally, croplands and pastures cover an area of about 43millionsqkm (Ramankutty et al., 2008). Although seen as an important land change and ecosystem services (ES) depletion driver (Robertson and Swinton, 2005), these areas also sustain the global agri-food demand (Tilman et al., 2011). Over the last decades, given the environmental changes and their consequences, such as deforestation and biodiversity loss, governments and civil society (e.g., NGOs) have invested in incentive mechanisms to enhance the provision of ES (Milder et al., 2010; Fischer et al., 2012).

The United Nations define the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a preservation strategy to avoid agricultural land use pressure and ensure biological conservation (FAO, 2011). Wunder's (2005) characterized PES as: “(1) a voluntary transaction where (2) a well-defined ES (or a land use likely to secure that service) (3) is being ‘bought’ by a (minimum one) ES buyer (4) from a (minimum one) ES provider (5) if and only if the ES provider secures ES provision (conditionality)” (Wunder, 2005, p. 3). The incentive provided by a PES scheme can be a cash or in-kind transaction, which includes seedlings for reforestation, beehives for increasing pollination and food production, technical assistance, infrastructure, education, and health services (Wunder, 2005; Guedes and Seehusen, 2011; Grima et al., 2016). Grima et al. (2016) demonstrated that PES with only in-kind contributions has quite better success compared to programs based on cash payments. Also, in kind incentives help avoiding cases of corruption or unfair distribution of benefits. Muradian et al. (2010) pointed out that PES based only in cash payments have a limited effect and can cancel other ethical and motivational incentives to conserve the ecosystems, such as acting in favor of the community, local cultural traditions and religious beliefs. Moreover, programs including co-benefits may increase productive and human standards while decreasing cash payment dependence (Torres et al., 2013).

In Brazil, there are numerous PES programs varying from the national to state and regional levels with a predominant focus on water security (Santos et al., 2012). In 2011, Brazil had more than 80 PES projects at different development phases, most of them located in the Southern and Southeastern regions, mainly in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro (Guedes and Seehusen, 2011). Most Brazilian PES schemes are in the Atlantic Forest and are based on restoration and reforestation strategies (Guedes and Seehusen, 2011; Alves-Pinto et al., 2017). Some of the most known and older PES programs developed in Brazil are: ‘Conservador das Águas’ in Extrema – MG/public local program; ‘Projeto ProdutorES de Água’ and ‘Programa Florestas para a Vida’ in Espírito Santo state/public state program – both programs were combined into one called ‘Programa Reflorestar’ in 2013; ‘Programa Bolsa Floresta’ in Amazonas state/public and private program; ‘Projeto Oásis’ in São Paulo – SP, Apuracana – PR, São Bento do Sul – SC and Brumadinho – MG/private local program; and ‘Programa Produtor de Águas bacia do Piracicaba/Capivari/Jundiaí’ in the municipalities of Piracicaba/Capivari/Jundiaí river basin/public regional program (Pagiola et al., 2013; Young and Bakker, 2015; Grima et al., 2016).

The PES programs and other conservation mechanisms are usually implemented in rural areas. However, the rural–urban synergies through a territorial perspective are not commonly well defined as potential links to foster place-based policy and local rural development. The territorial perspective can enhance local knowledge about natural landscapes assets (e.g., soils, water, climate, scenic views), processes such as forest transition (i.e., increase of forest cover area) and socioeconomic dimensions, which can promote social and economic development in rural areas ensuring sustainable land management practices and environmental conservation.

To encourage sustainable land management practices, as well as financial and environmental sustainability in rural properties, we present a territorial and integrative approach based on ecological and socioeconomic factors, envisioning innovative policies and initiatives aiming to reconcile urban economic development with rural environmental conservation and restoration projects. This approach is used in the Paraíba Valley context, a region within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome, a biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000). We used census based-data at regional and municipal level, public documents (e.g., websites, magazines, books, newspaper), fieldwork knowledge from previous studies conducted in the region, and geospatial information on natural forest cover change, topography and road infrastructure.

The Paraíba Valley of São Paulo state (14,500sqkm) (Fig. 1a), hosts significant Atlantic Forest remnants (Ronquim et al., 2016). It is a major water source for a population over 10 million inhabitants living between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states and is an industrial region connecting these two metropolitan areas. The Valley has only 3.8% of urban and built-up areas (Silva et al., 2016), which concentrate 94% of its population, 2,086,722 inhabitants (IBGE, 2010). The Paraíba Valley is occupied by approximately 51% of pasturelands, 6% of eucalyptus plantations, and 32% of forest areas (Silva et al., 2016). Among the croplands, rice is one of the most important, mainly concentrated along the Paraíba do Sul river floodplains (Itani et al., 2011). Rural properties occupy 71% (1,035,200ha) of the Valley's total area (SAA/CATI/IEA, 2008) with a rural population of up to 6% of the Valley's total population (IBGE, 2010) as observed in Fig. 1a and b.

Fig. 1.

Paraíba Valley of São Paulo state and regional context. Boxes a and b represent data from the population census (IBGE, 2010). The boxes c, d and e represent forest cover areas among different periods.

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Source: Silva et al. (2017).

The countryside of the Paraíba Valley is a significant example of the traditional farming culture with the predominance of small properties of up to 50 hectares (70% of the rural properties) corresponding to 13% (203,012 hectares) of the region (SAA/CATI/IEA, 2008). They are characterized by low-intensity land use and high labor demand, particularly in dairy farming. The biophysical landscapes dominated by steep slopes and hilly terrain hampers mechanization and large-scale production of agricultural commodities. Since the 1950s, the Paraíba Valley faced major socioeconomic changes following the Brazilian industrialization and agricultural modernization period. While the country developed a highly-intensified agriculture in central regions, mainly at the Cerrado biome, former agricultural landscapes within the Paraíba Valley were marginalized. At the same time, Paraíba Valley hosted important industries attracting workers and boosting the urbanization process. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Valley reached higher standards of economic development pushed by the industrial decentralization of the metropolitan region of São Paulo. In 1950, the rural population of Paraíba Valley was of 64% and in 2010 of only 6% (IBGE, 2010). As a result, pasturelands were abandoned and replaced by forest cover through natural regeneration (Silva et al., 2017), a phenomenon known as Forest Transition (FT), i.e., when net forest gain is observed in a region previously affected by deforestation (Rudel et al., 2005).

Labor shortage in the region is an important factor influencing the decline of agricultural activities and has led many dairy farmers to abandon or decrease this activity. As found by Latawiec et al. (2017) in a study conducted in Mato Grosso state, Brazil, the lack of qualified labor is the major constraint to develop best management practices in agriculture. In the Valley, the proximity to urban centers and the easy access to technologies (e.g., smartphones, internet), as well as better financial and working conditions has attracted young potential rural workers who find themselves compelled to seek better living conditions. The Paraíba Valley commercial and economic centers demand regional workers for the sectors of industry, trade, services, infrastructure, and informal jobs.

The Valley's rural population declined 4.8% between the last two censuses, ranging from 140,020 to 133,194 inhabitants (IBGE, 2010). According to a survey carried out between September and November of 2014 (Silva, 2015), there is an increasing trend toward new owners of rural properties as second dwellings, residence (mainly in the case of retired people), leisure or tourism. The ‘new rural’ people, as they are known, have in many cases the primary intent to occupy the countryside with non-farm activities, but with potential interest to implement agroforestry systems, subsistence crop production and native forest restoration.

The traditional conservation approach has often disconnected ecosystems and society through the protection of species, ecosystems and landscapes from human negative impacts (Martín-López and Montes, 2015), rather than recognizing that human societies are part of nature and highly interconnected with ecological systems (Ostrom, 2009). In tropical countries, including Brazil, forest-rich regions have been converted into new agricultural lands (Gibbs et al., 2010). On the other hand, the Brazilian legislation requires a rural property to be productive and to conserve the environment, which is considered neither feasible nor lucrative for many Brazilian farmers (Rodrigues, 2016).

Approximately 70% of the Paraíba Valley is occupied by rural properties, which makes the rural area a key target for conservation policies and projects. However, the inherent linkage between forests, biodiversity, and agriculture challenges the government authorities, policy-makers and the entire society to develop rural and environmental policies that ensure environmental quality, biological conservation and better livelihood. Considering this scenario of historical deforestation and agricultural expansion, incentive programs, such as PES, have the potential to demonstrate to farmers that conserving the ecosystems to generate goods and services for humankind and improving agricultural production in the same land is possible and worthy (Rodrigues, 2016).

Many national and regional PES programs, especially in Latin America, have promoted biodiversity and natural resources conservation together with rural development (Gutman, 2007; Calvet-Mir et al., 2015). Brazilian PES projects, as the case of the Federal Program named ‘Produtor de Água’ developed by the National Water Agency, are mainly focused on the watershed level and within rural properties. It aims at restoring vegetation cover, and the adoption of soil conservation practices to avoid erosion, to improve and protect the water quality and quantity in watersheds important for human supply.

This is the case of the ‘Projeto Conservador de Água’, a PES scheme for water conservation using cash and in-kind incentives (Projeto Conservador das Águas, 2015). After 10 years, the project has demonstrated to farmers and other stakeholders that the benefits of PES are: (i) to provide water for many people located in a watershed; (ii) to control soil erosion and improve water quality; (iii) to conserve ecosystems for future generations; (iv) to support rural development, e.g., creating jobs in the countryside; (v) to increase environmental perception, ecological concerns and environmental legislation knowledge; (iv) to increase forested area and the formation of ecological corridors, among others (Rodrigues, 2016).

Currently, in the Valley, local family farming and landowners are benefited through PES programs. The ‘PSA Água Vale do Paraíba’ includes 21 municipalities since 2011 in actions to improve water resources in watersheds destined to public supply. The ‘Programa Produtor de Água’ of Guaratinguetá was established in 2010 with around 60 farmers engaged (51 formally receiving payments), 140ha of maintained and conserved forests, 85ha of soil conservation practices, and 50ha of spring areas and riparian areas reforested. In 2015, this program was also implemented in the municipality of São José dos Campos. Other examples are the ‘Programa Mais Água’ of São José dos Campos, initiated in 2015 with around 400 thousand of US dollars to support its first stage; the ‘Projeto Mina D’Água’ of São Luiz do Paraitinga that signed a five-year contract in 2014 with five producers to become providers of ES; and the ‘Projeto Crédito Ambiental Paulista para as Reservas Particulares do Patrimônio Natural’ (CAP/RPPN in Portuguese; PES for Private Reserve of Natural Heritage) which has three Valley's farmers participating from the municipalities of Guaratinguetá, Queluz and Cruzeiro, summing approximately 125 thousand of US dollars for an area of about 744ha.

Although these strategies present potential toward forest gain, the FT observed in the Paraíba Valley over the last decades had no direct financial gains for the farmers, neither it was supported by incentive mechanisms (Farinaci, 2012; Silva, 2015). However, the FT can strengthen PES and other incentive mechanisms by taking advantage of the natural forest regeneration process within rural properties as a starting point to diminish costs of forest restoration projects. According to Rezende et al. (2015), financial costs for forest restoration could be significantly reduced by natural forest regeneration in areas undergoing FT. Thus, financial assets destined to forest restoration projects could be reverted to other PES strategies such as the qualification of rural farmers, soil conservation practices, apiculture and rural tourism (Alves-Pinto et al., 2017).

Given the forest cover dynamics in the Valley, we argue that environmental restoration and ES programs must target other variables related to environmental conservation, such as urban and rural linkages (e.g., demand for food, water and fiber, ecological tourism, etc.). The feedback among coupled rural–urban systems may foster the farmer's adoption of ‘best management practices’ (UNEP, 2006) toward sustainable land management systems underpinning rural economic activities and long-term productivity capacity. If farmers benefit from best management practices (e.g., integrated systems), they will be prone to manage those systems sustainably and pursue better economic standards, determinant to invest in more sustainable land use practices and farm intensification (Alves-Pinto et al., 2017). Thus, to reach the goals of environmental conservation in the Paraíba Valley, there is a need of an integrative approach that considers rural and urban systems as interconnected parts of the territory.

Urban initiatives may reduce ecological depletion in rural areas if the linkages among them create bases for a sustainable regional development (DANIDA, 2000). Evaluating complex systems from a territorial approach is the foundation to consider both its ecological and socioeconomic dimensions. These are fundamental for the conceptualization of more robust policies and initiatives that may reconcile rural and urban development together with ecological restoration and conservation. Through this perspective, the rural and urban systems emerge as components of the Paraíba Valley territory (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Schematic representation of a coupled rural–urban system.

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Place-based conservation policies and projects should be developed with basis on the Paraíba Valley territorial potentialities, such as agricultural suitability (e.g., fruit and vegetable production), cultural and economic vocation (e.g., rural and ecological tourism), and demands from urban consumers (e.g., food and local culinary). Thus, after a systematic territory assessment (including a socioeconomic and ecological integrative research), planners, experts, farmers and policy-makers would be able to draw strategies and policies capable to enrich local biodiversity, ES and socioeconomic development in agricultural systems (Robertson and Swinton, 2005). Some studies have shown the influence of society's consumer behavior on sustainable farm practices. Examples are the ‘sustainable consumption’ in local and organic food networks (Seyfang, 2006; Kearney, 2010), as well as community and local food systems (Peters, 1997; Feenstra, 1997). The countryside food and cultural values are key dimensions of a coupled rural–urban system, which includes the provision of goods (e.g., agricultural products as food and fiber), cultural, information and economic (e.g., farm credit, income) flows.

The rural sub-component of the socio-ecological system (Fig. 2) may evolve from past management practices to meet new standards of production and social demands for environmental conservation. Consumers can reshape farmers’ agricultural practices through the flows between coupled rural–urban systems (Mainieri et al., 1997; Selfa et al., 2008) to meet the goals of incentive mechanisms for environmental conservation, such as PES, and catalyze transitions toward ecosystem-based management (EBM).

The feedbacks between coupled rural–urban systems, can strengthen best management practices or EBM strategies, in emergence in the Paraíba Valley or with potential to emerge, and may benefit PES programs and other conservation approaches. Thus, the most important conservation pathways in the Paraíba Valley can be presented as: (a) the ecological-economic zoning; (b) place-based policies for environmental conservation and agricultural activities; (c) rural technical extension for farmers; and (d) the multifunctionality of the rural property, blending agriculture and cattle ranching with orchards, forest-based activities (such as apiculture and extraction of non-timber forest products) and non-farm activities (such as rural tourism).

Ecological-economic zoning

Land is a key source for human activities, mainly for agriculture. The suitability of a region for farming activities is related to soil conditions, topography and water availability. Defining better areas for agriculture optimizes land use, releasing less suitable production areas for environmental conservation, a process known as land sparing, which can be normalized by sustainable agricultural intensification (Alves-Pinto et al., 2017). The ecological-economic zoning should, for example, add the value of landscape structure characteristics (Fig. 1 plots c, d and e) to guide forest restoration projects and landscape connectivity (Tabarelli et al., 2010); and other functional characteristics, such as hydrological sensible zones ideal to be covered by forest in order to avoid erosion, runoff, floods, and to improve groundwater recharge (Silva et al., 2013a). The information from zoning also highlights agro-productive areas, infrastructure (e.g., roads) and consumption centers to inform planners and policy-makers about place-based demands and production, as well as about ecosystem restoration in areas under forest successional process.

As observed in Fig. 3, the regeneration process of forest cover in the Paraíba Valley is concentrated on steep slopes distant from major urban centers, roads and flat terrain (Silva et al., 2016). This spatiotemporal information is key for policy-makers to formulate local development projects (e.g., new settlement areas, roads and infrastructure) and to avoid threats in areas under FT.

Fig. 3.

The sample area in the plots a, b and c represents the slope (plot a) and forest fragments observed in 1985 (plot b) and 2011 (plot c).

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To bring awareness about the territory's potentialities, the ecological-economic zoning aims at organizing the territory according to its natural assets, urban and peri-urban development regions to promote social and biophysical knowledge about its spatiotemporal connections.

The Valley's unsuitable lands for large-scale farming, degraded soils and pastures, and the farmers’ socioeconomic conditions are affecting the region to become more dependent on the local urban areas, capable to support local initiatives aiming at sustaining the coupled rural–urban system.

The role of the urban component in the coupled rural–urban system, as the territory's policy and financial arena, may influence farmers’ management practices toward more sustainable socio-ecological systems reaching desirable goals of incentive mechanisms for environmental conservation (e.g., PES) and rural economic development (e.g., PNAE). Urban demand for local organic food networks, food provision to local schools, rural, ecological and religious tourism, forest restoration and valorization of the local countryside culture are important linkages to foster the engagement of local farmers in PES programs (e.g., water conservation programs), sustainable farms and rural tourism (e.g., exploring culinary, culture and ecological assets as trails and waterfalls). Demands from urban residents for more sustainable food production can strengthen PES programs of water conservation, for example, by the adoption of soil management practices (e.g., to conserve soil and avoid erosion), use-input efficiency or even organic food production as strategies to conserve water quality by the avoidance of fertilizer lixiviation.

The Valley's rural areas became important touristic destinations given their natural and cultural assets, such as the location between two mountain ranges (i.e., Serra da Mantiqueira and Serra do Mar), numerous waterfalls and trails, scenic views, cultural and religious heritage, and geographic location, among populated and wealthy regions in Brazil (i.e., São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro metropolitan areas). These touristic assets are key in stimulating landowners to transform preserved natural areas in conservation areas as private reserves with potential to become touristic destinations.

The Paraíba Valley arises as an example of coupled rural–urban system and highlights the role of the urban component to the rural territory and its influence over the rural production systems (farm and non-farm activities). Volunteer actions for environmental conservation, rural tourism, rural areas for second residence and demands of urban consumers for more sustainable food products are becoming an important nexus between urban and rural systems. The integrative approach presented in this paper brings awareness about how connected rural and urban systems are, and ultimately rises the importance that urban society has for the economic and social development of rural areas, motivating farmers to adopt best management practices and diversify activities.