Pre-industrial land use transitions in the tropics and their multi-scalar ramifications for the carbon cycle
P. ROBERTS
isoTROPIC Research Group/Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Kahlaische Str. 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Tropical forests are critical to the operation of many parts of the Earth System, including the carbon cycle. Given the role of these habitats as carbon sinks, combined deforestation, as well as changing fire regimes, has the potential to result in massive knock-on feedbacks for carbon in soils, ecosystems, and even the atmosphere. Although tropical forests were once considered to be blanks on the map of human history, growing multidisciplinary research is highlighting the ways in which pre-industrial societies occupied and managed these environments, with changing tropical land use patterns having the potential impact the Earth System long prior to the ‘Great Acceleration’. In this talk, I begin by highlighting the ways in which anthropogenic activities in tropical forests can impact the carbon cycle, on both local and global scales. I then move through time, from the Pleistocene to the Late Holocene, to explore the available evidence for significant transitions in anthropogenic land use in the tropics that might have had ramifications for terrestrial carbon and atmospheric CO2. I argue that by understanding the nature and tempo of these changes in the past, with a particular focus on the role of Indigenous communities in managing these habitats over millennia, we can develop more informed policies for the present and plan for a more just, sustainable future.