Tropentag, September 16 - 18, 2026, Göttingen "Towards multi-functional agro-ecosystems promoting climate-resilient futures"

Living with forests: Insights from the past into land ‘use’ for climate resilient ecosystems and futures

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Dept. of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanization, Germany

Abstract

Land use is one of the most tangible expressions of our intensifying impact on the Earth system in the Anthropocene. This is particularly the case in the latitudinal tropics, where alterations to land cover have impacts on biodiversity, the climate, and carbon cycle which can be felt on regional and global scales. While these human-forest-Earth system relationships are key parts of a number of so-called ‘Anthropocene crises’ in the 21^st century, their origins lie much deeper in the past. In this talk, I argue that the past is key to understanding baselines of change, feedbacks between human activities, land cover, and the Earth system, and historical path dependencies and inequalities which characterise human-forest relationships in the latitudinal tropics today. I highlight how multidisciplinary approaches to historical land use change are providing a tangible, quantitative, and contextualized bases for charting more just and resilient future courses, enabling us to test and validate scenarios of land use change and ecosystem and Earth system response. Moreover, I emphasise how archaeology, history, ethnography and, critically, amplifying the voices of Indigenous communities, can lead us to consider more diverse perspectives to our relationship with land and forests than simply ‘use’. In this way the past, instead of being an anecdote, becomes a key landmark for understanding the diversity of ways people not only have but also can live with tropical ecosystems.

Contact Address: Patrick Roberts, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Dept. of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanization, Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745  Jena, Germany, e-mail: robertsgea.mpg.de