Download or read book Participatory Research to Support Rural Livelihoods and Ecosytem Services Conservation in the Pico Duarte Coffee Region of the Dominican Republic written by Lee Hamilton Gross and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Findings suggest that all farms, as part of a diversified livelihood strategy, maintained similar levels of native tree and fruit species and supported important watershed service functions. However, findings verify conditions of poverty among coffee farmer households and strong economic pressures to abandon shade coffee for high input monoculture crops (e.g., chayote squash and beans) with potential loss to ecosystem services across the region. To conserve ecosystem services at multiple scales, a coordinated effort to support shade coffee farmers who practice diverse, low input agroecological management was evaluated through market and non-market approaches. In order to promote more sustainable landscape management in the region, a set of policy recommendations was developed for improving livelihoods and environmental conservation over the long-term.