Forest use and agriculture in Ucayali, Peru: Livelihood strategies, poverty and wealth in an Amazon frontier

•Households in Ucayali have multifaceted livelihood systems.•Income sources from forests (40%), agriculture (25%), wages (17%), livestock (11%)•Economic strategies when examined in isolation do not explain income variation.•Location and ethnicity correlate with livelihood strategies, poverty & asset levels.•Due to logging, forest-depending households don't necessarily have lowest incomes.

The relevance of forests to rural well-being and poverty reduction remains a controversial issue. This paper examines patterns of association between household wealth, poverty, and livelihood dependency either on forest extraction or agricultural activities in Ucayali, Peru. The analysis is based on survey data of 578 households with geographical, ethnic and environmental heterogeneity. A typology of economic strategies was defined through relative income shares derived from agriculture, forest, wages and other income sources. Our results show that households have multifaceted livelihood systems. While forest/environmental products provide nearly 40% of total income, agriculture is critical to both indigenous communities and to farmers of non-Amazonian origin. We test the hypothesis that households relying on agriculture are wealthier than forest-dependent households. In addition, we examine the role played by ethnicity and location as interacting variables. The analysis suggests a strong role of specific ethnic and locational configurations in shaping income and asset patterns, with some weak evidence of statistically lower poverty levels being credited to dependency on forest products. Context-specific assessments of livelihood–environment interactions provide critical insights to development and environmental policies and programs, which need to recognize different forms through which households integrate forest use and agriculture.