Understanding local people’s socio-cultural backgrounds, and economic pressures is essential for finding a balance between biodiversity conservation and people well being. In Southern Bahia, rural population strongly depend on cocoa production for their livelihoods. But pest pressures linked to increasing temperatures, and poor economic incentives, are bringing cocoa production into a steep decline. These pressures often push producers to expand their farms into forest and/or intensify their production, as last resort for meet their basic needs. Our work aims to understand the dynamics between the socio-cultural and economic forces driving land use changes. Once a year, we conduct interviews in the villages nearby to our research project to collect this socio-economic data. Our citizen science workshops twice a year, aim to exchange scientific and local knowledge about the importance to preserve nature for supporting Atlantic Forest biodiversity, and livelihoods of the local people.