CONTEXT: The Amazon is fundamental to regulate the climate of the entire planet. It is paramount to consider climate change as a negative externality because the costs of production versus consumption of a good or service are not reflected in market prices. Within these considerations, small and medium agricultural farmers have a limited capacity to seek other livelihood alternatives. Traditional practices must be rescued and adapted in a sustainable livelihoods approach to make the Ecuadorian Amazon Region resilient to climate change.OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to provide agroecological alternatives for small and medium tropical crop farmers for climate change adaptation from socio-econo-environmental perspective at two provinces (Orellana and Sucumbíos) in the Ecuadorian Amazon.METHODS: Four different research stages were conducted to proposed agroecological designs for cocoa and coffee plantations. Thirty-one farms were visited in both provinces to know about the farmers' agricultural management techniques for cocoa, coffee, and pastures. Brief interviews, surveys, formal and informal conversations were carried out to obtain an integral diagnosis in the context of Agroforestry systems management. The Spatially Explicit Individual-based Forest Simulator program was used to simulate the agroecological designs.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Based on simulations the results show that agroecological alternatives can contribute to increase shade from 20 to 40% using cocoa and coffee crops with association of timber plants than can regulate conditions of temperature, luminosity, excessive wind and avoid extreme moisture deficiencies in times of drought. In a socio-economic perspective the integral models can contribute to the sustainable development of food production, cross-cultural approach, and livelihoods of medium and small farmer. Rebuilding the social structure and restructuring the farming practices of small and medium agricultural farmers is the challenge against climate change; doing so will enhance the capacity to implement agroecological mechanisms and alternatives to resist and/or recover from climate events.SIGNIFICANCE: The arrangements and associations of coffee and Cocoa crops with timber species and fruit trees for multiple uses are agroecological alternatives that provide organic matter and nitrogen continuously to the soil, contributing to climate change adaptation in both provinces of the EAR and produce significant income for the producer in the medium and long-term.