Ecological set-asides are a promising strategy for conserving biodiversity in human-modified landscapes; however, landowner participation is often precluded by financial constraints. We assessed the ecological benefits and economic costs of paying landowners to set aside private land for restoration. Benefits were calculated from data on nearly 25,000 captures of Brazilian Atlantic Forest vertebrates, and economic costs were estimated for several restoration scenarios and values of payment for ecosystem services. We show that an annual investment equivalent to 6.5% of what Brazil spends on agricultural subsidies would revert species composition and ecological functions across farmlands to levels found inside protected areas, thereby benefiting local people. Hence, efforts to secure the future of this and other biodiversity hotspots may be cost-effective.

Agricultural expansion has caused extensive deforestation throughout the tropics in the last decades, nevertheless, some countries have experienced native forest gains. In the 20th century, the state of São Paulo, Brazil, transitioned from an agricultural frontier to an agro-industrial state, and in parallel, from a high deforestation rate to a net gain in native forest. Here we examine the biophysical and socioeconomic factors that best explain land use and forest cover change in the state, at the municipality scale, over four consecutive intervals between 1960 and 2006. We hypothesized that factors that increase the productivity of agricultural land or reduce pressure on land development would lead to regeneration. Although results differed among intervals, our analyses demonstrate that forest gains were greater in municipalities with high forest cover percentage and steep slopes, and in areas that employed a large number of workers and relied on intensive fertilizer inputs. At the same time, forest loss was higher in municipalities with a large portion of agricultural land and soils with higher water retention capacity. These results reveal that land-use expansion led to forest loss in areas more suitable for agriculture, while forest gains occurred mainly in less suitable areas. Over time, agricultural expansion leveled off and agriculture intensification enabled forest gains, which were most marked in areas with a high percentage of forest remnants. Ultimately, however, these proximate drivers of forest change were driven by governmental policies to modernize agriculture and to protect natural ecosystems.

Prior to deforestation, São Paulo State had 79,000 km(2) covered by Cerrado (Brazilian savanna) physiognomies, but today less than 8.5% of this biodiversity hotspot remains, mostly in private lands. The global demand for agricultural goods has imposed strong pressure on natural areas, and the economic decisions of agribusiness managers are crucial to the fate of Cerrado domain remaining areas (CDRA) in Brazil. Our aim was to investigate the effectiveness of Brazilian private protected areas policy, and to propose a feasible alternative to promote CDRA protection. This article assessed the main agribusiness opportunity costs for natural areas preservation: the land use profitability and the arable land price. The CDRA percentage and the opportunity costs were estimated for 349 municipal districts of São Paulo State through secondary spatial data and profitability values of 38 main agricultural products. We found that Brazilian private protected areas policy fails to preserve CDRA, although the values of non-compliance fines were higher than average opportunity costs. The scenario with very restrictive laws on private protected areas and historical high interest rates allowed us to conceive a feasible cross compliance proposal to improve environmental and agricultural policies.

IntroduçãoO Novo Código Florestal (NCF) e o Crédito Rural (CR) foram criados por leis federais no mesmo ano, o primeiro em setembro e o segundo em novembro de 1965, sob o mesmo cenário social, político e econômico. O NCF (Lei federal 4771-65) representa hoje o principal instrumento legal para a conservação de formações de vegetação nativa em propriedades particulares. Apesar do NCF representar uma atualização do Código Florestal de 1934, a lei estabeleceu parâmetros inovadores para a conservação de vegetação nativa nas fazendas brasileiras, como a obrigatoriedade da manutenção de Áreas de Preservação Permanente (APP) dentro das propriedades rurais. As APP protegem faixas de vegetação nativa ao longo dos cursos d´água, proporcionalmente à sua largura, bem como nas encostas com mais de 45° de inclinação, nos topos de morros, em altitudes acima de 1800 m, em bordas de tabuleiros e chapadas, e ainda a vegetação fixadora de dunas e estabilizadora de mangues. O NCF, em sua primeira versão, também estabeleceu as limitações de uso das terras que futuramente viriam a ser caracterizadas como áreas de Reserva Legal (RL): nas regiões Sudeste, Sul e CentroOeste (em sua parte sul) as propriedades rurais deveriam manter um mínimo de 20% de sua área com cobertura arbórea, enquanto nas áreas ainda não cultivadas, a derrubada de vegetação nativa para instalação de novas propriedades agrícolas só seria permitida até o limite de 50% da propriedade. A lei passou posteriormente por sucessivas alterações que ampliaram a largura das APP ao longo dos cursos d´água, separaram as APP das áreas de RL e, por fim, estabeleceram percentuais de RL de 80% na Amazônia Legal (AL), 35% para os cerrados na AL e 20% nas demais áreas fora da AL.Metzger (2010) concluiu, por meio de uma revisão de estudos em Ecologia de Paisagens, que APP e RL desempenham um papel complementar e imprescindível ao das Unidades de Conservação (UC) públicas, garantindo a conectividade e a preservação de manchas de habitat nos espaços antrópicos entre as UC. Os incrementos

This study investigated how farm size, economic activity and social group are related to declared native vegetation cover in rural lands in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, evaluating implications to environmental public policies. We analyzed data from Rural Environmental Registry System of São Paulo (SICAR-SP). More than one third of the farms does not have declared native vegetation and half of them have up to 3% of native vegetation cover. Percentage of declared native vegetation cover tends to increase with farm size. However, only community lands and silviculture farms larger than 500 hectares showed most properties (more than 50%) with at least 20% of its area covered with native vegetation, as determined by the Brazilian Forest Act (federal law 12,651/2012). Our results suggest that, beyond property size, property social group and economic activity are also important aspects to be considered into public policy design aiming at environmental conservation in rural landscapes.

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Energy transitions will be shaped, among other aspects, by their Institutional historical trajectory. Institutions reproduce and change over the time, and these processes have been investigated under different and sometimes confronting approaches. We proposed a framework which articulates different institutionalism approaches to understand the dominance of hydroelectricity in the Brazilian matrix. The framework articulates institutional processes to explain its reproduction and change over time. Findings point out that institutional path dependence and isomorphism have precluded the adoption of other technologies in Brazil. Contrarily, momentary external or internal crisis in the field rapidly fostered the emergence of electricity generation transition from almost fully hydroelectric to a hybrid matrix with thermal (fossil and biomass) and wind power. Crises presented an opportunity to strategic action of social skilled agents on institutional change. This analytical framework improves the integration of complementary theoretical approaches for understanding institutional dynamics in order to guide policymakers.