A critical analysis of the Native Vegetation Protection Law of Brazil (2012): updates and ongoing initiatives

Synergism Between Payments for Water-Related Ecosystem Services, Ecological Restoration, and Landscape Connectivity Within the Atlantic Forest Hotspot

“…This was evidenced by our case study in the Posses subwatershed region in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. This complement of services was indeed foreseen by the Brazilian Forest Act when establishing the Areas of Permanent Protection, where the protection or restoration of native vegetation is mandatory for assuring biodiversity conservation, soil and water resources protection, human well-being, and many other functions (Brancalion, Garcia, et al, 2016a;Metzger, 2010;Soares-Filho et al, 2014). Fortunately, many other restoration projects designed to reestablish riparian forest corridors to comply with the Forest Act have been implemented throughout southeastern Brazil (Brancalion, Schweizer, et al, 2016b;Rodrigues et al, 2011), with consequent increases of landscape connectivity.…”

“…The restoration of thin corridors, which are more susceptible to edge effects (Martello, Andrioli, de Souza, Dodonov, & Ribeiro, 2016;Mendes, Ribeiro, & Galetti, 2015), may provide less functional connectivity of the landscape and thus suboptimal levels of biodiversity conservation services (Brancalion, Garcia, et al, 2016a;Rotta, Viani, & Rosario, 2016). In conclusion, there is great potential for incorporating biodiversity conservation objectives into projects primarily designed and funded for improving the provision of water-related ES, a potential that can be optimized by adopting a landscape ecology perspective in the planning and implementation of ecological restoration efforts.…”

“…The selection of target areas for forest restoration was partially based on the 1965 Brazilian Forest Code, which established the need to protect or restore areas that are not covered by native vegetation. The Forest Code defined several particular areas to be permanently protected: mountain tops, 30-m-wide riparian corridors along each side of streams, and a radius of 50 m around springs (see details in Brancalion, Garcia, et al, 2016a). The Conservador das A´guas is the most successful program of PES in Brazil and received a major UN-Habitat award in 2012 that recognized the project as one of the 10 best global conservation practices (http://mirror.unhabitat.org/bp/ bp.list.details.aspx?bp_id=4399).…”

O impacto da lei florestal brasileira na instituição de Reservas Legais no território paulista: um estudo a partir dos dados públicos do Sistema de Cadastro Ambiental Rural

“…Depois, o texto legal traz uma série de disposições transitórias, que tratam da flexibilização de alguns dos instrumentos gerais de proteção florestal estabelecidos na própria LFB, com vistas a promover, de modo facilitado, a regularização ambiental das propriedades rurais. Por fim, a lei florestal estabelece novos sistemas de controle e de incentivo, que criam mecanismos e políticas públicas para a implementação dos dispositivos legais de proteção e restauração florestal (Brancalion et al, 2016).…”

Peer Review #2 of "Primates in peril: the significance of Brazil, Madagascar, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for global primate conservation (v0.1)"

“…Despite significant increases in revenues derived from agricultural 965 exports in these four countries, millions of their citizens remain undernourished, undereducated, 966 and poor (World Bank, 2017). While Brazil has made important strides in reducing deforestation, 967 decreasing poverty, and fostering science and education with direct positive impacts on primate 968 conservation, a change in government policies in 2012 reduced the protection of natural 969 vegetation on private lands (Brancalion et al, 2016) and laws governing protected areas were 970 reduced and weakened (Bernard et al, 2016). Funding for science also was reduced (Overberch 971 et al, 2018).…”