Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon could be halved by scaling up the implementation of zero-deforestation cattle commitments

Levy, Santiago; Cammelli, Federico; Munger, Jacob; Gibbs, Holly K.; Garrett, Rachael

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102671

Cited by 16 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…This results in an imbalance in coverage, with at-risk forests being exposed to greater ZDC coverage through downstream buyers than directly through local mill owners. This is unsurprising given that pressure from civil society has been heavily directed towards large firms [63] and confirms calls within ZDC studies on soy and beef to expand ZDC adoption among small and mediumsized firms [31,64]. While targeting refineries did succeed in getting broad exposure to ZDCs across Indonesia, such indirect exposure to ZDCs might have less of an impact on land use decisions unless it is matched by ZDC adoption by their suppliers.…”

Section: Zdc Policies Should Be Geographically and Functionally Targe...mentioning

confidence: 85%

How well does the implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia align with aims to halt deforestation and include smallholders?

Chandra,

Garrett,

Carlson

et al. 2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

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In response to growing scrutiny surrounding commodity-driven deforestation, companies have introduced zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) with ambitious environmental and social targets. However, such initiatives may not effectively reduce deforestation if they are not aligned with the spatial extent of remaining forests at risk. They may also fail to avert socio-economic risks if ZDCs do not consider smallholder farmers’ needs. We assess the spatial and functional fit of ZDCs by mapping commodity-driven deforestation and socio-economic risks, and comparing them to the spatial coverage and implementation of ZDCs in the Indonesian palm oil sector. Our study finds that companies’ ZDCs often underperform in four areas: traceability, compliance support for high-risk palm oil mills, transparency, and smallholder inclusion. In 2020, only one-third of companies sourcing from their own mills, and just 6% of those sourcing from external suppliers, achieved full traceability to plantations. Comparing the reach of ZDCs adopted by downstream buyers with those adopted by mill owners located further upstream, we find that high-quality ZDCs from buyers covered 62% of forests at risk, while mill owners’ ZDCs only covered 23% of forests at risk within the mill supply base. In Kalimantan and Papua, the current and future deforestation frontiers, the forests most at risk of conversion were predominantly covered by weak ZDCs lacking in policy comprehensiveness and implementation. Additionally, we find that only 46% of independent smallholder oil palm plots are in mill supply sheds whose owners offer programs and support for independent smallholders, indicating that smallholder inclusion is a significant challenge for ZDC companies. These results highlight the lack of spatial and functional alignment between supply chain policies and their local context as a significant gap in ZDC implementation and a challenge that the EU Deforestation Regulation will face.

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Section: Zdc Policies Should Be Geographically and Functionally Targe...mentioning

confidence: 85%

How well does the implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia align with aims to halt deforestation and include smallholders?

Chandra,

Garrett,

Carlson

et al. 2024

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…In this study they point out areas that should be investigated to reduce deforestation with the aim of an economy and business aligned with sustainability. Levy et al (2023) also emphasize the importance of accelerating the implementation of zero deforestation commitments, as the damage caused by rampant The municipalities in the northeast of Pará were grouped in the sanitation dimension into two groups (Figure 6d). The justification for grouping in such a way is given by the fact that according to the last demographic census (IBGE, 2010) the municipalities composed in group 1 (Figure 5), which contains the minority, had access to ity less than 83%, in addition to lack of information and/or nullity in the other indices.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability assessment in cities in the eastern amazon

Lima,

Progênio,

Costa

et al. 2023

Sustainable Development

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Indicators are important tools that help monitor and assess sustainability, providing crucial information for public management. This study aimed to analyze the behavior of municipalities in eastern amazon (State of Pará), through sustainability indicators that cover social, economic, environmental and basic sanitation dimensions, applying the statistical method of multivariate analysis. For the selection of indicators, a checklist of academic papers on sustainability was carried out. For the composition of the clusters, the Ward method was applied. To validate the number of groups, the Pakhira‐Bandyopadhyay‐Maulik (PBM) index was used, obtaining 2 groups for the sanitation and general dimensions, 3 for environmental and social and 7 groups for economic. In this study, it was possible to demonstrate that several municipalities have deficiencies related to access to water supply and mainly sewage collection and treatment, causing various consequences for the population, as they do not comply with the commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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“…Although possible leakage effects from nascent habitat restoration commitments are currently poorly quantified, evidence from historic programmes in Chile and China suggests they may inadvertently increase plantation‐driven habitat loss in native forests (Heilmayr et al., 2020; Hua et al., 2018). Within Brazil, leakage has already partially offset the conservation benefits of several successful environmental policies, including the soy moratorium (Villoria et al., 2022) and zero‐deforestation cattle commitments (Levy et al., 2023), signalling a need for robust mechanisms that link habitat restoration with increased—and certainly not reduced—plantation production. It will also be important to integrate both restoration and plantation expansion with other land‐uses and production needs (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflicts and opportunities for commercial tree plantation expansion and biodiversity restoration across Brazil

Cerullo,

Worthington,

Brancalion

et al. 2024

Global Change Biology

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Substantial global restoration commitments are occurring alongside a rapid expansion in land‐hungry tropical commodities, including to supply increasing demand for wood products. Future commercial tree plantations may deliver high timber yields, shrinking the footprint of production forestry, but there is an as‐yet unquantified risk that plantations may expand into priority restoration areas, with marked environmental costs. Focusing on Brazil—a country of exceptional restoration importance and one of the largest tropical timber producers—we use random forest models and information on the economic, social, and spatial drivers of historic commercial tree plantation expansion to estimate and map the probability of future monoculture tree plantation expansion between 2020 and 2030. We then evaluate potential plantation‐restoration conflicts and opportunities at national and biome‐scales and under different future production and restoration pathways. Our simulations show that of 2.8 Mha of future plantation expansion (equivalent to plantation expansion 2010–2020), ~78,000 ha (3%) is forecast to occur in the top 1% of restoration priority areas for terrestrial vertebrates, with ~547,500 ha (20%) and ~1,300,000 ha (46%) in the top 10% and 30% of priority areas, respectively. Just ~459,000 ha (16%) of expansion is forecast within low‐restoration areas (bottom 30% restoration priorities), and the first 1 Mha of plantation expansion is likely to have disproportionate impacts, with potential restoration‐plantation overlap starkest in the Atlantic Forest but prominent in the Pampas and Cerrado as well. Our findings suggest that robust, coherent land‐use policies must be deployed to ensure that significant trade‐offs between restoration and production objectives are navigated, and that commodity expansion does not undermine the most tractable conservation gains under emerging global restoration agendas. They also highlight the potentially significant role an engaged forestry sector could play in improving biodiversity outcomes in restoration projects in Brazil, and presumably elsewhere.

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Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon could be halved by scaling up the implementation of zero-deforestation cattle commitments

Cited by 16 publications

References 50 publications

How well does the implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia align with aims to halt deforestation and include smallholders?

How well does the implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia align with aims to halt deforestation and include smallholders?

Sustainability assessment in cities in the eastern amazon

Conflicts and opportunities for commercial tree plantation expansion and biodiversity restoration across Brazil

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