Guiding Agricultural Expansion to Spare Tropical Forests

Dinerstein, Eric; Baccini, Alessandro; Anderson, Michael L.; Fiske, Greg; Wikramanayake, Eric; McLaughlin, David; Powell, George; Olson, David M.; Joshi, Anup

doi:10.1111/conl.12149

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Secondly, available or degraded land can be used for LSLA, again avoiding the need to acquire forested areas (Carter et al 2015). Global maps of unused or low carbon land have been produced (Dinerstein et al 2014), but national or regional maps are needed to suggest hot spots and cold spots of LSLA and deforestation coincidence. However there is some debate on whether there is land unused, or idle (which is non-forested), and also whether current maps are useful for identifying it, as discussed by Nalepa and Bauer (2012) on the use of remote sensing tools to identify marginal land.…”

Section: Potential To Reduce the Impact Of Lsla On Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large scale land acquisitions and REDD+: a synthesis of conflicts and opportunities

Carter

Manceur

Seppelt

et al. 2017

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Large scale land acquisitions (LSLA), and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDDþ) are both land based phenomena which when occurring in the same area, can compete with each other for land. A quantitative analysis of country characteristics revealed that land available for agriculture, accessibility, and political stability are key explanatory factors for a country being targeted for LSLA. Surprisingly LSLA occur in countries with lower accessibility. Countries with good land availability, poor accessibility and political stability may become future targets if they do not already have LSLA. Countries which high levels of agriculture-driven deforestation and LSLA, should develop interventions which reduce forest loss driven either directly or indirectly by LSLA as part of their REDDþ strategies. Both host country and investor-side policies have been identified which could be used more widely to reduce conflicts between LSLA and REDDþ. Findings from this research highlight the need for and can inform the development of national and international policies on land acquisitions including green acquisitions such as REDDþ. Land management must be considered with all its objectivesincluding food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation-in a coherent strategy which engages relevant stakeholders. This is not currently occurring and might be a key ingredient to achieve the targets under the Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 15 and 16 (related to food security and sustainable agriculture and the protection of forests) among others.

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Section: Potential To Reduce the Impact Of Lsla On Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large scale land acquisitions and REDD+: a synthesis of conflicts and opportunities

Carter

Manceur

Seppelt

et al. 2017

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…If cocoa (or any other) agroforests were planted on previously cleared land, this would amount to a form of “re-agro-forestation,” a term coined by Michon et al ( 2000 ) for the re-establishment of forest cover based on useful trees on slash-and-burn land by smallholder farmers in Indonesia. While this has rarely been the case in the history of cocoa cultivation, or commodity production in general, there are reasons to believe that this could now be changing as forest clearing for agricultural expansion becomes increasingly unacceptable (Dinerstein et al 2014 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commodity production as restoration driver in the Brazilian Amazon? Pasture re-agro-forestation with cocoa (Theobroma cacao) in southern Pará

Schroth¹,

Garcia

Griscom

et al. 2015

Sustain Sci

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The increasing demand for agricultural commodities is a major cause of tropical deforestation. However, pressure is increasing for greater sustainability of commodity value chains. This includes the demand to establish new crop plantations and pasture areas on already deforested land so that new forest clearing for agriculture is minimized. Where tree crops are planted as part of agroforestry systems on deforested land, this amounts to a form of re-agro-forestation which can generate environmental benefits in addition to crop production. Here, we discuss a case where agroforestry systems based on cocoa (Theobroma cacao) are being established on crop and pasture land in the south of Pará state, Brazilian Amazon. The adoption of cocoa by farmers and ranchers of the region is stimulated by the coincidence of (1) favorable prospects for cocoa on the national and international markets including the expectation of a global cocoa supply gap; (2) environmental policies obliging land owners to reforest excess cleared land with native trees, with agroforests based on the native cocoa tree being an economically attractive option; and (3) biophysical conditions (especially soil fertility) favorable for growing cocoa in part of the region. We show that in the state of Pará at least 1.26 million hectares of naturally high-fertility soils in deforested areas outside legally protected and indigenous lands are potentially suitable for cocoa production with low agrochemical inputs, sufficient to make a significant contribution to closing the predicted supply gap. Their actual suitability depends on their state of degradation after years of pasture use and the availability of technologies and finance to convert them into tree crop agroforests. We discuss the significant environmental benefits of pasture re-agro-forestation with cocoabased systems, including reduced emissions of up to 135 Mg of carbon per hectare compared to the historically common scenario of planting cocoa after forest clearing. We identify important research questions related to the scaling up of this practice and the maximization of its environmental benefits. We conclude that the coincidence of the afore-mentioned factors could drive a re-agroforestation frontier in this part of the Amazon, with potential for positive outcomes in terms of commodity production while generating social and environmental benefits.

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“…One approach to reconciling agricultural production with climate stability is to steer agricultural expansion away from intact forests toward low carbon landscapes (Dinerstein et al 2015). While intuitive, this approach poses challenges to highly forested countries with low deforestation rates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reducing Carbon Emissions from Forest Conversion for Oil Palm Agriculture in Gabon

Burton

Poulsen

Lee

et al. 2016

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Growing demand for palm oil is driving its expansion into the African tropics, potentially leading to significant carbon emissions if tropical forest is converted to palm monoculture. In this first study of a Central African oil palm concession (31,800 ha), we predict that the conversion of 11,500 ha of logged forest to a palm plantation in Gabon will release 1.50 Tg C (95% CI = [1.29, 1.76]). These emissions could be completely offset over 25 years through sequestration in planned forest set-asides given a 2.6:1 ratio of logged to converted forest. Using an agricultural suitability model, we find that careful national land-use planning could largely avoid high carbon emissions while meeting goals for palm oil production. We recommend that Gabon adopts a national carbon threshold for land conversion and requires concession-level set-aside ratios that meet no-net emissions criteria as mechanisms for steering plantations away from high carbon forests

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Guiding Agricultural Expansion to Spare Tropical Forests

Cited by 17 publications

References 37 publications

Large scale land acquisitions and REDD+: a synthesis of conflicts and opportunities

Large scale land acquisitions and REDD+: a synthesis of conflicts and opportunities

Commodity production as restoration driver in the Brazilian Amazon? Pasture re-agro-forestation with cocoa (Theobroma cacao) in southern Pará

Reducing Carbon Emissions from Forest Conversion for Oil Palm Agriculture in Gabon

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