Integrating ecological equivalence for native vegetation compensation: A methodological approach

Mello, Kaline de; Fendrich, Arthur Nicolaus; Borges-Matos, Clarice; Brites, Alice Dantas; Tavares, Paulo André; Rocha, Gustavo Casoni da; Matsumoto, Marcelo; Rodrigues, Ricardo Ribeiro; Joly, Carlos Alfredo; Sparovek, Gerd; Metzger, Jean Paul

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105568

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Disaggregated Condition Metric was designed focused on general compensation schemes that include ecological equivalence, such as the volunteer offsets for private lands in South Africa (Von Hase et al, 2010), or the compensations of private reserves in rural properties in Brazil (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. However, it could also attend to more exigent compensation schemes, such as biodiversity offsets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We highlight that the number of hexagons available for compensation should not be a reference through which compensation trades should be evaluated, since ecological equivalence is the main driver to select compensation sites. If the number of candidate hexagons to compensate an impact-hexagon is too low in a given region, compensating in hexagons of one or two classes above the impact-hexagon original classes is an acceptable adaptation of the metric, making it more feasible in operational and economic terms (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. Also, in many cases, extensive databases do not exist or are not readily available due to many factors, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Including ecological equivalence in trades improves the environmental outcome of the compensation or offset (BBOP, 2012a), but this measure is usually seen as a great restriction of the area available to compensate (Weissgerber et al, 2019), which makes compensation more expensive and demands protecting lands of higher opportunity costs (Mello et al, 2021a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alho et al, 2019;Dambros et al, 2020;Silva and Casteleti, 2003) and that this heterogeneity could lead to unbalanced trades if compensating in an entire biome is allowed, with more environmental losses than gains in some situations (Metzger, 2010). Yet, this demand for ecological equivalence was criticized by environmental and agricultural sectors, mostly because it lacked a definition of how to measure ecological equivalence and what levels of equivalence would be required (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. There was also a fear that it could reduce the areas available for compensation, which could increase the compensation costs to landowners (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, this demand for ecological equivalence was criticized by environmental and agricultural sectors, mostly because it lacked a definition of how to measure ecological equivalence and what levels of equivalence would be required (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. There was also a fear that it could reduce the areas available for compensation, which could increase the compensation costs to landowners (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. Despite the criticism and the lack of specifications about ecological equivalence, the Court did make clear that Legal…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

Matos¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Given the importance of environmental compensations and biodiversity offsets (i.e. compensations with no net loss of biodiversity) for conservation and their increasing use worldwide, it is critical to understand and improve these mechanisms. In this work, we sought to broaden our understanding and make suggestions for improvement, focusing on ways to measure and achieve ecological equivalence in compensation trades. First, we reviewed the academic literature on the condition metrics used in offsets. We unraveled and understood the main limitations of the metrics: the frequent lack of incorporation of the three dimensions of equivalence (biodiversity, landscape and ecosystem services), the inclusion of many ecological attributes highly aggregated in a single formula, generating a single value as a final result, and the fact they were developed in few countries, primarily from the Global North -yet, they are commonly applied in other countries, inclusive from the Global South. Thus, our next step was trying to overcome these limitations by developing a new metric. We created the Disaggregated Condition Metric, which presents flexibility in the number and identity of the attributes included, always in a disaggregated way. To make the metric simpler, we tested the synergy and trade-off relationships of the attributes and identified those most redundant that could be dismissed, always including the three dimensions of equivalence. Compensation trades are only allowed within spatial units (hexagons from 5 to 10 thousand hectares) of the same value for the three attributes selected at the end of the tests. Using the tropical biome Atlantic Forest within the state of São Paulo as our study system, these attributes were: bird richness, landscape connectivity, and potential pollination service. The Disaggregated Condition Metric has a high potential to be successfully transposed to other regions, especially those from the Global South. Our final step was to test the metric application in a real situation. For this, we used the Legal Reserve compensation scheme proposed in the Brazilian New Forest Code. Considering the same study area in São Paulo, we calculated for each hexagon values of deficit and surplus of Legal Reserve, areas possibly available for restoration of native vegetation, private areas in an irregular situation within public protected areas, where the compensation could be carried out, and the costs for employing these compensation strategies. We created six scenarios to test the performance of these strategies, always using the Disaggregated Environmental Condition Metric and including ecological equivalence in the trades. We showed that practically the entire deficit of the Atlantic Forest of São Paulo can be compensated by a combination of protection of Legal Reserve surplus with restoration, which is the scenario with the best cost-efficiency, considering the costs, deficit resolution and increase in forest cover (considered here as "additionality"). Therefore, we not only contributed to a better unders...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

Matos¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Natural vegetation biomass and the dimension of forest quality in tropical agricultural landscapes

de Toledo,

Pivello,

Perring

et al. 2024

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Forest cover has been a pivotal indicator of biological conservation and carrying capacity for wildlife in forest ecoregions. Such a relationship underpins policies focused on the extension of protected lands. Here, we estimate aboveground biomass (AGB) as a proxy for habitat quality in seminatural rural patches and provide a comparison with approaches that only consider forest cover. We hypothesize that recommendations for biological conservation in agricultural landscapes are substantially improved if habitat quality is also taken into account, and thus consider the possibility of forest quality being modulated by land‐use amount, type, and age. We assessed AGB in a densely farmed Brazilian region using a straightforward approach designed to be affordable at large scales, focusing on two expanding and contrasting land uses: sugarcane, and eucalyptus plantations. At a detailed scale, we confirmed through field surveys and AGB estimation using 3D‐multispectral imagery (i.e., AGB = 0.842 × vegetation heightNDVI+1) that AGB variation could be predicted with forest degradation classes that are visually distinguishable with high‐resolution images: 9.33 t ha−1 (90% predictive intervals [PI] = [3.23, 26.97]) in regenerating fields (RF), 31.12 t ha−1 (90% PI = [10.77, 89.90]) in pioneer woods (PW), and 149.04 t ha−1 (90% PI = [51.59, 430.58]) in dense forests (DF). Applying these values to land units sampled across the study region, we found an average land use of 88.5%, together with 11.5% of land set aside for conservation, which reduced AGB to less than 4.2% of its potential (averages of 5.85 t ha−1 in sugarcane‐dominated areas and 6.56 t ha−1 in eucalyptus‐dominated areas, with secondary forests averaging 149.04 t ha−1). This imbalance between forest cover and AGB resulted from forest quality decay, which was similarly severe among land‐use types, ages, and extensions. Therefore, the shortage of trophic resources is likely more critical to wildlife than spatial limitations in vastly deforested tropical ecoregions, where AGB and carbon sinks can be more than doubled just by restoring forests in lands currently spared by agriculture.

show abstract

Private reserves suffer from the same location biases of public protected areas

d'Albertas

González‐Chaves

Borges-Matos

et al. 2021

Biological Conservation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Integrating ecological equivalence for native vegetation compensation: A methodological approach

Cited by 13 publications

References 43 publications

Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

Natural vegetation biomass and the dimension of forest quality in tropical agricultural landscapes

Private reserves suffer from the same location biases of public protected areas

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About