Limits of Brazil’s Forest Code as a means to end illegal deforestation

Azevedo, Andréa Aguiar; Rajão, Raoni; Costa, Marcelo Azevedo; Stabile, Marcelo C. C.; Macedo, Márcia N.; Reis, Tiago N.P. dos; Alencar, Ane; Soares‐Filho, Britaldo; Pacheco, Rayane

doi:10.1073/pnas.1604768114

Cited by 167 publications

(132 citation statements)

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“…The Soares-Filho et al (2006) study was based on the high deforestation rates recorded in the period between 1990 and 2004 before the public interventions on the soybean and beef supply chains(Nepstad et al, 2014), and the introduction of the 2012 forest code by the Brazilian Government, whose economic incentives for the protection of the forested areas in privately owned land were found inadequate inAzevedo et al (2017). (2010) and Cosby et al (1984), IGBP-DIS global soil data (Global Soil Data Task 2014) Land use Fraction of land use-transitions among agriculture and primary and secondary vegetation 1°(spatial) Hurtt et al (2006) and Soares-Filho et al ): Governance and Extreme Deforestation scenarios (Figure 5).…”

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confidence: 99%

Future Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on River Flows in the Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2019

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Land conversion and changing climate are expected to significantly alter tropical forest hydrology. We used a land surface model integrated with a river routing scheme to analyze the hydrological alterations expected in the Tapajós River basin, a large portion of the Brazilian Amazon, caused by two environmental drivers: climate and land use. The model was forced with two future climate scenarios (years 2026-2045) from the Earth System Model HadGem2-ES with moderate (+4.5 W/m 2 radiative forcing value in the year 2100 with respect to preindustrial levels) and severe (+8.5 W/m 2 ) representative atmospheric carbon dioxide pathways (Representative Concentration Pathways). We tested the sensitivity of our results to the uncertainty in future climate projections by running simulations with IPSL-CM5 (wettest scenarios) and GISS-E2 (driest scenarios). Human land use effects on vegetation were evaluated using a limited and an extreme deforestation scenario. Our analysis indicates that climate change is predicted to reduce river flows across seasons (up to 20%) and bring a considerable shift in flow seasonality toward a later onset (nearly 1.5 months) and increase in interannual variability. While land use change partially counteracts the climate-driven diminishing trend in river flows, it is expected to contribute to a further increase in interannual and intraannual variability. From a water management perspective, the overall reduction of river flows and their increased variability, combined with the shift and the shortening of the wet season, could potentially affect the productivity of the large hydropower systems planned for the region and the growing demand for agricultural and transport expansion.Plain Language Summary Climate and land use change are expected to heavily modify the water cycle. This is particularly true in tropical areas, where human-driven changes may completely alter river discharge. The Amazon is the largest of the remaining tropical forests. Increasing agriculture and livestock production have significantly altered land cover in the region. This pattern is projected to continue in the coming decades. The change in the Amazon's future is highly uncertain: the direct effects of climate and land use change are not well understood and the response also depends on complex Earth-atmosphere exchanges. We used computer models representing water and energy cycles over time to understand how environmental changes are likely to alter the discharge of the Tapajós River system in southeastern Amazon. By combining two climate and two land use scenarios, we found that climate change is expected to reduce the river flows in the basin, bringing a delay in the flow seasonality and increasing the overall variability. Land use change, conversely, is expected to cause an increase in flow magnitude and variability. Besides the serious environmental consequences, these findings have important implications for the management and development of water in this strategic area for Brazil's energy and food production.

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confidence: 99%

Future Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on River Flows in the Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2019

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“…Her notable works include contributions to syntheses evaluating the impacts of fires, deforestation, and land-use in forests in Amazonia [201,202]. Her recent works have included contributions to articles seeking a policy solution to Brazil's illegal deforestation [203] and the development of an integrated monitoring approach for assessing the impacts of tropical forest degradation and impacts on carbon and biodiversity [118].…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing Women Leaders in Fire Science

Smith

Kolden

Prichard

et al. 2018

Fire

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Across the breadth of fire science disciplines, women are leaders in fire research and development. We want to acknowledge some of these leaders to promote diversity across our disciplines. In Fire, we are also happy to announce a new Special Collection, through which we will continue to acknowledge current and future Diversity Leaders in Fire Science by inviting contributions from the leaders in this editorial, among others.Keywords: leadership; women in science The Need to Recognize Women Leaders in Fire ScienceIn 1965, Alice Rossi asked a fundamental question: "Why so few women in science?" [1]. It has long been recognized that women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) disciplines, with a substantial dialogue in the literature as to the impacts of such underrepresentation. As representation has increased, the debate now focuses on additional questions of equity in leadership, funding, advancement, and mechanisms of support for female scientists. These questions are embedded in three foundational concepts: (1) all scientists, regardless of gender, deserve equal access to opportunities; (2) the smartest and most talented people (regardless of gender) should be conducting scientific research, such that the most critical breakthroughs and contributions are realized; and (3) to understand and solve complex fire science problems, a broad diversity of perspectives, modes of problem attack, and epistemologies are needed [2]. We also acknowledge the need to recognize other underrepresented voices in the fire science community, such as indigenous and racial minorities, individuals with disabilities, and the LGBTQIA community, who all bring different ways of doing and knowing to science.The reader may understandably ask: Why this journal? In fire science, there is a distinct and critical need to increase the recognition of women. Natural hazards research more broadly has widely recognized that women are more vulnerable to natural disasters, and female scientists in other natural hazard disciplines have brought an important perspective to the research that facilitates understanding and reducing such gender disparities. An equivalent gender dialogue does not yet exist in wildfire science but will be necessary to reduce vulnerabilities (e.g., smoke impacts on health, post-traumatic stress disorder following evacuation) and also understand the unique perspectives women have on wildfire as an ecological process. For example, women globally bear much of the childrearing duties; a key fire science question one might ask is whether acceptance of prescribed fire by communities is gendered based on perceptions of impacts to children? The reader may also question the mixed genders of the authors of this editorial. Many proponents of increased recognition of women in science have highlighted that a major part of the problem has been that not enough male allies stand up publicly for their female colleagues, in part because some are embarrassed, fearful, or even feel, and are so...

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“…Full compliance may still depend on further economic incentives and market barriers (Azevedo et al, 2017). Full compliance may still depend on further economic incentives and market barriers (Azevedo et al, 2017).…”

Section: Conservation Policies For Unprotected Agcmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a biodiversity hotspot where most of the recent agricultural expansion into native vegetation has taken place, supported by infrastructure development and government incentives (Gibbs et al, 2015;Strassburg, Latawiec, & Balmford, 2016). Civil society and the scientific community have been pushing for an expansion of market barriers to the Cerrado biome, referring to the positive outcome in the Amazon biome (Azevedo et al, 2017;Gibbs et al, 2015;Nepstad et al, 2014). the Caatinga biome hosts a large number of endemic and endangered species (Lewinsohn, 2006).…”

Section: Conservation Policies For Unprotected Agcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who owns the Brazilian carbon?

Freitas

Englund

Sparovek

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

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Brazil is one of the major contributors to land-use change emissions, mostly driven by agricultural expansion for food, feed, and bioenergy feedstock. Policies to avoid deforestation related to private commitments, economic incentives, and other support schemes are expected to improve the effectiveness of current command and control mechanisms increasingly. However, until recently, land tenure was unknown for much of the Brazilian territory, which has undermined the governance of native vegetation and challenged support and incentive mechanisms for avoiding deforestation. We assess the total extent of public governance mechanisms protecting aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks. We constructed a land tenure dataset for the entire nation and modeled the effects and uncertainties of major land-use acts on protecting AGC stocks. Roughly 70% of the AGC stock in Brazil is estimated to be under legal protection, and an additional 20% is expected to be protected after areas in the Amazon with currently undesignated land undergo a tenure regularization. About 30% of the AGC stock is on private land, of which roughly two-thirds are protected. The Cerrado, Amazon, and Caatinga biomes hold about 40%, 30%, and 20% of the unprotected AGC, respectively. Effective conservation of protected and unprotected carbon will depend on successful implementation of the Forest Act, and regularization of land tenure in the Amazon. Policy development that prioritizes unprotected AGC stocks is warranted to promote conservation of native vegetation beyond the legal requirements. However, different biomes and land tenure structures may require different policy settings considering local and regional specifics. Finally, the fate of current AGC stocks relies upon effective implementation of command and control mechanisms, considering that unprotected AGC in native vegetation on private land only accounts for 6.5% of the total AGC stock.

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Limits of Brazil’s Forest Code as a means to end illegal deforestation

Cited by 167 publications

References 30 publications

Future Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on River Flows in the Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon

Future Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on River Flows in the Tapajós Basin in the Brazilian Amazon

Recognizing Women Leaders in Fire Science

Who owns the Brazilian carbon?

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