Pesticide use and biodiversity conservation in the Amazonian agricultural frontier

Abstract

Agricultural frontiers are dynamic environments characterized by the conversion of native habitats to agriculture. Because they are currently concentrated in diverse tropical habitats, agricultural frontiers are areas where the largest number of species is exposed to hazardous land management practices, including pesticide use. Focusing on the Amazonian frontier, we show that producers have varying access to resources, knowledge, control and reward mechanisms to improve land management practices. With poor education and no technical support, pesticide use by smallholders sharply deviated from agronomical recommendations, tending to overutilization of hazardous compounds. By contrast, with higher levels of technical expertise and resources, and aiming at more restrictive markets, large-scale producers adhered more closely to technical recommendations and even voluntarily replaced more hazardous compounds. However, the ecological footprint increased significantly over time because of increased dosage or because formulations that are less toxic to humans may be more toxic to other biodiversity. Frontier regions appear to be unique in terms of the conflicts between production and conservation, and the necessary pesticide risk management and risk reduction can only be achieved through responsibility-sharing by diverse stakeholders, including governmental and intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, financial institutions, pesticide and agricultural industries, producers, academia and consumers.

Soy Expansion and Socioeconomic Development in Municipalities of Brazil

“…Also, landscape transformation of the magnitude seen in areas of soy expansion lead to natural vegetation fragmentation and loss of habitat with an important role on local biodiversity [14,15]. In addition, monocultures like soy require the heavy use of agrochemicals that have not been properly evaluated so far [16]. Soy is associated with large-scale agriculture [17], leading to an increase in land concentration and income inequality [4,7,8,10].…”

Soil changes under different land-uses in the Cerrado of Mato Grosso, Brazil

“…The acceleration of agricultural activities has generated economic wealth in the region, but has also generated environmental problems related to soil degradation and the contamination of water resources (Battle-Bayer et al, 2010;Martinelli et al, 2010;Schiesari and Grillitsch, 2011;Schiesari et al, 2013). Cerrado soils are very nutrient poor because this area is dominated by dystrophic deeply weathered soils characterised by a pseudo-sand structure (Goedert, 1983;Lopes et al, 2004).…”

Measuring the impacts of Roundup Original® on fluctuating asymmetry and mortality in a Neotropical tadpole

“…Also, FA can represent a reliable measurement of environmental impact that does not have to tag individuals during biomonitoring surveys, which simplifies specimen manipulation. However, additional studies are required to understand how multiple stressors could affect FA and, for that, we highlight the need for the standardization of an experimental protocol and the expansion of ecotoxicological studies with FA (Schiesari et al, 2013;Simioni et al, 2013) to increase the capacity of interspecific comparisons and to provide a scientific foundation for new aquatic environment protection laws.…”