Slow-down of deforestation following a Brazilian forest policy was less effective on private lands than in all conservation areas

TY - JOUR

T1 - Slow-down of deforestation following a Brazilian forest policy was less effective on private lands than in all conservation areas

AU - da Silva, Ramon Felipe Bicudo

AU - Victoria, Daniel de Castro

AU - Nossack, Fabio Avila

AU - Vina, Andres

AU - Millington, James

AU - Vieira, Simone Aparecida

AU - Batistella, Mateus

AU - Moran, Emilio

AU - Liu, Jianguo

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the National Science Foundation of the United States (grants 1924111 and 1531086) and Michigan AgBioResearch for their financial support. None of these funding sources are to be held responsible for the opinions and views expressed herein. These are the sole responsibility of the authors. We are very grateful to MapBiomas who generated the land-use and land-cover data used in this paper (Project MapBiomas – Collection v.6.0 of Brazilian Land Cover & Use Map Series, accessed on December, 2021 through the link: https://mapbiomas.org/colecoes-mapbiomas?cama_set_language=en ). Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

PY - 2023/4/11

Y1 - 2023/4/11

N2 - Private lands are important for conservation worldwide, but knowledge about their effectiveness is still insufficient. To help fill this important knowledge gap, we analyzed the impacts of a national policy for conservation on private lands in Brazil, a global biodiversity hotspot with high potential for nature-based climate solutions. Through the evaluation of over 4 million private rural properties from the Rural Environmental Cadastre, we found that the last policy review in 2012 mainly affected the Amazon Forest. The amnesty granted to 80% of landowners of small properties prevented the restoration of 14.6 million hectares of agricultural land with a carbon sequestration potential of 2.4 gigatonnes. We found that private lands exist within the limits of public conservation areas and that between 2003 and 2020 deforestation rates in these private lands were higher than those across all conservation areas. The Rural Environmental Cadastre can be an effective tool for managing forests within private lands, with potential to integrate governance approaches to control deforestation and mitigate climate change.

AB - Private lands are important for conservation worldwide, but knowledge about their effectiveness is still insufficient. To help fill this important knowledge gap, we analyzed the impacts of a national policy for conservation on private lands in Brazil, a global biodiversity hotspot with high potential for nature-based climate solutions. Through the evaluation of over 4 million private rural properties from the Rural Environmental Cadastre, we found that the last policy review in 2012 mainly affected the Amazon Forest. The amnesty granted to 80% of landowners of small properties prevented the restoration of 14.6 million hectares of agricultural land with a carbon sequestration potential of 2.4 gigatonnes. We found that private lands exist within the limits of public conservation areas and that between 2003 and 2020 deforestation rates in these private lands were higher than those across all conservation areas. The Rural Environmental Cadastre can be an effective tool for managing forests within private lands, with potential to integrate governance approaches to control deforestation and mitigate climate change.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152531461&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s43247-023-00783-9

DO - 10.1038/s43247-023-00783-9

M3 - Article

SN - 2662-4435

VL - 4

JO - Communications Earth and Environment

JF - Communications Earth and Environment

IS - 1

M1 - 111

ER -