Economic analysis of land use change in the Amazon: accounting for the externalities of fires

• Grant number: 16/15833-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2017
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Agrarian and Natural Resource Economics
• Principal Investigator: Thiago Fonseca Morello Ramalho da Silva
• Grantee: Thiago Fonseca Morello Ramalho da Silva
• Host Investigator: Ian J. Bateman
• Host Institution: Centro de Engenharia, Modelagem e Ciências Sociais Aplicadas (CECS). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Exeter, Exeter, England

Abstract

From 2004 to 2015 the annual deforestation of Amazon has been reduced in more than 80%. However, forest degradation by logging and fires keep imposing damages to regional conservation and development whose magnitudes are comparable to those avoided by deforestation control. The perception that land use change in Amazon is above the socially desirable level remains among scientists. What should be the priority of environmental policy? Is it worthwhile to invest further on avoiding deforestation compared with promoting the shift of already deforested land to less degrading uses? Surprisingly, scientific literature provides no clear answer but offers an impressive amount of information on specific impacts of specific land use changes. An integrated assessment is needed in order to reveal the marginal social net benefits of land use changes and how they vary across the heterogeneous Amazon territory. Such is the goal of the project, which will be pursued with a two-stage procedure. In the first stage, cost and benefits of land use change are estimated with primary, secondary and GIS data within the spatial reach of the primary data sample. As results, it will be obtained marginal social net benefit functions for six broad categories of land use change. Based on them, extrapolation for whole states of Brazilian Amazon will be pursued in the second step, in order to build state-wide priority maps for government intervention. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MORELLO, THIAGO FONSECA; RAMOS, ROSSANO MARCHETTI; ANDERSON, LIANA O.; OWEN, NATHAN; ROSAN, THAIS MICHELE; STEIL, LARA. Predicting fires for policy making: Improving accuracy of fire brigade allocation in the Brazilian Amazon. ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS, v. 169, MAR 2020. (16/15833-6)

MORELLO, THIAGO; MARTINO, SIMONE; DUARTE, ALEJANDRO F.; ANDERSON, LIANA; DAVIS, KATRINA J.; SILVA, SONAIRA; BATEMAN, IAN J.. Fire, Tractors, and Health in the Amazon: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fire Policy. LAND ECONOMICS, v. 95, n. 3, p. 409-434, AUG 2019. (16/15833-6)