Achieving private conservation targets in Brazil through restoration and compensation schemes without impairing productive lands

Author(s)

de Mello, Kaline ^[1] ; Fendrich, Arthur Nicolaus ^[2] ; Sparovek, Gerd ^[2] ; Simmonds, Jeremy S. ^[3] ; Maron, Martine ^[3] ; Tavares, Paulo Andre ^[2] ; Brites, Alice Dantas ^[2] ; Rodrigues, Ricardo Ribeiro ^[4] ; Joly, Carlos Alfredo ^[5] ; Metzger, Jean Paul ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Biosci, Dept Ecol, Rua Matao 321, Trav 14, BR-05508090 Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Luiz de Queiroz Coll Agr, Soil Sci Dept, Ave Padua Dias 11, BR-13418900 Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[3] Univ Queensland, Sch Earth & Environm Sci, Brisbane, Qld 4072 - Australia

^[4] Univ Sao Paulo, Luiz de Queiroz Coll Agr, Dept Biol Sci, Ave Padua Dias 11, BR-13418260 Piracicaba, SP - Brazil

^[5] Univ Estadual Campinas, Biol Inst, Dept Plant Biol, Rua Monteiro Lobato 255, BR-13083862 Campinas, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & POLICY; v. 120, p. 1-10, JUN 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 1

Abstract

Environmental policies that require native vegetation conservation can be challenging to implement, especially in productive agricultural landscapes. In Brazil, the Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law mandates `Legal Reserves', protected native vegetation that landowners must retain on their properties. If landowners do not have the required minimum amount of native vegetation on their properties (the Legal Reserve `target'), they must either restore vegetation on the same property to meet the target, or compensate by protecting existing vegetation or restoring it on another property, ideally in ecologically equivalent areas. Here, we evaluate how different strategies (on-site/off-site protection and/or restoration), and different requirements for ecological equivalence when off-site strategies are used, affect the ability to achieve Legal Reserve targets, while minimising the need to restore native vegetation on productive farmland. We used a novel iterative tool to build scenarios that reflect different combinations of strategies to meet the minimum conservation target under different requirements for ecological equivalence, and compared their ability to achieve the target and their likely cost. The Atlantic Forest was the only biome where it was not possible to achieve the Legal Reserve target by protection of existing native vegetation, even when ecological equivalence rules were relaxed. As a consequence, vegetation restoration is required in this biome. Directing this required restoration to pasturelands that are less-suitable for agriculture allowed the target to be achieved in all states of Brazil, as long as only minimal ecological equivalence was required; however, for most states, the need to restore native vegetation on productive areas on farmlands could still be avoided while requiring medium to high ecological equivalence. These findings show the potential for moderate ecological equivalence to be achieved across most of Brazil in a cost-effective way and without impairing productive lands when seeking to meet the Legal Reserve targets. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 13/50718-5 - Ecological restoration of riparian forests, native forest of economic production and of degraded forest fragments (in APP and RL) based on restoration ecology of reference ecosystems in order to scientifically test the precepts of the New Brazilian Forest Code
• Grantee: Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues
• Support Opportunities: BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 13/07375-0 - CeMEAI - Center for Mathematical Sciences Applied to Industry
• Grantee: Francisco Louzada Neto
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers - RIDC
• FAPESP's process: 17/24028-2 - Elaboration of a priority areas map for Legal Reserve compensation in the State of São Paulo and development of an automated tool prototype to query geo-referenced information
• Grantee: Kaline de Mello
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 18/25147-8 - Developing a methodological framework to evaluate scenarios of native vegetation compensation
• Grantee: Kaline de Mello
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor