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

Mello, Kaline de; Fendrich, Arthur Nicolaus; Sparovek, Gerd; Simmonds, Jeremy S.; Maron, Martine; Tavares, Paulo André; Brites, Alice Dantas; Rodrigues, Ricardo Ribeiro; Joly, Carlos A.; Metzger, Jean Paul

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2021.02.014

Cited by 28 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Due to the association between public and private reserves, our study area has 38% of native vegetation cover, a percentage close to the minimum threshold (40%) suggested as necessary for the maintenance of native species in tropical agroecosystems (Arroyo-Rodríguez et al 2020), but much higher than the typical pattern of the (Ronquim 2017). The Cerrado of the state of São Paulo stands out nationally as having one of the highest LRs debt and, therefore, a high necessity for vegetation restoration (Freitas et al 2017, Mello et al 2021. Although these private native vegetation areas provide ecosystem services that are key for maintaining biodiversity, human well-being, and agricultural production as well, their restoration still generates conflicts with a parcel of rural owners, who do not agree to bear the restoration costs (Metzger et al 2019, Strassburg et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mammals of Cajuru State Forest and surroundings: a neglected but important Protected Area for the Cerrado conservation in the São Paulo state, Brazil

et al. 2022

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The Cerrado has been severely impacted by anthropogenic disturbances, with a tiny proportion of its original extent remaining in its southern portions. In the state of São Paulo, only 7% of this vegetation remains and relatively little is known about the biodiversity of these fragments. To fill this knowledge gap, we inventoried medium and large-sized terrestrial mammals of a neglected region, including a sustainable use protected area, Cajuru State Forest (CSF), adjacent native vegetation remnants protected by the Native Vegetation Protection Law and owned by a paper and cellulose company (Dois Córregos Farm; DCF), and their surroundings. We recorded 20 native mammal species, five of which are endangered with extinction, including the giant anteater, puma, and maned wolf. We found no significant differences in species richness between CSF and DCF but we found higher estimated species richness for the surrounding areas. Besides encompassing a larger and more heterogeneous area, the surrounding area still has a relatively high proportion (>30%) of native vegetation, providing habitat and resources for many species. The estimated mammal species richness for the entire study area was similar to that found in the largest protected area of the Cerrado in São Paulo State, the Jataí Ecological Station and its surroundings. We conclude that our study area still harbors a relatively rich community of large mammals and is important for the conservation of endangered species. This finding is particularly timing since the current State administration is considering to transfer the economic exploitation of CSF to the private sector. We therefore endorse an existing proposal to uplist this protected area, which still lacks a management plan, to a more restricted management category. Besides actions regarding this governmental PA, we argue that it is also important to involve the private sector in a conservation plan for the region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mammals of Cajuru State Forest and surroundings: a neglected but important Protected Area for the Cerrado conservation in the São Paulo state, Brazil

et al. 2022

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“…Furthermore, the transaction costs not evaluated in this study are expected to decrease with the property size, additionally burdening small rural properties compared to medium-sized or large properties. Higher restoration costs in small rural areas indicate that large agribusiness companies contribute proportionally less than smallholders to forest restoration commitments when (assisted) NFR is prioritized (Scenario I), although they hold the largest environmental debts (Mello et al, 2021). By contrast, Scenario II distributes restoration opportunity costs more fairly Apart from a better socio-environmental performance, the largescale forest restoration in Scenario II is associated with lower overall restoration costs, and up to 30% of restoration costs may be saved compared to Scenario I, in which more than 8 Mha would be restored.…”

Section: Tree Planting Plus Nfr Increases Environmental Compliance An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing natural forest regrowth and tree planting to ensure social fairness and compliance with environmental policies

Gastauer

Miazaki

Crouzeilles

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Ecology

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The environmental benefits and lower implementation costs of (assisted) natural forest regrowth (NFR) compared to tree planting qualify it as a viable strategy to scale up forest restoration. However, NFR is not suitable in all places, because the potential for forest regeneration depends on the socio‐environmental context and differs greatly over space and time. Therefore, it is critical to quantify the potential contribution of NFR for reaching forest restoration targets and complying with environmental policies. Here, we quantify the socio‐environmental consequences of NFR by considering four targets differing in restored area in the Atlantic Forest (6, 8, 15 and 22 Mha). We quantified the compliance with environmental policies, expected distribution of natural and restored vegetation within the biome and social fairness (distribution of restoration efforts and costs within small, medium and large‐sized properties) of two hypothetical forest restoration scenarios. We show that large‐scale forest restoration prioritizing the areas with the highest potential for NFR (Scenario I) allows us to comply with one‐third of the current environmental debt in the Atlantic Forest. Furthermore, this scenario disproportionately burdens specific types of land use, increases socioeconomic inequalities and concentrates restoration activities in regions in which the natural vegetation cover is already high. By contrast, Scenario II—eradicating the environmental debt that results from environmental policies, then prioritizing areas with the lowest overall restoration costs until reaching the restoration targets—is socially fairer and maximizes compliance with environmental policies. Its outcomes are more homogeneously distributed among counties and small, medium and large‐sized properties from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Despite doubling the implementation costs, the lower overall restoration costs in Scenario II result from significantly lower opportunity costs than in Scenario I. Synthesis and application. The environmental, social and economic outputs of large‐scale forest restoration in the Atlantic Forest can be maximized when NFR and tree planting are balanced (Scenario II). To achieve compliance with forest restoration commitments, we thus advocate for the site‐specific selection of the best forest restoration strategy to guarantee social fairness and compliance with environmental policies at minimum overall restoration costs.

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“…The Disaggregated Condition Metric was designed focused on general compensation schemes that include ecological equivalence, such as the volunteer offsets for private lands in South Africa (Von Hase et al, 2010), or the compensations of private reserves in rural properties in Brazil (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. However, it could also attend to more exigent compensation schemes, such as biodiversity offsets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We highlight that the number of hexagons available for compensation should not be a reference through which compensation trades should be evaluated, since ecological equivalence is the main driver to select compensation sites. If the number of candidate hexagons to compensate an impact-hexagon is too low in a given region, compensating in hexagons of one or two classes above the impact-hexagon original classes is an acceptable adaptation of the metric, making it more feasible in operational and economic terms (Mello et al, 2021a(Mello et al, , 2021b. Also, in many cases, extensive databases do not exist or are not readily available due to many factors, e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

Matos¹

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Given the importance of environmental compensations and biodiversity offsets (i.e. compensations with no net loss of biodiversity) for conservation and their increasing use worldwide, it is critical to understand and improve these mechanisms. In this work, we sought to broaden our understanding and make suggestions for improvement, focusing on ways to measure and achieve ecological equivalence in compensation trades. First, we reviewed the academic literature on the condition metrics used in offsets. We unraveled and understood the main limitations of the metrics: the frequent lack of incorporation of the three dimensions of equivalence (biodiversity, landscape and ecosystem services), the inclusion of many ecological attributes highly aggregated in a single formula, generating a single value as a final result, and the fact they were developed in few countries, primarily from the Global North -yet, they are commonly applied in other countries, inclusive from the Global South. Thus, our next step was trying to overcome these limitations by developing a new metric. We created the Disaggregated Condition Metric, which presents flexibility in the number and identity of the attributes included, always in a disaggregated way. To make the metric simpler, we tested the synergy and trade-off relationships of the attributes and identified those most redundant that could be dismissed, always including the three dimensions of equivalence. Compensation trades are only allowed within spatial units (hexagons from 5 to 10 thousand hectares) of the same value for the three attributes selected at the end of the tests. Using the tropical biome Atlantic Forest within the state of São Paulo as our study system, these attributes were: bird richness, landscape connectivity, and potential pollination service. The Disaggregated Condition Metric has a high potential to be successfully transposed to other regions, especially those from the Global South. Our final step was to test the metric application in a real situation. For this, we used the Legal Reserve compensation scheme proposed in the Brazilian New Forest Code. Considering the same study area in São Paulo, we calculated for each hexagon values of deficit and surplus of Legal Reserve, areas possibly available for restoration of native vegetation, private areas in an irregular situation within public protected areas, where the compensation could be carried out, and the costs for employing these compensation strategies. We created six scenarios to test the performance of these strategies, always using the Disaggregated Environmental Condition Metric and including ecological equivalence in the trades. We showed that practically the entire deficit of the Atlantic Forest of São Paulo can be compensated by a combination of protection of Legal Reserve surplus with restoration, which is the scenario with the best cost-efficiency, considering the costs, deficit resolution and increase in forest cover (considered here as "additionality"). Therefore, we not only contributed to a better unders...

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

Cited by 28 publications

References 30 publications

Mammals of Cajuru State Forest and surroundings: a neglected but important Protected Area for the Cerrado conservation in the São Paulo state, Brazil

Mammals of Cajuru State Forest and surroundings: a neglected but important Protected Area for the Cerrado conservation in the São Paulo state, Brazil

Balancing natural forest regrowth and tree planting to ensure social fairness and compliance with environmental policies

Compensação ambiental como mecanismo de conservação: dos métodos ao teste de cenários baseados no Novo Código Florestal

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