Brazilian Agriculture and Environmental Legislation: Status and Future Challenges

Abstract

Brazilian agriculture covers about one-third of the land area and is expected to expand further. We assessed the compliance of present Brazilian agriculture with environmental legislation and identified challenges for agricultural development connected to this legislation. We found (i) minor illegal land use in protected areas under public administration, (ii) a large deficit in legal reserves and protected riparian zones on private farmland, and (iii) large areas of unprotected natural vegetation in regions experiencing agriculture expansion. Achieving full compliance with the environmental laws as they presently stand would require drastic changes in agricultural land use, where large agricultural areas are taken out of production and converted back to natural vegetation. The outcome of a full compliance with environmental legislation might not be satisfactory due to leakage, where pristine unprotected areas become converted to compensate for lost production as current agricultural areas are reconverted to protected natural vegetation. Realizing the desired protection of biodiversity and natural vegetation, while expanding agriculture to meet food and biofuel demand, may require a new approach to environmental protection. New legal and regulatory instruments and the establishment of alternative development models should be considered.

Climate change adaptation strategies for smallholder farmers in the Brazilian Sertão

“…Attempting to meet these constraints (particularly the volume requirement) on a small land footprint means that farmers are dependent on rainfall to promote forage growth, and reduced rainfall can easily lead to overgrazing and subsequent land compactification and degradation. Although Brazil legally requires all farmers to maintain 20 % of native habitat on their land undisturbed, enforcement is weak or nonexistent (Sparovek et al 2010). And although agroforestry techniques that preserve trees and native habitat may lead to more productive grazing land in the long run, the incentive to overgraze exists in the short run, particularly in a bad (drought) year.…”

Selection of bee species for environmental risk assessment of GM cotton in the Brazilian Cerrado

“…Besides crop management (Dormann et al, 2007;Le Féon et al, 2010;Brittain & Potts, 2011), other factors may have limited wild bee species richness in the cotton areas. Cotton flowers are ephemeral and available for 90 days at most in the Central-West region of Brazil (Rosolem, 2007); moreover, the fragments of remnant Cerrado vegetation near cotton fields in this region are generally small and highly disturbed (Sparovek et al, 2010), limiting the source of wild bees.…”

Regularization of Legal Reserve Debts: Perceptions of Rural Producers in the State of Pará and Mato Grosso in Brazil

“…Concurrently, the decision-making processes related to regularization of rural properties containing Legal Reserve surpluses, as well as their willingness to trade these surpluses instead of legally deforesting them, remain uncertain, and strongly suggest that their behavior will directly affect the implementation of the Forest Code as well as forest conservation efforts. Several studies already estimate the quantity of Legal Reserve surpluses and deficits, as well as economic consequences thereof (SPAROVEK et al, 2010STICKLER et al, 2013;SOARES-FILHO et al, 2014a), but research on the perceptions and behaviors of rural producers in relation to the implementation of the Brazilian Forest Code is scarce. Some scholars indeed suggest that understanding the factors that motivate rural producers to engage in conservation practices is key to addressing environmental challenges in the agricultural sector (THOMPSON; REIMER; PROKOPY, 2014) as well as formulating more robust public policies (POPPENBORG;KOELLNER, 2013).…”