Intensification in agriculture-forest frontiers: Land use responses to development and conservation policies in Brazil

Garrett, Rachael; Koh, I.; Lambin, Éric F.; Waroux, Yann le Polain de; Kastens, Jude H.; Brown, John C.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.09.011

Cited by 182 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…We apply the approach to the widespread problem of pasture expansion into tropical forests, which is common in South America (Garrett et al, ; Wassenaar et al, ). While many studies use secondary data, we integrate in situ data in our model, that is, plot‐level field, modelling and survey data of long‐term ecological, social and economic studies in a real landscape in southern Ecuador (Knoke et al, ; Richter, Beck, Rollenbeck, & Bendix, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Knoke

Paul

Rammig

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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Conversion of tropical forests is among the primary causes of global environmental change. The loss of their important environmental services has prompted calls to integrate ecosystem services (ES) in addition to socio‐economic objectives in decision‐making. To test the effect of accounting for both ES and socio‐economic objectives in land‐use decisions, we develop a new dynamic approach to model deforestation scenarios for tropical mountain forests. We integrate multi‐objective optimization of land allocation with an innovative approach to consider uncertainty spaces for each objective. These uncertainty spaces account for potential variability among decision‐makers, who may have different expectations about the future. When optimizing only socio‐economic objectives, the model continues the past trend in deforestation (1975–2015) in the projected land‐use allocation (2015–2070). Based on indicators for biomass production, carbon storage, climate and water regulation, and soil quality, we show that considering multiple ES in addition to the socio‐economic objectives has heterogeneous effects on land‐use allocation. It saves some natural forest if the natural forest share is below 38%, and can stop deforestation once the natural forest share drops below 10%. For landscapes with high shares of forest (38%–80% in our study), accounting for multiple ES under high uncertainty of their indicators may, however, accelerate deforestation. For such multifunctional landscapes, two main effects prevail: (a) accelerated expansion of diversified non‐natural areas to elevate the levels of the indicators and (b) increased landscape diversification to maintain multiple ES, reducing the proportion of natural forest. Only when accounting for vascular plant species richness as an explicit objective in the optimization, deforestation was consistently reduced. Aiming for multifunctional landscapes may therefore conflict with the aim of reducing deforestation, which we can quantify here for the first time. Our findings are relevant for identifying types of landscapes where this conflict may arise and to better align respective policies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Knoke

Paul

Rammig

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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“…Ultimately, cross-sectoral collaboration is required to pair efforts to guide soy expansion onto low productivity agricultural land (e.g. cattle pasture) with efforts to close the forest frontier and constrain the expansion of cattle ranching in frontier regions, and spare land through the intensification of cattle ranching and adoption of integrated crop-livestock systems (Garrett et al 2018, Koch et al 2019, Nepstad et al 2019.…”

Section: Using Supply Chain Data To Monitor Zdcsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Ermgassen

Ayre

Godar

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Zero deforestation commitments (ZDCs) are voluntary initiatives where companies or countries pledge to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. These commitments offer much promise for sustainable commodity production, but are undermined by a lack of transparency about their coverage and impacts. Here, using state-of-the-art supply chain data, we introduce an approach to evaluate the impact of ZDCs, linking traders and international markets to commodity-associated deforestation in the sub-national jurisdictions from which they source. We focus on the Brazilian soy sector, where we find that ZDC coverage is increasing, but under-represents the Cerrado biome where most soy-associated deforestation currently takes place. Though soy-associated deforestation declined in the Amazon after the introduction of the Soy Moratorium, we observe no change in the exposure of companies or countries adopting ZDCs to soy-associated deforestation in the Cerrado. We further assess the formulation and implementation of these ZDCs and identify several systematic weaknesses that must be addressed to increase the likelihood that they achieve meaningful reductions in deforestation in future. As the 2020 deadline for several of these commitments approaches, our approach can provide independent monitoring of progress toward the goal of ending commodityassociated deforestation.

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“…in recent decades (Ceddia, Sedlacek, Bardsley, & Gomez-y-Paloma, 2013;Garrett et al, 2018), and specific climate/hydrological features make this region more vulnerable to the detrimental effects of croplands (Taniwaki et al, 2017). As our study suggested that agricultural streams are generally less nutrient retentive, progressive agricultural intensification or expansion is expected to increase the role of streams in watershed nutrient export.…”

Section: Agricultural Effects On Nutrient Retention In South Americmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…In general, lower nutrient uptake capacity in agricultural streams than in less impacted/pristine streams can be attributed to (a) saturation of the biological community (Bernot et al, ); (b) reduced hydrological complexity of the channel (Argerich, Martí, Sabater, Haggerty, & Ribot, ; Sheibley et al, ); (c) loss of riparian vegetation (Weigelhofer, ); (d) restricted hyporheic water exchange with the sediments (Macrae, English, Schiff, & Stone, ); and (e) reduced adsorption capacities of the sediments (Stutter & Lumsdon, ). A rapid development of agriculture has been occurring in South America in recent decades (Ceddia, Sedlacek, Bardsley, & Gomez‐y‐Paloma, ; Garrett et al, ), and specific climate/hydrological features make this region more vulnerable to the detrimental effects of croplands (Taniwaki et al, ). As our study suggested that agricultural streams are generally less nutrient retentive, progressive agricultural intensification or expansion is expected to increase the role of streams in watershed nutrient export.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture influences ammonium and soluble reactive phosphorus retention in South American headwater streams

et al. 2019

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Agricultural activities can affect the delivery of nutrients to streams, riparian canopy cover, and the capacity of aquatic systems to process nutrients and sediments. There are few measures of nutrient uptake and metabolism from tropical or subtropical streams in general, and even fewer from tropical regions of South America. We examined ammonium (NH4+) and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) retention in streams in Brazil and Argentina. We selected 12 streams with relatively little or extensive agricultural activity and conducted whole‐stream nutrient additions and measurements of gross primary production and ecosystem respiration. We used multiple linear regression to determine potential drivers of nutrient uptake metrics across the streams. Nutrient concentrations and retention differed significantly between land use categories. Both NH4+ and SRP concentrations were higher in the agricultural sites (means of 161 and 495 μg l–1, respectively), whereas metabolic rates were slower and transient storage was smaller. Our analysis indicated that agriculture increased ambient uptake lengths and decreased uptake velocities. The regression models revealed that ambient SRP had a positive effect on NH4+ uptake and vice versa, suggesting strong stoichiometric controls. Drivers for nutrient uptake in streams with low‐intensity agriculture also included canopy cover, temperature, and ecosystem respiration rates. Nutrient assimilation in agricultural sites was influenced by a higher number of variables (gross primary production for SRP, discharge, and transient storage for both nutrients). Our results indicate agricultural activity changes both the magnitude of in‐stream nutrient uptake and the mechanisms that control its variation, with important implications for South American streams under agricultural intensification.

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Intensification in agriculture-forest frontiers: Land use responses to development and conservation policies in Brazil

Cited by 182 publications

References 76 publications

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Accounting for multiple ecosystem services in a simulation of land‐use decisions: Does it reduce tropical deforestation?

Using supply chain data to monitor zero deforestation commitments: an assessment of progress in the Brazilian soy sector

Agriculture influences ammonium and soluble reactive phosphorus retention in South American headwater streams

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