Roads, deforestation and the mitigating effect of the Chico Mendes extractive reserve in the southwestern Amazon

Milien, Edelin Jean; Rocha, Karla da Silva; Brown, I. Foster; Perz, Stephen G.

doi:10.1016/j.tfp.2020.100056

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Many traditional communities live in the RBJ, surviving mostly from extractivism, and the effective conservation of these environments can only be achieved by following the sustainable use of natural resources (ICMBio, 2009). In fact, even with a more permissive character, the value of sustainable use protected areas as the RBJ in preserving Amazonian habitats has been proven (Milien et al, 2021). We also highlight the need to monitor the expansion of the Juruá municipality, the largest urban nucleus in this region.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Amphibians and reptiles from a protected area in western Brazilian Amazonia (Reserva Extrativista do Baixo Juruá)

et al. 2022

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Sampling gaps across the logistically challenging and extremely biodiverse Amazonia largely hamper our understanding of broad-scale amphibian and reptile diversity patterns in this ecosystem. The Juruá River basin, a southwestern tributary of the Amazon River, is one of these undersampled areas, with only punctual information documented for these vertebrates that are spatially or temporally biased. This is especially the case for the lower-middle courses of the Juruá River, which also has comparatively less protected areas than its upper course. In order to fill some biodiversity knowledge gaps associated with amphibians and reptiles in this river basin, we combined results of our field expeditions carried out in 1992, 2005-2007, and 2018 to the Reserva Extrativista (Extractive Reserve) do Baixo Juruá, a Brazilian protected area in the right bank of the lower Juruá River. Amphibians and reptiles were sampled using four complementary methods: active surveys, pitfall traps, funnel traps, and trammel nets. We identified species or updated their taxonomic status with a reanalysis of the external morphology of the preserved material in the light of novel taxonomic literature (more than 1,500 specimens) and employment of DNA barcoding analyses for some newly collected specimens with contentious taxonomic status. Our combined sampling evidenced 149 species of amphibians and reptiles occurring in this protected area (72 amphibians, 68 squamates, six chelonians, and three crocodilians). Recorded species highlight the value of the lower Juruá River region as harboring quite diverse assemblages for these vertebrates, with species typical of the western and southwestern Amazonia sub-regions. Remarkable species records are presented, as well as accounts on species with lower taxonomic resolution. Furthermore, we discuss the biogeographic affinities of recorded assemblages based on the species geographic range and preferred habitats, and the value of this protected area to preserve the regional biological diversity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Amphibians and reptiles from a protected area in western Brazilian Amazonia (Reserva Extrativista do Baixo Juruá)

et al. 2022

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“…Moreover, the ever expanding network of roads being built today throughout southern Amazonas means that farmers can exploit much further afield in areas that may not have been actively settled in the past. Though we do not include roads in this study as a predictor variable, due to difficulties of associating individual road segments with their years of construction, previous work has consistently shown the highly influential role that roads play in directing rates and locations of deforestation in other parts of the Amazon [43,[92][93][94]. It is thus likely that similar effects are present in this region as well, as seen in the trend of deforestation towards greater distances from settlement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Past and Present Land-Use Histories in Southern Amazonas, Peru

et al. 2021

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This paper analyzes remotely sensed data sources to evaluate land-use history within the Peruvian department of Amazonas and demonstrates the utility of comparing present and past land-use patterns using continuous datasets, as a complement to the often dispersed and discrete data produced by archaeological and paleoecological field studies. We characterize the distribution of ancient (ca. AD 1–1550) terracing based on data drawn from high-resolution satellite imagery and compare it to patterns of deforestation between 2001 and 2019, based on time-series Landsat data. We find that the patterns reflected in these two datasets are statistically different, indicating a distinctive shift in land-use, which we link to the history of Inka and Spanish colonialism and Indigenous depopulation in the 15th through 17th centuries AD as well as the growth of road infrastructure and economic change in the recent past. While there is a statistically significant relationship between areas of ancient terracing and modern-day patterns of deforestation, this relationship ultimately explains little (6%) of the total pattern of modern forest loss, indicating that ancient land-use patterns do not seem to be structuring modern-day trajectories of land-use. Together, these results shed light on the long-term history of land-use in Amazonas and their enduring legacies in the present.

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“…Therefore, the results obtained must be evaluated with some care, as they have interference from other factors not included in the research. In the economic sphere, several factors have been reported, such as the development of road infrastructure that enables economic activity [64][65][66][67][68][69], livestock production, mainly beef cattle with the expansion of pastures [70][71][72][73], the increase in monocultures [74][75][76][77], and illegal logging [78][79][80][81][82]. In the political sphere, much research has assessed the effects of government actions on reducing deforestation in the Amazon [22,63,[83][84][85] or industry-led initiatives, for example the soy moratorium [86][87][88][89].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationship between Land Property Security and Brazilian Amazon Deforestation in the Mato Grosso State during the Period 2013–2018

et al. 2021

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This research examines the relations between forest decrease and legal property security in Mato Grosso State, Brazil. The study area encompasses 133,090.4 km2 of the Amazonian biome, belonging to the Brazilian Legal Amazon, located at the arc of deforestation where agriculture and cattle ranching compete with the native vegetation cover. Cadastral monitoring and certification of productive land plots are Brazil’s public policies to implement to tackle these environmental challenges. In this context, we crossed the Land Management System (SIGEF) dataset launched in 2013 from the National Institute for Agrarian Reform and the Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Program (PRODES) dataset from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE). The analysis considered the 2013–2018 period with public and private land plots and evaluated the differences in smallholders and large landowners’ deforesting behavior. The results demonstrate that the primacy of certified properties was in private land (94%), with a small portion of the public land (6%). Most properties have <80% forest coverage on certification, corresponding to 85% on private properties and 95% on public properties. This fact is important because environmental legislation in the Amazon region establishes a legal reserve of 80% in forest areas. The results show that the smaller the property, the greater the percentage of proportional deforestation in the certification. In the biennium, considering before and after certification, a proportion of 8% of private properties and 28% of public properties with vegetation cover had deforestation. The results demonstrate the tendency for smaller properties to deforest proportionally more than larger ones. The annual difference series in properties registered in 2015 demonstrates that the highest deforestation occurrence was in the year of certification in private properties and the subsequent year in public properties. The SIGEF system is relatively new, requiring more time to establish a consolidated trend. The combination of property rights and effective compliance with environmental legislation allows the conservation of the forest. However, it is essential to improve inspection. Land ownership inserts the owner into a system of rules to properly use natural resources, constituting a legal instrument to guide human action.

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Roads, deforestation and the mitigating effect of the Chico Mendes extractive reserve in the southwestern Amazon

Cited by 17 publications

References 32 publications

Amphibians and reptiles from a protected area in western Brazilian Amazonia (Reserva Extrativista do Baixo Juruá)

Amphibians and reptiles from a protected area in western Brazilian Amazonia (Reserva Extrativista do Baixo Juruá)

Linking Past and Present Land-Use Histories in Southern Amazonas, Peru

Relationship between Land Property Security and Brazilian Amazon Deforestation in the Mato Grosso State during the Period 2013–2018

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