Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Land Use Policy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Land Use Policy, 57, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.022
Accepted author manuscript, 1.1 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Compensating for past deforestation
T2 - assessing the legal forest surplus and deficit of the state of Pará, eastern Amazonia
AU - Serra Nunes, Samia
AU - Gardner, Toby
AU - Barlow, Bernard Josiah
AU - Martins, Heron
AU - Salomão, Rodney
AU - Monteiro, Dyeden
AU - Souza, Carlos
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Land Use Policy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Land Use Policy, 57, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.022
PY - 2016/11/30
Y1 - 2016/11/30
N2 - Up to 80% of each private rural property in the Brazilian Amazon is protected by law through the Legal Reserve (LR) mechanism of the federal Forest Code, underlining the conservation importance of forests on private lands in one of the world́s most important biomes. However, our understanding of the discrepancies in levels of forest protection on private lands as obligated by the law versus what occurs in practice remains very poor. We assessed patterns of forest cover and legal compliance with the Forest Code in the 1.25 Mkm2 Brazilian state of Pará, which has the highest deforestation rate in the Amazon. We evaluate the LR deficit and surplus patterns for different sized properties and across 144 municipalities, and found that the total LR surplus (12.6 Mha) was more than five times the total area of deficit (2.3 Mha). Yet, from the total surplus, only 11% can be legally deforested while the remaining 89% is already protected by law but can be used (sold or rented) to compensate for areas that are under deficit. Medium and large-scale properties make up most of the total LR deficit area, while agrarian reform settlements had comparatively large amounts of both compensation-only surplus and deforestable surplus. Most of the municipalities (77%) in the state could compensate their total deficit with surplus areas of LR in the same municipality, while the remainder can be compensate their deficit in one or more neighbouring municipalities, indicating compensation can always take place close to the source of the deficit. Maximising the environmental benefits of achieving Forest Code compliance requires measures that go beyond the existing legal framework, including interventions to avoid further deforestation in places where it is still legal, compensate in close proximity to areas with legal reserve deficit and promote local restoration on degraded lands.
AB - Up to 80% of each private rural property in the Brazilian Amazon is protected by law through the Legal Reserve (LR) mechanism of the federal Forest Code, underlining the conservation importance of forests on private lands in one of the world́s most important biomes. However, our understanding of the discrepancies in levels of forest protection on private lands as obligated by the law versus what occurs in practice remains very poor. We assessed patterns of forest cover and legal compliance with the Forest Code in the 1.25 Mkm2 Brazilian state of Pará, which has the highest deforestation rate in the Amazon. We evaluate the LR deficit and surplus patterns for different sized properties and across 144 municipalities, and found that the total LR surplus (12.6 Mha) was more than five times the total area of deficit (2.3 Mha). Yet, from the total surplus, only 11% can be legally deforested while the remaining 89% is already protected by law but can be used (sold or rented) to compensate for areas that are under deficit. Medium and large-scale properties make up most of the total LR deficit area, while agrarian reform settlements had comparatively large amounts of both compensation-only surplus and deforestable surplus. Most of the municipalities (77%) in the state could compensate their total deficit with surplus areas of LR in the same municipality, while the remainder can be compensate their deficit in one or more neighbouring municipalities, indicating compensation can always take place close to the source of the deficit. Maximising the environmental benefits of achieving Forest Code compliance requires measures that go beyond the existing legal framework, including interventions to avoid further deforestation in places where it is still legal, compensate in close proximity to areas with legal reserve deficit and promote local restoration on degraded lands.
KW - Forest restoration
KW - Rural properties
KW - Remote sensing
KW - Brazilian environmental policy
KW - Legal reserve
KW - Spatial planning
U2 - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.022
DO - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.022
M3 - Journal article
VL - 57
SP - 749
EP - 758
JO - Land Use Policy
JF - Land Use Policy
SN - 0264-8377
ER -