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Miranda J, Britz W, Börner J. Impacts of commodity prices and governance on the expansion of tropical agricultural frontiers. Sci Rep 2024; 14:9209. [PMID: 38649723 PMCID: PMC11035705 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-59446-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2023] [Accepted: 04/10/2024] [Indexed: 04/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Deforestation in the tropics remains a significant global challenge linked to carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. Agriculture, forestry, wildfires, and urbanization have been repeatedly identified as main drivers of tropical deforestation. Understanding the underlying mechanisms behind these direct causes is crucial to navigate the multiple tradeoffs between competing forest uses, such as food and biomass production (SDG 2), climate action (SDG 13), and life on land (SDG 15). This paper develops and implements a global-scale empirical approach to quantify two key factors affecting land use decisions at tropical forest frontiers: agricultural commodity prices and national governance. It relies on data covering the period 2004-2015 from multiple public sources, aggregated to countries and agro-ecological zones. Our analysis confirms the persistent influence of commodity prices on agricultural land expansion, especially in forest-abundant regions. Economic and environmental governance quality co-determines processes of expansion and contraction of agricultural land in the tropics, yet at much smaller magnitudes than other drivers. We derive land supply elasticities for direct use in standard economic impact assessment models and demonstrate that our results make a difference in a Computable General Equilibrium framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Javier Miranda
- Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Nussallee 21, 53115, Bonn, Germany.
| | - Wolfgang Britz
- Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Nussallee 21, 53115, Bonn, Germany
| | - Jan Börner
- Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Nussallee 21, 53115, Bonn, Germany
- Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Genscherallee 3, 53113, Bonn, Germany
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2
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Nunes FSM, Soares-Filho BS, Oliveira AR, Veloso LVS, Schmitt J, Van der Hoff R, Assis DC, Costa RP, Börner J, Ribeiro SMC, Rajão RGL, de Oliveira U, Costa MA. Lessons from the historical dynamics of environmental law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon. Sci Rep 2024; 14:1828. [PMID: 38246941 PMCID: PMC10800348 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52180-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 01/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Here, we analyze critical changes in environmental law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2020. Based on a dataset of law enforcement indicators, we discuss how these changes explain recent Amazon deforestation dynamics. Our analysis also covers changes in the legal prosecution process and documents a militarization of enforcement between 2018 and 2022. From 2004 to 2018, 43.6 thousand land-use embargoes and 84.3 thousand fines were issued, targeting 3.3 million ha of land, and totaling USD 9.3 billion in penalties. Nevertheless, enforcement relaxed and became spatially more limited, signaling an increasing lack of commitment by the State to enforcing the law. The number of embargoes and asset confiscations dropped by 59% and 55% in 2019 and 2020, respectively. These changes were accompanied by a marked increase in enforcement expenditure, suggesting a massive efficiency loss. More importantly, the creation of so-called conciliation hearings and the centralization of legal processes in 2019 reduced the number of actual judgments and fines collected by 85% and decreased the ratio between lawsuits resulting in paid fines over filed ones from 17 to 5%. As Brazil gears up to crack-down on illegal deforestation once again, our assessment suggests urgent entry points for policy action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felipe S M Nunes
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil.
| | - Britaldo S Soares-Filho
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
| | - Amanda R Oliveira
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
| | - Laura V S Veloso
- Laboratory of Environmental Services Management (LAGESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Jair Schmitt
- Brazil's Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA), Brasília, DF, Brazil
| | - Richard Van der Hoff
- Laboratory of Environmental Services Management (LAGESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Debora C Assis
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
- Laboratory of Environmental Services Management (LAGESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Rayane P Costa
- Laboratory of Environmental Services Management (LAGESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Jan Börner
- Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Sonia M C Ribeiro
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
| | - Raoni G L Rajão
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
- Laboratory of Environmental Services Management (LAGESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Ubirajara de Oliveira
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
| | - Marcelo Azevedo Costa
- Center for Remote Sensing (CSR), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, Belo Horizonte, MG, 662731270-901, Brazil
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3
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Santos RS, Zhang Y, Cotrufo MF, Hong M, Oliveira DMS, Damian JM, Cerri CEP. Simulating soil C dynamics under intensive agricultural systems and climate change scenarios in the Matopiba region, Brazil. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2023; 347:119149. [PMID: 37783087 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119149] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2023] [Revised: 08/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/22/2023] [Indexed: 10/04/2023]
Abstract
The recent agricultural expansion in the Matopiba region, Brazil's new agricultural frontier, has raised questions about the risk of increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) loss as large areas of native vegetation (NV; i.e., Cerrado biome) have been replaced by large-scale mechanized agriculture. Although sustainable managements, such as integrated crop-livestock (ICL) systems, are considered strategic to counterbalance the SOC loss associated with land-use change (LUC) while keeping food production, little is known about their long-term effects on SOC stocks in the Matopiba region. To this end, we used the DayCent model to simulate the effects of converting the management commonly used in this region, i.e., soybean-cotton rotation under no-tillage (NT), into ICL systems with distinct levels of intensification (e.g., crop rotations: soybean-pasture and soybean-pasture-cotton; soil and crop management: grass irrigation, scarification/harrowing, and length of grass cultivation) on long term SOC dynamics. Additionally, data from two projected climate scenarios: SSP2-4.5 [greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) will not change markedly over time and global temperature will increase by 2.0 °C by 2060] and SSP5-8.5 (marked changes in GHG emissions are expected to occur resulting in an increase of 2.4 and 4.4 °C in global temperature in the middle and at the end of the century) were included in our simulations to evaluate climate change effects on SOC dynamics in this region. Based on a 50-yr-time frame simulation, we observed that SOC stocks under ICL systems were, on average, 23% and 47% higher than in the NV (36.9 Mg ha-1) and soybean-cotton rotation under NT (30.9 Mg ha-1), respectively. Growing grasses interlaid with crops was crucial to increase SOC stocks even when disruptive soil practices were followed. Although the irrigation of grass resulted in an early increase of SOC stocks and a higher pasture stoking rate, it did not increase SOC stocks in the long term compared to non-irrigated treatments. The SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios had little effects on SOC dynamics in the simulated ICL systems. However, additional SOC loss (∼0.065 Mg ha-1 yr-1) is predicted to occur if the current management is not improved. These findings can help guide management decisions for the Matopiba region, Brazil, to alleviate the anthropogenic pressure associated with agriculture development. More broadly, they confirm that crop-livestock integration in croplands is a successful strategy to regenerate SOC.
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Affiliation(s)
- R S Santos
- Department of Soil Science, "Luiz de Queiroz" College of Agriculture - University of São Paulo, Avenida Pádua Dias, 11, Piracicaba, SP, 13418-260, Brazil; Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80521, USA.
| | - Y Zhang
- Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80521, USA
| | - M F Cotrufo
- Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80521, USA; Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80521, USA
| | - M Hong
- Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80521, USA
| | - D M S Oliveira
- Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Federal University of Viçosa - Florestal, Road LMG 818 Km 06, Florestal, MG, 35690-000, Brazil
| | - J M Damian
- EMBRAPA Agricultura Digital, Campinas, SP, 13083-886, Brazil
| | - C E P Cerri
- Department of Soil Science, "Luiz de Queiroz" College of Agriculture - University of São Paulo, Avenida Pádua Dias, 11, Piracicaba, SP, 13418-260, Brazil
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4
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Skidmore ME, Sims KM, Gibbs HK. Agricultural intensification and childhood cancer in Brazil. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023; 120:e2306003120. [PMID: 37903255 PMCID: PMC10636353 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306003120] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2023] [Accepted: 08/31/2023] [Indexed: 11/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Over the last several decades, Brazil has become both the world's leading soy producer and the world's leading consumer of hazardous pesticides. Despite identified links between pesticide exposure and carcinogenesis, there has been little population-level research on the effects of pesticide intensification on broader human health in Brazil. We estimate the relationship between expanded soy production-and related community exposure to pesticides-on childhood cancer incidence using 15 y of data on disease mortality. We find a statistically significant increase in pediatric leukemia following expanded local soy production, but timely access to treatment mitigates this relationship. We show that pesticide exposure likely occurs via water supply penetration. Our findings represent only the tip of the iceberg for substantial health externalities of high-input crop production and land use change. Our results are of particular interest in developing contexts with demand for intensified food production systems and underscore the need for stronger regulation of pesticides and increased public health attention to exposure in the broader community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marin Elisabeth Skidmore
- Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL61801
| | - Kaitlyn M. Sims
- Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO80208
| | - Holly K. Gibbs
- Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI53726
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5
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Conrado AC, Demetrio WC, Stanton DWG, Bartz MLC, James SW, Santos A, da Silva E, Ferreira T, Acioli ANS, Ferreira AC, Maia LS, Silva TAC, Lavelle P, Velasquez E, Tapia-Coral SC, Muniz AW, Segalla RF, Decaëns T, Nadolny HS, Peña-Venegas CP, Pasini A, de Oliveira Júnior RC, Kille P, Brown GG, Cunha L. Amazonian earthworm biodiversity is heavily impacted by ancient and recent human disturbance. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 895:165087. [PMID: 37379924 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2023] [Revised: 06/20/2023] [Accepted: 06/21/2023] [Indexed: 06/30/2023]
Abstract
Despite the importance of earthworms for soil formation, more is needed to know about how Pre-Columbian modifications to soils and the landscape. Gaining a deeper understanding is essential for comprehending the historical drivers of earthworm communities and the development of effective conservation strategies in the Amazon rainforest. Human disturbance can significantly impact earthworm diversity, especially in rainforest soils, and in the particular case of the Amazonian rainforest, both recent and ancient anthropic practices may be important. Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are fertile soils found throughout the Amazon Basin, created by sedentary habits and intensification patterns of pre-Colombian societies primarily developed in the second part of the Holocene period. We have sampled earthworm communities in three Brazilian Amazonian (ADEs) and adjacent reference soils (REF) under old and young forests and monocultures. To better assess taxonomic richness, we used morphology and the barcode region of the COI gene to identify juveniles and cocoons and delimit Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units (MOTUs). Here we suggest using Integrated Operational Taxonomical units (IOTUs) which combine both morphological and molecular data and provide a more comprehensive assessment of diversity, while MOTUs only rely on molecular data. A total of 970 individuals were collected, resulting in 51 taxonomic units (IOTUs, MOTUs, and morphospecies combined). From this total, 24 taxonomic units were unique to REF soils, 17 to ADEs, and ten were shared between both soils. The highest richness was found in old forest sites for ADEs (12 taxonomic units) and REFs (21 taxonomic units). The beta-diversity calculations reveal a high species turnover between ADEs and REF soils, providing evidence that ADEs and REFs possess distinct soil biota. Furthermore, results suggest that ADE sites, formed by Pre-Columbian human activities, conserve a high number of native species in the landscape and maintain a high abundance, despite their long-term nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana C Conrado
- Biochemistry Department, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 81531-980, Brazil
| | - Wilian C Demetrio
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | | | - Marie L C Bartz
- Centre for Functional Ecology, Associate Laboratory TERRA, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Samuel W James
- Maharishi International University, Fairfield, IA 52557, United States
| | - Alessandra Santos
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | | | - Talita Ferreira
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | - Agno N S Acioli
- Federal University of Amazonas, Manaus, AM 69067-005, Brazil
| | - Alexandre C Ferreira
- Entomology Department, Federal University of Paraná, 81530-900 Curitiba, PR, Brazil
| | - Lilianne S Maia
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | - Telma A C Silva
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM 69067-375, Brazil
| | - Patrick Lavelle
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Cali 763537, Colombia
| | - Elena Velasquez
- Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Palmira 32 #12-00, Colombia
| | | | - Aleksander W Muniz
- Entomology Department, Federal University of Paraná, 81530-900 Curitiba, PR, Brazil; Embrapa Amazônia Ocidental, Manaus, AM 69010-970, Brazil
| | - Rodrigo F Segalla
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | - Thibaud Decaëns
- CEFE, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France
| | - Herlon S Nadolny
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil
| | | | - Amarildo Pasini
- Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Londrina, PR 86057-970, Brazil
| | | | - Peter Kille
- Cardiff University, Cardiff CF103AT, United Kingdom
| | - George G Brown
- Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR 80035-050, Brazil; Embrapa Florestas, Colombo, PR 83411-000, Brazil
| | - Luís Cunha
- Centre for Functional Ecology, Associate Laboratory TERRA, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal; School of Applied Sciences, University of South Wales, Pontypridd CF374BD, United Kingdom.
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6
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Buřivalová Z, Yoh N, Butler RA, Chandra Sagar HSS, Game ET. Broadening the focus of forest conservation beyond carbon. Curr Biol 2023; 33:R621-R635. [PMID: 37279693 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Two concurrent trends are contributing towards a much broader view of forest conservation. First, the appreciation of the role of forests as a nature-based climate solution has grown rapidly, particularly among governments and the private sector. Second, the spatiotemporal resolution of forest mapping and the ease of tracking forest changes have dramatically improved. As a result, who does and who pays for forest conservation is changing: sectors and people previously considered separate from forest conservation now play an important role and need to be held accountable and motivated or forced to conserve forests. This change requires, and has stimulated, a broader range of forest conservation solutions. The need to assess the outcomes of conservation interventions has motivated the development and application of sophisticated econometric analyses, enabled by high resolution satellite data. At the same time, the focus on climate, together with the nature of available data and evaluation methods, has worked against a more comprehensive view of forest conservation. Instead, it has encouraged a focus on trees as carbon stores, often leaving out other important goals of forest conservation, such as biodiversity and human wellbeing. Even though both are intrinsically connected to climate outcomes, these areas have not kept pace with the scale and diversification of forest conservation. Finding synergies between these 'co-benefits', which play out on a local scale, with the carbon objective, related to the global amount of forests, is a major challenge and area for future advances in forest conservation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zuzana Buřivalová
- The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
| | - Natalie Yoh
- The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | | | - H S Sathya Chandra Sagar
- The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
| | - Edward T Game
- The Nature Conservancy, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia; School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
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7
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Cobelo I, Castelhano FJ, Borge R, Roig HL, Adams M, Amini H, Koutrakis P, Réquia WJ. The impact of wildfires on air pollution and health across land use categories in Brazil over a 16-year period. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH 2023; 224:115522. [PMID: 36813066 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2022] [Revised: 02/16/2023] [Accepted: 02/17/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Forest fires cause many environmental impacts, including air pollution. Brazil is a very fire-prone region where few studies have investigated the impact of wildfires on air quality and health. We proposed to test two hypotheses in this study: i) the wildfires in Brazil have increased the levels of air pollution and posed a health hazard in 2003-2018, and ii) the magnitude of this phenomenon depends on the type of land use and land cover (e.g., forest area, agricultural area, etc.). Satellite and ensemble models derived data were used as input in our analyses. Wildfire events were retrieved from Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), provided by NASA; air pollution data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS); meteorological variables from the ERA-Interim model; and land use/cover data were derived from pixel-based classification of Landsat satellite images by MapBiomas. We used a framework that infers the "wildfire penalty" by accounting for differences in linear pollutant annual trends (β) between two models to test these hypotheses. The first model was adjusted for Wildfire-related Land Use activities (WLU), considered as an adjusted model. In the second model, defined as an unadjusted model, we removed the wildfire variable (WLU). Both models were controlled by meteorological variables. We used a generalized additive approach to fit these two models. To estimate mortality associated with wildfire penalties, we applied health impact function. Our findings suggest that wildfire events between 2003 and 2018 have increased the levels of air pollution and posed a significant health hazard in Brazil, supporting our first hypothesis. For example, in the Pampa biome, we estimated an annual wildfire penalty of 0.005 μg/m3 (95%CI: 0.001; 0.009) on PM2.5. Our results also confirm the second hypothesis. We observed that the greatest impact of wildfires on PM2.5 concentrations occurred in soybean areas in the Amazon biome. During the 16 years of the study period, wildfires originating from soybean areas in the Amazon biome were associated with a total penalty of 0.64 μg/m3 (95%CI: 0.32; 0.96) on PM2.5, causing an estimated 3872 (95%CI: 2560; 5168) excess deaths. Sugarcane crops were also a driver of deforestation-related wildfires in Brazil, mainly in Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes. Our findings suggest that between 2003 and 2018, fires originating from sugarcane crops were associated with a total penalty of 0.134 μg/m3 (95%CI: 0.037; 0.232) on PM2.5 in Atlantic Forest biome, resulting in an estimated 7600 (95%CI: 4400; 10,800) excess deaths during the study period, and 0.096 μg/m3 (95%CI: 0.048; 0.144) on PM2.5 in Cerrado biome, resulting in an estimated 1632 (95%CI: 1152; 2112) excess deaths during the study period. Considering that the wildfire penalties observed during our study period may continue to be a challenge in the future, this study should be of interest to policymakers to prepare future strategies related to forest protection, land use management, agricultural activities, environmental health, climate change, and sources of air pollution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Igor Cobelo
- School of Public Policy and Government, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brasília, Brazil
| | | | - Rafael Borge
- Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Henrique L Roig
- Geoscience Institute, University of Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil
| | - Matthew Adams
- Department of Geography, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada
| | - Heresh Amini
- Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Petros Koutrakis
- Department of Environmental Health, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA
| | - Weeberb J Réquia
- School of Public Policy and Government, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brasília, Brazil
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8
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Molotoks A, Green J, Ribiero V, Wang Y, West C. Assessing the value of biodiversity‐specific footprinting metrics linked to South American soy trade. PEOPLE AND NATURE 2023. [DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10457] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/12/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Amy Molotoks
- Department of Environment and Geography, Stockholm Environment Institute York University of York York UK
| | - Jonathan Green
- Department of Environment and Geography, Stockholm Environment Institute York University of York York UK
| | | | - Yunxia Wang
- Genetics and Conservation, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Edinburgh UK
| | - Chris West
- Department of Environment and Geography, Stockholm Environment Institute York University of York York UK
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9
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Fleiss S, Parr CL, Platts PJ, McClean CJ, Beyer RM, King H, Lucey JM, Hill JK. Implications of zero-deforestation palm oil for tropical grassy and dry forest biodiversity. Nat Ecol Evol 2023; 7:250-263. [PMID: 36443467 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01941-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2021] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Many companies have made zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) to reduce carbon emissions and biodiversity losses linked to tropical commodities. However, ZDCs conserve areas primarily based on tree cover and aboveground carbon, potentially leading to the unintended consequence that agricultural expansion could be encouraged in biomes outside tropical rainforest, which also support important biodiversity. We examine locations suitable for zero-deforestation expansion of commercial oil palm, which is increasingly expanding outside the tropical rainforest biome, by generating empirical models of global suitability for rainfed and irrigated oil palm. We find that tropical grassy and dry forest biomes contain >50% of the total area of land climatically suitable for rainfed oil palm expansion in compliance with ZDCs (following the High Carbon Stock Approach; in locations outside urban areas and cropland), and that irrigation could double the area suitable for expansion in these biomes. Within these biomes, ZDCs fail to protect areas of high vertebrate richness from oil palm expansion. To prevent unintended consequences of ZDCs and minimize the environmental impacts of oil palm expansion, policies and governance for sustainable development and conservation must expand focus from rainforests to all tropical biomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susannah Fleiss
- Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, Department of Biology, University of York, York, UK.
| | - Catherine L Parr
- School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.,Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.,School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Philip J Platts
- Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, Department of Biology, University of York, York, UK.,BeZero Carbon Ltd, London, UK.,Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York, UK.,Climate Change Specialist Group, Species Survival Commission, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland
| | - Colin J McClean
- Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York, UK
| | - Robert M Beyer
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.,Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Henry King
- Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, Unilever R&D, Sharnbrook, UK
| | | | - Jane K Hill
- Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, Department of Biology, University of York, York, UK
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10
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Lapola DM, Pinho P, Barlow J, Aragão LEOC, Berenguer E, Carmenta R, Liddy HM, Seixas H, Silva CVJ, Silva-Junior CHL, Alencar AAC, Anderson LO, Armenteras D, Brovkin V, Calders K, Chambers J, Chini L, Costa MH, Faria BL, Fearnside PM, Ferreira J, Gatti L, Gutierrez-Velez VH, Han Z, Hibbard K, Koven C, Lawrence P, Pongratz J, Portela BTT, Rounsevell M, Ruane AC, Schaldach R, da Silva SS, von Randow C, Walker WS. The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation. Science 2023; 379:eabp8622. [PMID: 36701452 DOI: 10.1126/science.abp8622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Approximately 2.5 × 106 square kilometers of the Amazon forest are currently degraded by fire, edge effects, timber extraction, and/or extreme drought, representing 38% of all remaining forests in the region. Carbon emissions from this degradation total up to 0.2 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C year-1), which is equivalent to, if not greater than, the emissions from Amazon deforestation (0.06 to 0.21 Pg C year-1). Amazon forest degradation can reduce dry-season evapotranspiration by up to 34% and cause as much biodiversity loss as deforestation in human-modified landscapes, generating uneven socioeconomic burdens, mainly to forest dwellers. Projections indicate that degradation will remain a dominant source of carbon emissions independent of deforestation rates. Policies to tackle degradation should be integrated with efforts to curb deforestation and complemented with innovative measures addressing the disturbances that degrade the Amazon forest.
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Affiliation(s)
- David M Lapola
- Laboratório de Ciência do Sistema Terrestre - LabTerra, Centro de Pesquisas Meteorológicas e Climáticas Aplicadas à Agricultura - CEPAGRI, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil
| | - Patricia Pinho
- Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais da Amazônia, Brasília, DF, Brazil
| | - Jos Barlow
- Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
| | - Luiz E O C Aragão
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil.,Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Erika Berenguer
- Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.,Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | | | - Hannah M Liddy
- Columbia Climate School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.,NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA
| | - Hugo Seixas
- Laboratório de Ciência do Sistema Terrestre - LabTerra, Centro de Pesquisas Meteorológicas e Climáticas Aplicadas à Agricultura - CEPAGRI, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil
| | - Camila V J Silva
- Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais da Amazônia, Brasília, DF, Brazil.,Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.,BeZero Carbon Ltd, London, UK
| | - Celso H L Silva-Junior
- Institute of Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.,Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.,Programa de Pós-graduação em Biodiversidade e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Maranhão - UFMA, São Luís, MA, Brazil
| | - Ane A C Alencar
- Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais da Amazônia, Brasília, DF, Brazil
| | - Liana O Anderson
- Centro Nacional de Monitoramento e Alertas de Desastres Naturais, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
| | | | | | - Kim Calders
- Computational & Applied Vegetation Ecology Laboratory, Department of Environment, Ghent University, Belgium.,School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
| | | | | | | | - Bruno L Faria
- Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Norte de Minas Gerais, Diamantina, MG, Brazil
| | | | - Joice Ferreira
- Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária, Belém, PA, Brazil
| | - Luciana Gatti
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
| | | | | | - Kathleen Hibbard
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Charles Koven
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Peter Lawrence
- National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Julia Pongratz
- Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany.,Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | | | - Mark Rounsevell
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.,University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
| | - Alex C Ruane
- NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA
| | | | | | - Celso von Randow
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
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11
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Diele Viegas LM, Sales L, Hipólito J, Amorim C, Johnson de Pereira E, Ferreira P, Folta C, Ferrante L, Fearnside P, Mendes Malhado AC, Frederico Duarte Rocha C, M. Vale M. We're building it up to burn it down: fire occurrence and fire-related climatic patterns in Brazilian biomes. PeerJ 2022; 10:e14276. [PMID: 36312759 PMCID: PMC9615963 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.14276] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2022] [Accepted: 09/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Terrestrial biomes in South America are likely to experience a persistent increase in environmental temperature, possibly combined with moisture reduction due to climate change. In addition, natural fire ignition sources, such as lightning, can become more frequent under climate change scenarios since favourable environmental conditions are likely to occur more often. In this sense, changes in the frequency and magnitude of natural fires can impose novel stressors on different ecosystems according to their adaptation to fires. By focusing on Brazilian biomes, we use an innovative combination of techniques to quantify fire persistence and occurrence patterns over time and evaluate climate risk by considering key fire-related climatic characteristics. Then, we tested four major hypotheses considering the overall characteristics of fire-dependent, fire-independent, and fire-sensitive biomes concerning (1) fire persistence over time; (2) the relationship between climate and fire occurrence; (3) future predictions of climate change and its potential impacts on fire occurrence; and (4) climate risk faced by biomes. Methods We performed a Detrended Fluctuation Analysis to test whether fires in Brazilian biomes are persistent over time. We considered four bioclimatic variables whose links to fire frequency and intensity are well-established to assess the relationship between climate and fire occurrence by confronting these climate predictors with a fire occurrence dataset through correlative models. To assess climate risk, we calculated the climate hazard, sensitivity, resilience, and vulnerability of Brazilian biomes, and then we multiplied the Biomes' vulnerability index by the hazards. Results Our results indicate a persistent behaviour of fires in all Brazilian biomes at almost the same rates, which could represent human-induced patterns of fire persistence. We also corroborated our second hypothesis by showing that most fire-dependent biomes presented high thermal suitability to fire, while the fire-independent biome presented intermediate suitability and fire-sensitive biomes are the least suitable for fire occurrence. The third hypothesis was partially corroborated since fire-dependent and independent biomes are likely to increase their thermal suitability to fire, while fire-sensitive biomes are likely to present stable-to-decreasing thermal suitability in the future. Finally, our fourth hypothesis was partially corroborated since most fire-dependent biomes presented low climate risk, while the fire-independent biome presented a high risk and the fire-sensitive biomes presented opposite trends. In summary, while the patterns of fire persistence and fire occurrence over time are more likely to be related to human-induced fires, key drivers of burned areas are likely to be intensified across Brazilian biomes in the future, potentially increasing the magnitude of the fires and harming the biomes' integrity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luisa Maria Diele Viegas
- Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil,Fórum Clima Salvador, Salvador, Brazil
| | - Lilian Sales
- Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
| | - Juliana Hipólito
- Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil,Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | | | | | - Paulo Ferreira
- Research Center for Endogenous Resource Valorization, Portalegre, Portugal,Department of Economic Sciences and Organizations, Portalegre Polytechnic Institute, Portalegre, Portugal,Center for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics, Institute for Research and Advanced Training, Universidade de Evora, Evora, Portugal
| | - Cody Folta
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD, United States of America
| | - Lucas Ferrante
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | - Philip Fearnside
- Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
| | - Ana Claudia Mendes Malhado
- Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil,Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of Porto, Vairao, Portugal
| | | | - Mariana M. Vale
- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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12
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Aragão RBDA, Bastos Lima MG, Burns GL, Ross H. To clear or not to clear: Unpacking soy farmers' decision-making on deforestation in Brazil's Cerrado. FRONTIERS IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS 2022. [DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2022.942207] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Agriculture-driven deforestation has come to the top of the environmental policy agenda as one of the main sustainability issues of current food systems. A major case is soy production in Brazil, the largest grower and exporter of what has become the world's crop of choice for animal feed protein. Soy expansion has contributed to the continuous erasure of the Brazilian Cerrado, a highly biodiverse savanna with significant underground carbon storage that plays vital hydrological functions but remains mostly unprotected. Much of the remaining Cerrado vegetation is located within private farms and can be cleared legally; therefore, understanding soy farmers' attitudes regarding deforestation is paramount. Hence, this study explores and analyzes Brazilian soy farmers' perspectives, attitudes, and behavior concerning land-use change. We draw from the literature and semi-structured interviews with 24 soy farmers in Tocantins State, part of an agricultural frontier region called Matopiba. Our findings show how soy-farmer behavior follows primarily an economic rationale unconcerned with environmental sustainability. Farmers have moved to the frontier attracted primarily by cheap land prices and mainly occupied degraded pastures. Still, they have cleared vegetation directly for planting soy and show little restraint. Although chiefly interested in increasing yields, Brazil's soy farmers feel entitled to open new areas whenever they have the economic means and motivation. They may also engage in pre-emptive deforestation for fear of more stringent forthcoming regulations. Such attitudes offer a cautionary note to strategies that hope to conserve the Cerrado through voluntary behavioral change, such as adopting “best practices” or focusing on improving production in already-open areas. We argue that greater regulatory stringency and enforcement are much more promising pathways in the context of excessive permissiveness to deforestation in the Cerrado and actors oriented by profit and by what they are allowed to do. Well-enforced public policies that legally restrict their deforestation rights and protect the remaining areas of Cerrado would offer a royal road, but supply-chain actors, too, may need to become stricter about requesting conversion-free soy. We conclude that, without such actions, soy farmers' attitudes promise a continuation of business as usual toward the Cerrado's end.
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13
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Pacheco A, Meyer C. Land tenure drives Brazil's deforestation rates across socio-environmental contexts. Nat Commun 2022; 13:5759. [PMID: 36182932 PMCID: PMC9526711 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33398-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Many tropical forestlands are experiencing changes in land-tenure regimes, but how these changes may affect deforestation rates remains ambiguous. Here, we use Brazil’s land-tenure and deforestation data and quasi-experimental methods to analyze how six land-tenure regimes (undesignated/untitled, private, strictly-protected and sustainable-use protected areas, indigenous, and quilombola lands) affect deforestation across 49 spatiotemporal scales. We find that undesignated/untitled public regimes with poorly defined tenure rights increase deforestation relative to any alternative regime in most contexts. The privatization of these undesignated/untitled lands often reduces this deforestation, particularly when private regimes are subject to strict environmental regulations such as the Forest Code in Amazonia. However, private regimes decrease deforestation less effectively and less reliably than alternative well-defined regimes, and directly privatizing either conservation regimes or indigenous lands would most likely increase deforestation. This study informs the ongoing political debate around land privatization/protection in tropical landscapes and can be used to envisage policy aligned with sustainable development goals. How land-tenure regimes affect deforestation remains ambiguous. This study shows how deforestation in Brazil is land-tenure dependent, and how strategies to effectively reduce deforestation can range from strengthening poorly defined rights to strengthening conservation-focused regimes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Pacheco
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Puschstrasse 4, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. .,Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
| | - Carsten Meyer
- German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Puschstrasse 4, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. .,Institute of Geosciences and Geography, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany. .,Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
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14
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Leakage does not fully offset soy supply-chain efforts to reduce deforestation in Brazil. Nat Commun 2022; 13:5476. [PMID: 36115865 PMCID: PMC9482629 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33213-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2021] [Accepted: 09/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Zero-deforestation supply chain policies that leverage the market power of commodity buyers to change agricultural producer behavior can reduce forest clearing in regions with rapid commodity expansion and weak forest governance. Yet leakage—when deforestation is pushed to other regions—may dilute the global effectiveness of regionally successful policies. Here we show that domestic leakage offsets 43-50% of the avoided deforestation induced by existing and proposed zero-deforestation supply chain policies in Brazil’s soy sector. However, cross-border leakage is insignificant (<3%) because soybean production is displaced to existing U.S. farmland. Eliminating deforestation from the supply chains of all firms exporting Brazilian soy to the EU or China from 2011-2016 could have reduced net global deforestation by 2% and Brazilian deforestation by 9%. Thus, if major tropical commodity importers (e.g., the EU) require traders to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, it could help bend the curve on global forest loss. This research quantifies the role of zero deforestation policies and potential leakages in Brazilian soybean production, the third major driver of deforestation globally. Here the authors provide the first estimates of net global avoided soy-driven deforestation from zero-deforestation import restrictions and find that such restrictions could help avoid ~40% of deforestation for soy cultivation in Brazil and ~2% of global deforestation.
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15
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Pendrill F, Gardner TA, Meyfroidt P, Persson UM, Adams J, Azevedo T, Bastos Lima MG, Baumann M, Curtis PG, De Sy V, Garrett R, Godar J, Goldman ED, Hansen MC, Heilmayr R, Herold M, Kuemmerle T, Lathuillière MJ, Ribeiro V, Tyukavina A, Weisse MJ, West C. Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation. Science 2022; 377:eabm9267. [PMID: 36074840 DOI: 10.1126/science.abm9267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Tropical deforestation continues at alarming rates with profound impacts on ecosystems, climate, and livelihoods, prompting renewed commitments to halt its continuation. Although it is well established that agriculture is a dominant driver of deforestation, rates and mechanisms remain disputed and often lack a clear evidence base. We synthesize the best available pantropical evidence to provide clarity on how agriculture drives deforestation. Although most (90 to 99%) deforestation across the tropics 2011 to 2015 was driven by agriculture, only 45 to 65% of deforested land became productive agriculture within a few years. Therefore, ending deforestation likely requires combining measures to create deforestation-free supply chains with landscape governance interventions. We highlight key remaining evidence gaps including deforestation trends, commodity-specific land-use dynamics, and data from tropical dry forests and forests across Africa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Florence Pendrill
- Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
| | - Toby A Gardner
- Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Patrick Meyfroidt
- Georges Lemaître Earth and Climate Research Centre, Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.,Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique F.R.S.-FNRS, Brussels, Belgium
| | - U Martin Persson
- Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
| | - Justin Adams
- Tropical Forest Alliance, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | | | - Matthias Baumann
- Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | | | - Veronique De Sy
- Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands
| | - Rachael Garrett
- Environmental PolicyLab, Department of Humanities, Social, and Political Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.,Department of Geography and Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
| | - Javier Godar
- Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Stockholm, Sweden
| | | | - Matthew C Hansen
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
| | - Robert Heilmayr
- Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA.,Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA
| | - Martin Herold
- Helmholz GFZ Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 1.4 Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Tobias Kuemmerle
- Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.,Integrated Research Institute for Transformations in Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | | | - Vivian Ribeiro
- Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Alexandra Tyukavina
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
| | - Mikaela J Weisse
- Global Forest Watch, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Chris West
- Stockholm Environment Institute York, Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York, UK
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16
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Hong C, Zhao H, Qin Y, Burney JA, Pongratz J, Hartung K, Liu Y, Moore FC, Jackson RB, Zhang Q, Davis SJ. Land-use emissions embodied in international trade. Science 2022; 376:597-603. [PMID: 35511968 DOI: 10.1126/science.abj1572] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
International trade separates consumption of goods from related environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change (together referred to as "land-use emissions"). Through use of new emissions estimates and a multiregional input-output model, we evaluated land-use emissions embodied in global trade from 2004 to 2017. Annually, 27% of land-use emissions and 22% of agricultural land are related to agricultural products ultimately consumed in a different region from where they were produced. Roughly three-quarters of embodied emissions are from land-use change, with the largest transfers from lower-income countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Argentina to more industrialized regions such as Europe, the United States, and China. Mitigation of global land-use emissions and sustainable development may thus depend on improving the transparency of supply chains.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chaopeng Hong
- Institute of Environment and Ecology, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China.,Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Hongyan Zhao
- School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.,Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Yue Qin
- College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Jennifer A Burney
- School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Julia Pongratz
- Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany.,Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Kerstin Hartung
- Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany
| | - Yu Liu
- Institute of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Frances C Moore
- Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA
| | - Robert B Jackson
- Department of Earth System Science, Woods Institute for the Environment, and Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Qiang Zhang
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | - Steven J Davis
- Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.,Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
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17
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Abstract
Tropical deforestation and forest degradation driven by agricultural commodity production remains one of the important sustainability challenges of our times. The responses to tropical deforestation so far have not managed to reverse global trends of forest loss, reigniting the discussion about more robust and systemic measures. The concept of deforestation risk is highly relevant for current debates about policy and trade, and likely to increase in importance in the context of the proposed EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products and EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement. We argue that deforestation is a systemic risk that permeates through different economic sectors, including production, manufacturing, service and control sectors. International trade, investment and economic policies thus act as a systemic trap that cause the production sector to continue with nature’s destruction. This article seeks to more clearly define deforestation risk and uses the case of bovine leather from Brazil to illustrate how pressures for deforestation accumulate across economic sectors towards production, while deforestation risk is dispersed in an opposite trajectory. The article draws on multiple datasets and an extensive literature review. Included are quantitative data sources on annual slaughter, bovine hide/leather registry and annual deforestation, slaughterhouse and tannery locations. We argue that the EU banning unsustainable products from entry and putting incentives for more sustainable agricultural production in the tropics addresses deforestation risks that are currently visible and relatively easy to identify. These response mechanisms are conditioned upon traceability of deforestation risk across supply chains, which is prone to falsifications, leakage and laundry. Although proven to be essential, the proposed EU responses still miss out deeper leverage points to address the systemic drivers of deforestation coming from the manufacturing, service and control sectors that make production through deforestation profitable in the first place.
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18
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Siqueira-Gay J, Santos D, Nascimento WR, Souza-Filho PWM, Sánchez LE. Investigating Changes Driving Cumulative Impacts on Native Vegetation in Mining Regions in the Northeastern Brazilian Amazon. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2022; 69:438-448. [PMID: 35013793 DOI: 10.1007/s00267-021-01578-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2021] [Accepted: 11/29/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Developing conservation strategies to mitigate cumulative impacts requires the understanding of historic land use and land cover changes at the regional scale. By using a multisensory and multitemporal approach, we identified the major changes driving cumulative impacts on native vegetation in northeastern Amazon. Comparing two regions, one with mining as the key driver and another where mining is associated with other industrial activities (cellulose), we explore the land use and land cover historic dynamics and derive implications for the assessment of cumulative impacts. Transitions of forest cover to pastureland, silviculture, and urban expansion were mapped in detail over a 20-year period, revealing that silviculture growth cleared more forests than pastureland expansion when associated with pulp mill activities and kaolin mining. In contrast, in a region with gold and iron mining, pastureland expansion was more relevant, clearing mainly areas surrounding new roads. This research shows that the interplay of major mining and industrial investments can produce cumulative losses of native vegetation, depending on the associated industries and infrastructure required for the project development. Our findings emphasize that the definition of spatial and temporal boundaries for the assessment of cumulative impacts must consider different trends in impact accumulation and changes in their spatial distribution over time.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Diogo Santos
- Instituto Tecnológico Vale, Pará, Brazil
- Geosciences Institute, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil
| | | | - Pedro Walfir M Souza-Filho
- Instituto Tecnológico Vale, Pará, Brazil
- Geosciences Institute, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil
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19
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Denvir A, Arima EY, González-Rodríguez A, Young KR. Ecological and human dimensions of avocado expansion in México: Towards supply-chain sustainability. AMBIO 2022; 51:152-166. [PMID: 33738729 PMCID: PMC8651965 DOI: 10.1007/s13280-021-01538-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2020] [Revised: 12/27/2020] [Accepted: 02/05/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
Avocados have become a global commodity, and environmental and socioeconomic impacts in the regions where avocados are grown have increased in tandem with production. In this article, we synthesize the current state of knowledge about the impacts of avocado production in Michoacán, México, the global center of avocado production. Environmental impacts on biodiversity, soil, and hydrological systems stem from deforestation and forest fragmentation that result from avocado expansion. The avocado industry has brought some economic benefits, namely increased employment and reductions in poverty and out-migration, but inequity in the region limits the positive socioeconomic impacts. We draw comparisons to other commodity studies and propose that lessons learned from such research could be utilized to make the avocado supply chain more sustainable. Ultimately, steps could be taken at all levels of the commodity chain to improve sustainability, including improved farming practices, policies protecting smallholders and local capital, and increased consumer awareness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Audrey Denvir
- Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, A3100, RLP 3.306, Austin, TX 78712 USA
| | - Eugenio Y. Arima
- Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, A3100, RLP 3.306, Austin, TX 78712 USA
| | - Antonio González-Rodríguez
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro No. 8701, Col. Ex Hacienda de Sán José de la Huerta, C.P. 58190, Morelia, Michoacán Mexico
| | - Kenneth R. Young
- Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, A3100, RLP 3.306, Austin, TX 78712 USA
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20
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Pokorny B, Pacheco P, de Jong W, Entenmann SK. Forest frontiers out of control: The long-term effects of discourses, policies, and markets on conservation and development of the Brazilian Amazon. AMBIO 2021; 50:2199-2223. [PMID: 34637088 PMCID: PMC8507351 DOI: 10.1007/s13280-021-01637-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2020] [Revised: 03/22/2021] [Accepted: 09/21/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
With the Brazilian military governments of the 1960s, systematic economic development of the Amazon began. Social and environmental concerns have entered Amazonian discourses and policies only since the 1990s. Since then, reports of threats to forests and indigenous people have alternated with reports of socio-economic progress and environmental achievements. These contradictions often arise from limited thematic, sectoral, temporal, or spatial perspectives, and lead to misinterpretation. Our paper offers a comprehensive picture of discourses, policies, and socio-environmental dynamics for the entire region over the last five decades. We distinguish eight historical policy phases, each of which had little effect on near-linear dynamics of demographic growth and land-use expansion, although some policies showed the potential to change the course of development. To prevent local, national, and international actors from continuing to assert harmful interests in the region, a coherent long-term commitment and change in the collective mindset are needed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benno Pokorny
- Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg (Germany), Tennenbacher Strasse 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany
| | - Pablo Pacheco
- World Wide Fund for Nature, 1250 24th St NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA
| | - Wil de Jong
- Center for Southeast Asian and Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University (Japan), 46 Shimoadachichou, Sakyoku, Kyoto, 606-8501 Japan
| | - Steffen Karl Entenmann
- Chair of Silvicutlure, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg (Germany), Tennenbacher Strasse 4, 79106 Freiburg, Germany
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21
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Kuschnig N, Cuaresma JC, Krisztin T, Giljum S. Spatial spillover effects from agriculture drive deforestation in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Sci Rep 2021; 11:21804. [PMID: 34750428 PMCID: PMC8575964 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-00861-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2021] [Accepted: 10/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is a threat to global climate, biodiversity, and many other ecosystem services. In order to address this threat, an understanding of the drivers of deforestation processes is required. Spillover effects and factors that differ across locations and over time play important roles in these processes. They are largely disregarded in applied research and thus in the design of evidence-based policies. In this study, we model connectivity between regions and consider heterogeneous effects to gain more accurate quantitative insights into the inherent complexity of deforestation. We investigate the impacts of agriculture in Mato Grosso, Brazil, for the period 2006-2017 considering spatial spillovers and varying impacts over time and space. Spillovers between municipalities that emanate from croplands in the Amazon appear as the major driver of deforestation, with no direct effects from agriculture in recent years. This suggests a moderate success of the Soy Moratorium and Cattle Agreements, but highlights their inability to address indirect effects. We find that the neglect of the spatial dimension and the assumption of homogeneous impacts lead to distorted inference. Researchers need to be aware of the complex and dynamic processes behind deforestation, in order to facilitate effective policy design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nikolas Kuschnig
- Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Jesús Crespo Cuaresma
- Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020, Vienna, Austria
- International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
- Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (WIC), Vienna, Austria
- Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), Vienna, Austria
| | - Tamás Krisztin
- International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
| | - Stefan Giljum
- Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020, Vienna, Austria
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22
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Lourençoni T, da Silva Junior CA, Lima M, Teodoro PE, Pelissari TD, Dos Santos RG, Teodoro LPR, Luz IM, Rossi FS. Advance of soy commodity in the southern Amazonia with deforestation via PRODES and ImazonGeo: a moratorium-based approach. Sci Rep 2021; 11:21792. [PMID: 34750464 PMCID: PMC8576044 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-01350-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 10/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
The guidance on decision-making regarding deforestation in Amazonia has been efficient as a result of monitoring programs using remote sensing techniques. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify the expansion of soybean farming in disagreement with the Soy Moratorium (SoyM) in the Amazonia biome of Mato Grosso from 2008 to 2019. Deforestation data provided by two Amazonia monitoring programs were used: PRODES (Program for Calculating Deforestation in Amazonia) and ImazonGeo (Geoinformation Program on Amazonia). For the identification of soybean areas, the Perpendicular Crop Enhancement Index (PCEI) spectral model was calculated using a cloud platform. To verify areas (polygons) of largest converted forest-soybean occurrences, the Kernel Density (KD) estimator was applied. Mann-Kendall and Pettitt tests were used to identify trends over the time series. Our findings reveal that 1,387,288 ha were deforested from August 2008 to October 2019 according to PRODES data, of which 108,411 ha (7.81%) were converted into soybean. The ImazonGeo data showed 729,204 hectares deforested and 46,182 hectares (6.33%) converted into soybean areas. Based on the deforestation polygons of the two databases, the KD estimator indicated that the municipalities of Feliz Natal, Tabaporã, Nova Ubiratã, and União do Sul presented higher occurrences of soybean fields in disagreement with the SoyM. The results indicate that the PRODES system presents higher data variability and means statistically superior to ImazonGeo.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thais Lourençoni
- State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta, MT, Brazil
| | | | - Mendelson Lima
- State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT), Alta Floresta, MT, Brazil
| | - Paulo Eduardo Teodoro
- Department of Crop Science, Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Mato Grosso Do Sul (UFMS), Chapadão Do Sul, MS, Brazil.
| | | | - Regimar Garcia Dos Santos
- Department of Crop Science, Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Mato Grosso Do Sul (UFMS), Chapadão Do Sul, MS, Brazil
| | - Larissa Pereira Ribeiro Teodoro
- Department of Crop Science, Department of Agronomy, Federal University of Mato Grosso Do Sul (UFMS), Chapadão Do Sul, MS, Brazil
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23
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Austin KG, Heilmayr R, Benedict JJ, Burns DN, Eggen M, Grantham H, Greenbury A, Hill JK, Jenkins CN, Luskin MS, Manurung T, Rasmussen LV, Rosoman G, Rudorff B, Satar M, Smith C, Carlson KM. Mapping and Monitoring Zero-Deforestation Commitments. Bioscience 2021; 71:1079-1090. [PMID: 34616238 PMCID: PMC8490929 DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biab082] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
A growing number of companies have announced zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) to eliminate commodities produced at the expense of forests from their supply chains. Translating these aspirational goals into forest conservation requires forest mapping and monitoring (M&M) systems that are technically adequate and therefore credible, salient so that they address the needs of decision makers, legitimate in that they are fair and unbiased, and scalable over space and time. We identify 12 attributes of M&M that contribute to these goals and assess how two prominent ZDC programs, the Amazon Soy Moratorium and the High Carbon Stock Approach, integrate these attributes into their M&M systems. These programs prioritize different attributes, highlighting fundamental trade-offs in M&M design. Rather than prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution, we provide policymakers and practitioners with guidance on the design of ZDC M&M systems that fit their specific use case and that may contribute to more effective implementation of ZDCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kemen G Austin
- RTI International's Center for Applied Economics, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States
| | - Robert Heilmayr
- Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States
| | - Jason J Benedict
- Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States
| | - David N Burns
- International Wildlife Conservation, National Wildlife Federation, and with the World Resources Institute's Climate Program, Washington, DC, United States
| | - Michael Eggen
- Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States
| | - Hedley Grantham
- Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States
| | - Aida Greenbury
- Steering Group of the High Carbon Stock Approach, Singapore
| | - Jane K Hill
- Department of Biology, University of York, York, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
| | - Clinton N Jenkins
- Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, and with the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States
| | - Matthew S Luskin
- The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Queensland, Australia
| | | | - Laura V Rasmussen
- Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Grant Rosoman
- Global Forest Solutions, part of Greenpeace International, in Christchurch, New Zealand
| | | | | | - Charlotte Smith
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
| | - Kimberly M Carlson
- Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, New York, United States
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24
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Feng X, Merow C, Liu Z, Park DS, Roehrdanz PR, Maitner B, Newman EA, Boyle BL, Lien A, Burger JR, Pires MM, Brando PM, Bush MB, McMichael CNH, Neves DM, Nikolopoulos EI, Saleska SR, Hannah L, Breshears DD, Evans TP, Soto JR, Ernst KC, Enquist BJ. How deregulation, drought and increasing fire impact Amazonian biodiversity. Nature 2021; 597:516-521. [PMID: 34471291 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03876-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2019] [Accepted: 08/04/2021] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Biodiversity contributes to the ecological and climatic stability of the Amazon Basin1,2, but is increasingly threatened by deforestation and fire3,4. Here we quantify these impacts over the past two decades using remote-sensing estimates of fire and deforestation and comprehensive range estimates of 11,514 plant species and 3,079 vertebrate species in the Amazon. Deforestation has led to large amounts of habitat loss, and fires further exacerbate this already substantial impact on Amazonian biodiversity. Since 2001, 103,079-189,755 km2 of Amazon rainforest has been impacted by fires, potentially impacting the ranges of 77.3-85.2% of species that are listed as threatened in this region5. The impacts of fire on the ranges of species in Amazonia could be as high as 64%, and greater impacts are typically associated with species that have restricted ranges. We find close associations between forest policy, fire-impacted forest area and their potential impacts on biodiversity. In Brazil, forest policies that were initiated in the mid-2000s corresponded to reduced rates of burning. However, relaxed enforcement of these policies in 2019 has seemingly begun to reverse this trend: approximately 4,253-10,343 km2 of forest has been impacted by fire, leading to some of the most severe potential impacts on biodiversity since 2009. These results highlight the critical role of policy enforcement in the preservation of biodiversity in the Amazon.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao Feng
- Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
| | - Cory Merow
- Eversource Energy Center and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
| | - Zhihua Liu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China
| | - Daniel S Park
- Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.,Purdue Center for Plant Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
| | - Patrick R Roehrdanz
- The Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, USA
| | - Brian Maitner
- Eversource Energy Center and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
| | - Erica A Newman
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,Arizona Institutes for Resilience, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Brad L Boyle
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,Hardner & Gullison Associates, Amherst, NH, USA
| | - Aaron Lien
- Arizona Institutes for Resilience, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Joseph R Burger
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,Arizona Institutes for Resilience, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
| | - Mathias M Pires
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil
| | - Paulo M Brando
- Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.,Woodwell Climate Research Center, Falmouth, MA, USA.,Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), Brasilia, Brazil
| | - Mark B Bush
- Insitute for Global Ecology, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA
| | - Crystal N H McMichael
- Department of Ecosystem and Landscape Dynamics, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Danilo M Neves
- Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
| | - Efthymios I Nikolopoulos
- Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA
| | - Scott R Saleska
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Lee Hannah
- The Moore Center for Science, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, USA
| | - David D Breshears
- School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Tom P Evans
- School of Geography, Development and Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - José R Soto
- School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Kacey C Ernst
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
| | - Brian J Enquist
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.,The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, USA
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25
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Chaves AAM, Martins CF, Carvalho DFP, Ribeiro DM, Lordelo M, Freire JPB, de Almeida AM. A viewpoint on the use of microalgae as an alternative feedstuff in the context of pig and poultry feeding-a special emphasis on tropical regions. Trop Anim Health Prod 2021; 53:396. [PMID: 34247303 DOI: 10.1007/s11250-021-02800-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2021] [Accepted: 05/30/2021] [Indexed: 01/17/2023]
Abstract
With the current increase in meat and animal products consumption, there is a need to make production systems more sustainable. The use of microalgae in monogastric feeds, replacing widely used conventional feedstuffs such corn and soybean, can be a solution to overcome this problem. Several studies have shown promising results in the use of microalgae in feeding of both pigs and poultry. However, there are several important constraints associated to the production of microalgae. Such constraints are particularly limiting in the context of tropical regions. Research and scientific development on microalgae production systems are thus essential so that may be widely used in monogastric feeding. Herein, we conduct an overview of the major findings in the use of microalgae in the context of monogastric feeding and analyse the major constraints associated to its production and use, particularly in the specific context of tropical regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreia A M Chaves
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Cátia F Martins
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Daniela F P Carvalho
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - David M Ribeiro
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Madalena Lordelo
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - João P B Freire
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - André M de Almeida
- LEAF - LEAF, Instituto Superior de Agronomia Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal.
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26
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Song XP, Hansen MC, Potapov P, Adusei B, Pickering J, Adami M, Lima A, Zalles V, Stehman SV, Di Bella CM, Conde MC, Copati EJ, Fernandes LB, Hernandez-Serna A, Jantz SM, Pickens AH, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A. Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. NATURE SUSTAINABILITY 2021; 2021:10.1038/s41893-021-00729-z. [PMID: 34377840 PMCID: PMC8350977 DOI: 10.1038/s41893-021-00729-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2020] [Accepted: 04/23/2021] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
A prominent goal of policies mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss is to achieve zero-deforestation in the global supply chain of key commodities, such as palm oil and soybean. However, the extent and dynamics of deforestation driven by commodity expansion are largely unknown. Here we mapped annual soybean expansion in South America between 2000 and 2019 by combining satellite observations and sample field data. From 2000-2019, the area cultivated with soybean more than doubled from 26.4 Mha to 55.1 Mha. Most soybean expansion occurred on pastures originally converted from natural vegetation for cattle production. The most rapid expansion occurred in the Brazilian Amazon, where soybean area increased more than 10-fold, from 0.4 Mha to 4.6 Mha. Across the continent, 9% of forest loss was converted to soybean by 2016. Soy-driven deforestation was concentrated at the active frontiers, nearly half located in the Brazilian Cerrado. Efforts to limit future deforestation must consider how soybean expansion may drive deforestation indirectly by displacing pasture or other land uses. Holistic approaches that track land use across all commodities coupled with vegetation monitoring are required to maintain critical ecosystem services.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiao-Peng Song
- Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Matthew C. Hansen
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Peter Potapov
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Bernard Adusei
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Jeffrey Pickering
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Marcos Adami
- Amazon Spatial Coordination, INPE, Belém, PA, Brazil
| | - Andre Lima
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Viviana Zalles
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Stephen V. Stehman
- College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY, USA
| | - Carlos M. Di Bella
- SIG, Cartografía y Teledetección, Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Maria C. Conde
- SIG, Cartografía y Teledetección, Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | | | - Lucas B. Fernandes
- Gerencia de Geotecnologias, Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento, Brasilia, Brazil
| | | | - Samuel M. Jantz
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Amy H. Pickens
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Svetlana Turubanova
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Alexandra Tyukavina
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
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27
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van Wees D, van der Werf GR, Randerson JT, Andela N, Chen Y, Morton DC. The role of fire in global forest loss dynamics. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2021; 27:2377-2391. [PMID: 33694227 PMCID: PMC8251961 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15591] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2020] [Revised: 02/21/2021] [Accepted: 02/23/2021] [Indexed: 05/13/2023]
Abstract
Fires, among other forms of natural and anthropogenic disturbance, play a central role in regulating the location, composition and biomass of forests. Understanding the role of fire in global forest loss is crucial in constraining land-use change emissions and the global carbon cycle. We analysed the relationship between forest loss and fire at 500 m resolution based on satellite-derived data for the 2003-2018 period. Satellite fire data included burned area and active fire detections, to best account for large and small fires, respectively. We found that, on average, 38 ± 9% (± range) of global forest loss was associated with fire, and this fraction remained relatively stable throughout the study period. However, the fraction of fire-related forest loss varied substantially on a regional basis, and showed statistically significant trends in key tropical forest areas. Decreases in the fraction of fire-related forest loss were found where deforestation peaked early in our study period, including the Amazon and Indonesia while increases were found for tropical forests in Africa. The inclusion of active fire detections accounted for 41%, on average, of the total fire-related forest loss, with larger contributions in small clearings in interior tropical forests and human-dominated landscapes. Comparison to higher-resolution fire data with resolutions of 375 and 20 m indicated that commission errors due to coarse resolution fire data largely balanced out omission errors due to missed small fire detections for regional to continental-scale estimates of fire-related forest loss. Besides an improved understanding of forest dynamics, these findings may help to refine and separate fire-related and non-fire-related land-use change emissions in forested ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dave van Wees
- Department of Earth SciencesVrije Universiteit AmsterdamAmsterdamThe Netherlands
| | | | | | - Niels Andela
- School of Earth and Environmental SciencesCardiff UniversityCardiffUK
| | - Yang Chen
- Department of Earth System ScienceUniversity of CaliforniaIrvineCAUSA
| | - Douglas C. Morton
- Biospheric Sciences LaboratoryNASA Goddard Space Flight CenterGreenbeltMDUSA
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28
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Animal Harms and Food Production: Informing Ethical Choices. Animals (Basel) 2021; 11:ani11051225. [PMID: 33922738 PMCID: PMC8146968 DOI: 10.3390/ani11051225] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2021] [Revised: 04/17/2021] [Accepted: 04/20/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Simple Summary Consideration of animal welfare in food choices has become an influential contemporary theme. Traditional animal welfare views about food have been largely restricted to direct and intentional harms to livestock in intensive animal agriculture settings. However, many harms to animals arising from diverse food production practices in the world are exerted indirectly and unintentionally and often affect wildlife. Here we apply a qualitative analysis of food production by considering the breadth of harms caused by different food production systems to wild as well as domestic animals. Production systems are identified that produce relatively few and relatively many harms. The ethical implications of these findings are discussed for consumers concerned with the broad animal welfare impacts of their food choices. Abstract Ethical food choices have become an important societal theme in post-industrial countries. Many consumers are particularly interested in the animal welfare implications of the various foods they may choose to consume. However, concepts in animal welfare are rapidly evolving towards consideration of all animals (including wildlife) in contemporary approaches such as “One Welfare”. This approach requires recognition that negative impacts (harms) may be intentional and obvious (e.g., slaughter of livestock) but also include the under-appreciated indirect or unintentional harms that often impact wildlife (e.g., land clearing). This is especially true in the Anthropocene, where impacts on non-human life are almost ubiquitous across all human activities. We applied the “harms” model of animal welfare assessment to several common food production systems and provide a framework for assessing the breadth (not intensity) of harms imposed. We considered all harms caused to wild as well as domestic animals, both direct effects and indirect effects. We described 21 forms of harm and considered how they applied to 16 forms of food production. Our analysis suggests that all food production systems harm animals to some degree and that the majority of these harms affect wildlife, not livestock. We conclude that the food production systems likely to impose the greatest overall breadth of harms to animals are intensive animal agriculture industries (e.g., dairy) that rely on a secondary food production system (e.g., cropping), while harvesting of locally available wild plants, mushrooms or seaweed is likely to impose the least harms. We present this conceptual analysis as a resource for those who want to begin considering the complex animal welfare trade-offs involved in their food choices.
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29
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Abstract
Beyond reducing deforestation, the control of forest degradation, the promotion of forest restoration, and the improvement of agricultural practices in the Brazilian Amazon are becoming increasingly important for sustainable development. To enable farmers and authorities to organize their landscapes and optimize both agricultural practices and the provision of ecosystem services, mapping land suitability is essential, but it is lacking in the region. In this paper, we present a method for mapping land suitability at a fine scale (30-m pixels), adapted to the needs of farmers and municipalities, to not only optimize agricultural production but also the ecosystem services provided by forests. We used topographic data from the Brazilian municipality of Paragominas to produce four maps, one each of soil texture, slope, floodplains, and hydrography, that we then combined into a single land suitability map. This map has been incorporated into a spatial database, which also contains information on land use, remoteness, and land tenure. We performed spatial analyses to measure the process of land use change, and to define indicators that enable local stakeholders to organize landscape restoration. We highlight an organic link between agricultural intensification and forest restoration, and provide a spatial tool for landscape design, assessment, and monitoring.
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30
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Zalles V, Hansen MC, Potapov PV, Parker D, Stehman SV, Pickens AH, Parente LL, Ferreira LG, Song XP, Hernandez-Serna A, Kommareddy I. Rapid expansion of human impact on natural land in South America since 1985. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2021; 7:eabg1620. [PMID: 33811082 PMCID: PMC11057777 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg1620] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/14/2020] [Accepted: 02/16/2021] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
Across South America, the expansion of commodity land uses has underpinned substantial economic development at the expense of natural land cover and associated ecosystem services. Here, we show that such human impact on the continent's land surface, specifically land use conversion and natural land cover modification, expanded by 268 million hectares (Mha), or 60%, from 1985 to 2018. By 2018, 713 Mha, or 40%, of the South American landmass was impacted by human activity. Since 1985, the area of natural tree cover decreased by 16%, and pasture, cropland, and plantation land uses increased by 23, 160, and 288%, respectively. A substantial area of disturbed natural land cover, totaling 55 Mha, had no discernable land use, representing land that is degraded in terms of ecosystem function but not economically productive. These results illustrate the extent of ongoing human appropriation of natural ecosystems in South America, which intensifies threats to ecosystem-scale functions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Viviana Zalles
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
| | - Matthew C Hansen
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Peter V Potapov
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Diana Parker
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Stephen V Stehman
- College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY, USA
| | - Amy H Pickens
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Leandro Leal Parente
- Image Processing and GIS Lab (LAPIG), Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, Brazil
| | - Laerte G Ferreira
- Image Processing and GIS Lab (LAPIG), Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, Brazil
| | - Xiao-Peng Song
- Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
| | | | - Indrani Kommareddy
- Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
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31
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Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests. Nat Ecol Evol 2021; 5:845-853. [PMID: 33782576 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01417-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2019] [Accepted: 02/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity, is accelerated by global demand for commodities. Although prior literature has linked deforestation to global supply chains, here we provide a fine-scale representation of spatial patterns of deforestation associated with international trade. Using remote sensing data and a multi-region input-output model, we quantify and map the spatiotemporal changes in global deforestation footprints over 15 years (2001-2015) at a 30-m resolution. We find that, while many developed countries, China and India have obtained net forest gains domestically, they have also increased the deforestation embodied in their imports, of which tropical forests are the most threatened biome. Consumption patterns of G7 countries drive an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year. Some of the hotspots of deforestation embodied in international trade are also biodiversity hotspots, such as in Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Liberia, Central America and the Amazonian rainforest. Our results emphasize the need to reform zero-deforestation policies through strong transnational efforts and by improving supply chain transparency, public-private engagement and financial support for the tropics.
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Silva FDS, Carvalheiro LG, Aguirre-Gutiérrez J, Lucotte M, Guidoni-Martins K, Mertens F. Virtual pollination trade uncovers global dependence on biodiversity of developing countries. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2021; 7:eabe6636. [PMID: 33692110 PMCID: PMC7946370 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe6636] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2020] [Accepted: 01/25/2021] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Nations' food consumption patterns are increasingly globalized and trade dependent. Natural resources used for agriculture (e.g., water, pollinators) are hence being virtually exchanged across countries. Inspired by the virtual water concept, we, herein, propose the concept of virtual biotic pollination flow as an indicator of countries' mutual dependence on biodiversity-based ecosystem services and provide an online tool to visualize trade flow. Using information on 55 pollinator-dependent crop markets (2001-2015), we show that countries with higher development level demand high levels of biodiversity-based services to sustain their consumption patterns. Such patterns are supported by importation of virtual biotic pollination (up to 40% of national imports of pollinator-dependent crops) from developing countries, stimulating cropland expansion. Quantifying virtual pollination flow can help develop new global socioeconomic policies to meet the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, ecosystem health, and social justice.
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Affiliation(s)
- F D S Silva
- Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Mato Grosso (IFMT)-Campus Barra do Garças, Barra do Garças-MT, 78600-000, Brazil.
| | - L G Carvalheiro
- Department of Ecology, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia-GO, 74690-900, Brazil.
- Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Change (CE3C), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - J Aguirre-Gutiérrez
- Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Biodiversity Dynamics, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - M Lucotte
- GEOTOP and Institute of Environmental Sciences, Université du Quebec à Montreal, Montreal, Canada
| | - K Guidoni-Martins
- Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia-GO, 74690-900, Brazil
| | - F Mertens
- Center of Sustainable Development, University of Brasília (UnB-Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, Brasília-DF, 70910-900, Brazil
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Large-scale commodity agriculture exacerbates the climatic impacts of Amazonian deforestation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2021; 118:2023787118. [PMID: 33558246 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2023787118] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In the Amazon rainforest, land use following deforestation is diverse and dynamic. Mounting evidence indicates that the climatic impacts of forest loss can also vary considerably, depending on specific features of the affected areas. The size of the deforested patches, for instance, was shown to modulate the characteristics of local climatic impacts. Nonetheless, the influence of different types of land use and management strategies on the magnitude of local climatic changes remains uncertain. Here, we evaluated the impacts of large-scale commodity farming and rural settlements on surface temperature, rainfall patterns, and energy fluxes. Our results reveal that changes in land-atmosphere coupling are induced not only by deforestation size but also, by land use type and management patterns inside the deforested areas. We provide evidence that, in comparison with rural settlements, deforestation caused by large-scale commodity agriculture is more likely to reduce convective rainfall and increase land surface temperature. We demonstrate that these differences are mainly caused by a more intensive management of the land, resulting in significantly lower vegetation cover throughout the year, which reduces latent heat flux. Our findings indicate an urgent need for alternative agricultural practices, as well as forest restoration, for maintaining ecosystem processes and mitigating change in the local climates across the Amazon basin.
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Heilmayr R, Rausch LL, Munger J, Gibbs HK. Brazil's Amazon Soy Moratorium reduced deforestation. NATURE FOOD 2020; 1:801-810. [PMID: 37128066 DOI: 10.1038/s43016-020-00194-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2020] [Accepted: 10/29/2020] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
Between 2004 and 2012, multiple policies contributed to one of the great conservation successes of the twenty-first century-an 84% decrease in the rate of Brazilian Amazon deforestation. Among the most prominent of these policies is the Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM), an agreement by grain traders not to purchase soy grown on recently deforested land. The ASM inspired widespread adoption of similar zero-deforestation commitments, but its impact is poorly understood due to its overlap with other conservation policies. Here, we apply an econometric triple-differences model to remotely sensed deforestation data to isolate the ASM's impact within Brazil's Arc of Deforestation. We show that the ASM reduced deforestation in soy-suitable locations in the Amazon by 0.66 ± 0.32 percentage points relative to a counterfactual control, preventing 18,000 ± 9,000 km2 of deforestation over its first decade (2006-2016). Although these results highlight potential benefits of private conservation policies, the ASM's success was dependent on complementarities with public property registries and deforestation monitoring.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert Heilmayr
- Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
- Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
| | - Lisa L Rausch
- Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Jacob Munger
- Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Holly K Gibbs
- Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
- Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
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Meijaard E, Brooks TM, Carlson KM, Slade EM, Garcia-Ulloa J, Gaveau DLA, Lee JSH, Santika T, Juffe-Bignoli D, Struebig MJ, Wich SA, Ancrenaz M, Koh LP, Zamira N, Abrams JF, Prins HHT, Sendashonga CN, Murdiyarso D, Furumo PR, Macfarlane N, Hoffmann R, Persio M, Descals A, Szantoi Z, Sheil D. The environmental impacts of palm oil in context. NATURE PLANTS 2020; 6:1418-1426. [PMID: 33299148 DOI: 10.1038/s41477-020-00813-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2020] [Accepted: 10/29/2020] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing demands on land between agriculture (SDG 2) and biodiversity (SDG 15). The production of vegetable oils and, in particular, palm oil, illustrates these competing demands and trade-offs. Palm oil accounts for ~40% of the current global annual demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel (210 Mt), but planted oil palm covers less than 5-5.5% of the total global oil crop area (approximately 425 Mha) due to oil palm's relatively high yields. Recent oil palm expansion in forested regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, where >90% of global palm oil is produced, has led to substantial concern around oil palm's role in deforestation. Oil palm expansion's direct contribution to regional tropical deforestation varies widely, ranging from an estimated 3% in West Africa to 50% in Malaysian Borneo. Oil palm is also implicated in peatland draining and burning in Southeast Asia. Documented negative environmental impacts from such expansion include biodiversity declines, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. However, oil palm generally produces more oil per area than other oil crops, is often economically viable in sites unsuitable for most other crops and generates considerable wealth for at least some actors. Global demand for vegetable oils is projected to increase by 46% by 2050. Meeting this demand through additional expansion of oil palm versus other vegetable oil crops will lead to substantial differential effects on biodiversity, food security, climate change, land degradation and livelihoods. Our Review highlights that although substantial gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts of oil palm, and the scope, stringency and effectiveness of initiatives to address these, there has been little research into the impacts and trade-offs of other vegetable oil crops. Greater research attention needs to be given to investigating the impacts of palm oil production compared to alternatives for the trade-offs to be assessed at a global scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erik Meijaard
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
| | - Thomas M Brooks
- Science and Knowledge Unit, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland
- World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), University of The Philippines Los Baños, Laguna, The Philippines
- Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
| | - Kimberly M Carlson
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawai'i Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
- Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Eleanor M Slade
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - John Garcia-Ulloa
- Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Janice Ser Huay Lee
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Truly Santika
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
| | - Diego Juffe-Bignoli
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
- UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), Cambridge, UK
| | - Matthew J Struebig
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
| | - Serge A Wich
- School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
- Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Marc Ancrenaz
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
- Kinabatangan Orang-Utan Conservation Programme, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
| | - Lian Pin Koh
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | | | - Jesse F Abrams
- Department of Ecological Dynamics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany
- Global Systems Institute and Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Herbert H T Prins
- Animal Sciences Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
| | | | - Daniel Murdiyarso
- Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia
- Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - Paul R Furumo
- Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | | | - Rachel Hoffmann
- Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Marcos Persio
- Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil
| | - Adrià Descals
- Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Zoltan Szantoi
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
- Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
| | - Douglas Sheil
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway
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Meijaard E, Brooks TM, Carlson KM, Slade EM, Garcia-Ulloa J, Gaveau DLA, Lee JSH, Santika T, Juffe-Bignoli D, Struebig MJ, Wich SA, Ancrenaz M, Koh LP, Zamira N, Abrams JF, Prins HHT, Sendashonga CN, Murdiyarso D, Furumo PR, Macfarlane N, Hoffmann R, Persio M, Descals A, Szantoi Z, Sheil D. The environmental impacts of palm oil in context. NATURE PLANTS 2020. [PMID: 33299148 DOI: 10.31223/osf.io/e69bz] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/12/2023]
Abstract
Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing demands on land between agriculture (SDG 2) and biodiversity (SDG 15). The production of vegetable oils and, in particular, palm oil, illustrates these competing demands and trade-offs. Palm oil accounts for ~40% of the current global annual demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel (210 Mt), but planted oil palm covers less than 5-5.5% of the total global oil crop area (approximately 425 Mha) due to oil palm's relatively high yields. Recent oil palm expansion in forested regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, where >90% of global palm oil is produced, has led to substantial concern around oil palm's role in deforestation. Oil palm expansion's direct contribution to regional tropical deforestation varies widely, ranging from an estimated 3% in West Africa to 50% in Malaysian Borneo. Oil palm is also implicated in peatland draining and burning in Southeast Asia. Documented negative environmental impacts from such expansion include biodiversity declines, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. However, oil palm generally produces more oil per area than other oil crops, is often economically viable in sites unsuitable for most other crops and generates considerable wealth for at least some actors. Global demand for vegetable oils is projected to increase by 46% by 2050. Meeting this demand through additional expansion of oil palm versus other vegetable oil crops will lead to substantial differential effects on biodiversity, food security, climate change, land degradation and livelihoods. Our Review highlights that although substantial gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts of oil palm, and the scope, stringency and effectiveness of initiatives to address these, there has been little research into the impacts and trade-offs of other vegetable oil crops. Greater research attention needs to be given to investigating the impacts of palm oil production compared to alternatives for the trade-offs to be assessed at a global scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erik Meijaard
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
| | - Thomas M Brooks
- Science and Knowledge Unit, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland
- World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), University of The Philippines Los Baños, Laguna, The Philippines
- Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
| | - Kimberly M Carlson
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, University of Hawai'i Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
- Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Eleanor M Slade
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - John Garcia-Ulloa
- Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | | | - Janice Ser Huay Lee
- Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Truly Santika
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
| | - Diego Juffe-Bignoli
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
- UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), Cambridge, UK
| | - Matthew J Struebig
- Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
| | - Serge A Wich
- School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
- Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Marc Ancrenaz
- Borneo Futures, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
- Kinabatangan Orang-Utan Conservation Programme, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
| | - Lian Pin Koh
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | | | - Jesse F Abrams
- Department of Ecological Dynamics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany
- Global Systems Institute and Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Herbert H T Prins
- Animal Sciences Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
| | | | - Daniel Murdiyarso
- Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia
- Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia
| | - Paul R Furumo
- Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | | | - Rachel Hoffmann
- Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Marcos Persio
- Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Belém, Brazil
| | - Adrià Descals
- Centre de Recerca Ecològica i Aplicacions Forestals, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Zoltan Szantoi
- European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
- Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
| | - Douglas Sheil
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway
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Luo D, Silva DP, De Marco Júnior P, Pimenta M, Caldas MM. Model approaches to estimate spatial distribution of bee species richness and soybean production in the Brazilian Cerrado during 2000 to 2015. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2020; 737:139674. [PMID: 32516661 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2020] [Revised: 05/18/2020] [Accepted: 05/22/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Agricultural expansion as a main human activity has affected pollinator's habitat, causing spatial distribution changes. Meanwhile, pollinators still provide pollination service to improve crop production. However, their spatial response is unclear because of environmental changes. This study sought to estimate spatial distribution of crop production and pollinator's richness, which can provide insights as to how they interact with the environment. We acquired environmental variables from remote sensing images and used a stacked species distribution model to predict selected bee species richness and a crop simulation model to simulate and calculate soybean production at a regional scale in the Cerrado for the period 2000-2015. Then, we analyzed their potential relationship. The results showed that higher selected bee species richness and higher soybean production occurred in the southern Cerrado. From 2000/08 to 2008/15 period, the selected bee species richness significantly decreased in the western part of the state of Bahia, the state of Goiás, and the northern region of the state of Minas Gerais; while soybean production increased in the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás, Bahia, and Tocantins. Correlation results of selected bee species richness and soybean production showed that they do not follow a linear relationship during the study period. Our findings indicate that the modeling method we proposed is robust to estimate spatial distribution of bee species richness and soybean production in the Cerrado at the regional scale and that the environment has a stronger influence on selected bee species richness than on soybean production. Moreover, climate effects and agricultural expansion are the main factors that affect their spatial distribution and interaction. Finally, our methodology provides a novel spatial perspective to analyze the relationship between pollinator and agricultural expansion corresponding with the environment, but future work is needed to collect a more comprehensive data set to improve model results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dong Luo
- Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66502, USA.
| | - Daniel P Silva
- COBIMA Lab, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Instituto Federal Goiano, Rodovia Geraldo Silva Nascimento, km 2.5, Zona Rural, P.O. Box 75790-000, Urutaí, Goiás, Brazil
| | - Paulo De Marco Júnior
- Departamento de Ecologia, ICB, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, GO 74690-000, Brazil
| | - Mayra Pimenta
- Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade, 70.670-350, Brazil
| | - Marcellus M Caldas
- Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66502, USA
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38
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Persistent fire foci in all biomes undermine the Paris Agreement in Brazil. Sci Rep 2020; 10:16246. [PMID: 33004818 PMCID: PMC7529887 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72571-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2020] [Accepted: 08/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Brazil is one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Fire foci across the country contributes to these emissions and compromises emission reduction targets pledged by Brazil under the Paris Agreement. In this paper, we quantify fire foci, burned areas, and carbon emissions in all Brazilian biomes (i.e., Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, Pantanal and Pampa). We analyzed these variables using cluster analysis and non-parametric statistics to predict carbon and CO2 emissions for the next decade. Our results showed no increase in the number of fire foci and carbon emissions for the evaluated time series, whereby the highest emissions occur and will persist in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. The Atlantic Forest, Pantanal, Caatinga and Pampa biomes had low emissions compared to the Amazon and Cerrado. Based on 2030 projections, the sum of emissions from fire foci in the six Brazilian biomes will exceed 5.7 Gt CO2, compromising the national GHG reduction targets. To reduce GHG emissions, Brazil will need to control deforestation induced by the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. This can only be achieved through significant political effort involving the government, entrepreneurs and society as a collective.
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39
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Assessing Land Use and Land Cover Changes in the Direct Influence Zone of the Braço Norte Hydropower Complex, Brazilian Amazonia. FORESTS 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/f11090988] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Over the decades, hydropower complexes have been built in several hydrographic basins of Brazil including the Amazon region. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of these constructions on the environment and local communities. This work presents a land use and land cover change temporal analysis considering a 33-year period (1985–2018) in the direct influence zone of the Braço Norte Hydropower Complex, Brazilian Amazonia, using the Collection 4.1 level 3 of the freely available MapBiomas dataset. Additionally, we have assessed the Brazilian Amazon large-scale deforestation process acting as a land use and land cover change driver in the study area. Our findings show that the most impacted land cover was forest formation (from 414 km2 to 287 km2, a reduction of 69%), which primarily shifted into pasturelands (increase of 664%, from 40 km2 to 299 km2). The construction of the hydropower complex also triggered indirect impacts such as the presence of urban areas in 2018 and the consequent increased local demand for crops. Together with the ongoing large-scale Amazonian deforestation process, the construction of the complex has intensified changes in the study area as 56.42% of the pixels were changed between 1985 and 2018. This indicates the importance of accurate economic and environmental impact studies for assessing social and environmental consequences of future construction in this unique region. Our results reveal the need for adopting special policies to minimize the impact of these constructions, for example, the creation of Protected Areas and the definition of locally-adjusted parameters for the ecological-economic zoning considering environmental and social circumstances derived from the local actors that depend on the natural environment to subsist such as indigenous peoples, riverine population, and artisanal fishermen.
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40
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Lima M, Silva Junior CAD, Pelissari TD, Lourençoni T, Luz IMS, Lopes FJA. Sugarcane: Brazilian public policies threaten the Amazon and Pantanal biomes. Perspect Ecol Conserv 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.pecon.2020.06.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
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41
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Rare Bearded Capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus) Tool-Use Culture is Threatened by Land use Changes in Northeastern Brazil. INT J PRIMATOL 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10764-020-00166-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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42
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Reis TND, Meyfroidt P, zu Ermgassen EK, West C, Gardner T, Bager S, Croft S, Lathuillière MJ, Godar J. Understanding the Stickiness of Commodity Supply Chains Is Key to Improving Their Sustainability. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2020.06.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
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43
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Durán AP, Green JMH, West CD, Visconti P, Burgess ND, Virah‐Sawmy M, Balmford A. A practical approach to measuring the biodiversity impacts of land conversion. Methods Ecol Evol 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.13427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- América P. Durán
- Conservation Science Group Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK
- UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre Cambridge UK
- Luc Hoffmann Institute c/o WWF International Gland Switzerland
- Facultad de Ciencias Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y EvolutivasUniversidad Austral de Chile Valdivia Chile
| | - Jonathan M. H. Green
- Luc Hoffmann Institute c/o WWF International Gland Switzerland
- Department of Environment and Geography Stockholm Environment Institute YorkUniversity of York York UK
| | - Christopher D. West
- Department of Environment and Geography Stockholm Environment Institute YorkUniversity of York York UK
| | - Piero Visconti
- Ecosystem Services and Management Program International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Laxenburg Austria
| | - Neil D. Burgess
- Conservation Science Group Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK
- UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre Cambridge UK
- Center for Macroecology, Climate and Evolution The Natural History Museum of Denmark Copenhagen Denmark
| | | | - Andrew Balmford
- Conservation Science Group Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK
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44
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Climate Change and Public Policies in the Brazilian Amazon State of Mato Grosso: Perceptions and Challenges. SUSTAINABILITY 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/su12125093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
This study examines how key stakeholders in agriculture in a number of municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon state of Mato Grosso are incorporating and adapting to public policies on climate change. Fieldwork and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2014 and 2018 with key stakeholders in the region were analyzed to assess the effectiveness of public policies incorporating climate change factors. Data obtained from documents from national institutions complemented these interviews. The results show that although local government claims that its mission is economic, social and sustainable development, and although public institutions and stakeholders repeat internationally recognized protocols and agreements in their communications, in actual fact, these are not reflected by any change in institutional behavior.
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45
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Comparison of Cloud Cover Detection Algorithms on Sentinel–2 Images of the Amazon Tropical Forest. REMOTE SENSING 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/rs12081284] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Tropical forests regulate the global water and carbon cycles and also host most of the world’s biodiversity. Despite their importance, they are hard to survey due to their location, extent, and particularly, their cloud coverage. Clouds hinder the spatial and radiometric correction of satellite imagery and also diminishing the useful area on each image, making it difficult to monitor land change. For this reason, our purpose is to identify the cloud detection algorithm best suited for the Amazon rainforest on Sentinel–2 images. To achieve this, we tested four cloud detection algorithms on Sentinel–2 images spread in five areas of the Amazonia. Using more than eight thousand validation points, we compared four cloud detection methods: Fmask 4, MAJA, Sen2Cor, and s2cloudless. Our results point out that FMask 4 has the best overall accuracy on images of the Amazon region (90%), followed by Sen2Cor’s (79%), MAJA (69%), and S2cloudless (52%). We note the choice of method depends on the intended use. Since MAJA reduces the number of false positives by design, users that aim to improve the producer’s accuracy should consider its use.
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Increasing fragmentation of forest cover in Brazil's Legal Amazon from 2001 to 2017. Sci Rep 2020; 10:5803. [PMID: 32242044 PMCID: PMC7118152 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-62591-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2019] [Accepted: 03/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Persistent forest loss in the Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) is responsible for carbon emission, reduction of ecosystem services, and loss of biodiversity. Combining spatial data analysis with high spatial resolution data for forest cover and forest loss, we quantified the spatial and temporal patterns of forest dynamics in the BLA. We identified an alarming trend of increasing deforestation, with especially high rates in 2016 and 2017. Moreover, the creation of forest cover fragments is faster than ever due to decreasing size and dispersion of forest loss patches. From 2001 to 2017, the number of large forest loss patches decreased significantly, accompanied by a reduction in the size of these patches. Enforcement of field inspections and of initiatives to promote forest conservation will be required to stop this trend.
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Chaves LSM, Fry J, Malik A, Geschke A, Sallum MAM, Lenzen M. Global consumption and international trade in deforestation-associated commodities could influence malaria risk. Nat Commun 2020; 11:1258. [PMID: 32152272 PMCID: PMC7062889 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14954-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2019] [Accepted: 02/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Deforestation can increase the transmission of malaria. Here, we build upon the existing link between malaria risk and deforestation by investigating how the global demand for commodities that increase deforestation can also increase malaria risk. We use a database of trade relationships to link the consumption of deforestation-implicated commodities in developed countries to estimates of country-level malaria risk in developing countries. We estimate that about 20% of the malaria risk in deforestation hotspots is driven by the international trade of deforestation-implicated export commodities, such as timber, wood products, tobacco, cocoa, coffee and cotton. By linking malaria risk to final consumers of commodities, we contribute information to support demand-side policy measures to complement existing malaria control interventions, with co-benefits for reducing deforestation and forest disturbance. Because many primary commodities cause deforestation and deforestation can increase malaria transmission, international trade can thus indirectly influence malaria risk. Here the authors use trade databases for commodites associated with deforestation to demonstrate that consumption of such commodities in developed nations could increase malaria risk in developing nations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonardo Suveges Moreira Chaves
- Departamento de Epidemiologia, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. .,ISA, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
| | - Jacob Fry
- ISA, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
| | - Arunima Malik
- ISA, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.,Discipline of Accounting, The University of Sydney Business School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
| | - Arne Geschke
- ISA, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
| | - Maria Anice Mureb Sallum
- Departamento de Epidemiologia, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Manfred Lenzen
- ISA, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
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López-Poma R, Pivello VR, de Brito GS, Bautista S. Impact of the conversion of Brazilian woodland savanna (cerradão) to pasture and Eucalyptus plantations on soil nitrogen mineralization. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2020; 704:135397. [PMID: 31810678 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.135397] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2019] [Revised: 11/04/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The Brazilian savanna (Cerrado) has been extensively converted to croplands, pastures and forestry plantations, and the deforestation frontier continues expanding. Land conversion may cause critical changes in soil functioning, yet very little is still known about the impact of Cerrado conversion on nutrient cycling and soil fertility. Here, we addressed this knowledge gap by investigating the effects of the woodland cerrado (cerradão) conversion into pastures and Eucalyptus plantations on nitrogen availability and mineralization potential, considering a wide range of spatial and temporal variability due to soil depth, site conditions, and seasonal variation. For three sites in São Paulo state and each of the target land cover types, we assessed the total N and inorganic N (NH4-N and NO3-N) pools, potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN) and soil urease activity in the first 2 m of the soil profile. Cerrado conversion to either pastures or Eucalyptus plantations significantly reduced NH4-N, while NO3-N showed similar values in Cerrado and Eucalyptus and lower values in pastures. We found a consistent pattern of lower N mineralization in the uppermost soil layers associated to Cerrado conversion, with decreases in PMN rate and urease activity. The soil below 30 cm depth showed no relevant changes. Considering the first 30 cm of the soil profile, the reduction in the stocks of inorganic N (NH4-N + NO3-N) ranged from ~14% for the conversion to Eucalyptus to ∽20% for the conversion to pasture. The impact of land conversion on N cycling surpassed the influence of the spatial (between-site) and seasonal variation. Overall, the results indicate a decline in available N and overall soil fertility due to Cerrado conversion, which could further increase N limitation in the Cerrado region, increase fertilization needs for future exploitation, and compromise the recovery of Cerrado in case of land abandonment or restoration.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Vânia R Pivello
- Departament of Ecology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
| | - Gisele S de Brito
- Departament of Ecology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Susana Bautista
- Department of Ecology and IMEM, University of Alicante, Spain.
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Abstract
Land-use change (LUC) is a complex process that is difficult to project. Model collaboration, an aggregate term for model harmonization, comparison and/or coupling, intends to combine the strengths of different models to improve LUC projections. Several model collaborations have been performed, but to the authors’ knowledge, the effect of coupling has not been evaluated quantitatively. Therefore, for a case study of Brazil, we harmonized and coupled the partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM-Brazil and the demand-driven spatially explicit model PLUC, and then compared the coupled-model projections with those by GLOBIOM-Brazil individually. The largest differences between projections occurred in Mato Grosso and Pará, frontiers of agricultural expansion. In addition, we validated both projections for Mato Grosso using land-use maps from remote sensing images. The coupled model clearly outperformed GLOBIOM-Brazil. Reductions in the root mean squared error (RMSE) for LUC dynamics ranged from 31% to 80% and for total land use, from 10% to 57%. Only for pasture, the coupled model performed worse in total land use (RMSE 9% higher). Reasons for a better performance of the coupled model were considered to be, inter alia, the initial map, more spatially explicit information about drivers, and the path-dependence effect in the allocation through the cellular-automata approach of PLUC.
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The environmental consequences of climate-driven agricultural frontiers. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0228305. [PMID: 32049959 PMCID: PMC7015311 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228305] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2019] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Growing conditions for crops such as coffee and wine grapes are shifting to track climate change. Research on these crop responses has focused principally on impacts to food production impacts, but evidence is emerging that they may have serious environmental consequences as well. Recent research has documented potential environmental impacts of shifting cropping patterns, including impacts on water, wildlife, pollinator interaction, carbon storage and nature conservation, on national to global scales. Multiple crops will be moving in response to shifting climatic suitability, and the cumulative environmental effects of these multi-crop shifts at global scales is not known. Here we model for the first time multiple major global commodity crop suitability changes due to climate change, to estimate the impacts of new crop suitability on water, biodiversity and carbon storage. Areas that become newly suitable for one or more crops are Climate-driven Agricultural Frontiers. These frontiers cover an area equivalent to over 30% of the current agricultural land on the planet and have major potential impacts on biodiversity in tropical mountains, on water resources downstream and on carbon storage in high latitude lands. Frontier soils contain up to 177 Gt of C, which might be subject to release, which is the equivalent of over a century of current United States CO2 emissions. Watersheds serving over 1.8 billion people would be impacted by the cultivation of the climate-driven frontiers. Frontiers intersect 19 global biodiversity hotspots and the habitat of 20% of all global restricted range birds. Sound planning and management of climate-driven agricultural frontiers can therefore help reduce globally significant impacts on people, ecosystems and the climate system.
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