Cattle ranchers and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Production,location, and policies

Deforestation for cattle production persists in the Brazilian Amazon despite ongoing efforts by the public and private sectors to combat it. The complexity of the cattle supply chain, which we describe in depth here, creates challenges for the landmark Zero-Deforestation Cattle Agreements in particular and for enforcement of deforestation policies in general. Here, we present a holistic analysis that is increasingly relevant as the number of policies, initiatives, and markets affecting the region increases. We provide the first property-level analysis of which ranchers decided to deforest in the last decade and identify the characteristics that are most related to deforestation. We rely on newly available animal transit and property boundary data to examine 113,000 properties in the three major cattle-producing states in the Brazilian Amazon. We consider characteristics related to a property’s role in the supply chain, location, land characteristics, and the policy environment. We find that deforestation is most likely to occur on properties that sell fewer cattle and earlier in the supply chain, are located in remote locations, and have a high percent of remaining forest. Our results can be used to improve enforcement of existing policies by targeting resources to properties and location where deforestation is more likely.     

The road to deforestation: An assessment of forest loss and its causes in Basho Valley, Northern Pakistan

Deforestation in the Himalayas is generally seen as caused primarily by population growth. Based on interviews and the analysis of satellite images, we critically examine this view using Basho Valley in the Western Himalayas of Pakistan as a case study. Our findings indicate that the forest of Basho has been reduced by at least 50% after the valley was opened up through the construction of a link road in 1968. Large-scale legal and illegal commercial harvesting was carried out after the construction of the road. While legal commercial harvesting was stopped in 1987, illegal harvesting has since continued with the involvement of the Forest Department. The findings of this study do not support theories in which deforestation is attributed to rapid population growth. Instead, mismanagement and illegal commercial harvesting endorsed by the Forest Department have been the main causes of deforestation in Basho Valley.     

Numerical Simulation for the Impact of Deforestation on Climate in China and Its Neighboring Regions

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Centralization in the global avoided deforestation collaboration network

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation projects currently cover an area approximately twice the size of Germany and challenge traditional concepts of centralization and decentralization in studies of environmental governance. Emerging from the interactions of a complex network of actors, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation demonstrates that transnational governance networks of organizations can become spatially centralized. Using a historical analysis of the development of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, we argue that the evolution of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation policy has been directed primarily from donor countries, especially in North America and Europe. Adopting a social network analysis approach, we present findings from a new dataset of collaboration on 276 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, avoided deforestation, and sustainable forest management projects that began some on-the-ground operations between 1989 and June 2012, finding that organizations in donor countries have from the beginning been the central actors in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation network. We conclude that Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation exhibits spatial centralization within transnational governance architectures despite institutional fragmentation, raising important normative questions about participation in transnational forest governance.     

Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions

Deforestation, the second largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, is largely driven by expanding forestry and agriculture. However, despite agricultural expansion being increasingly driven by foreign demand, the links between deforestation and foreign demand for agricultural commodities have only been partially mapped. Here we present a pan-tropical quantification of carbon emissions from deforestation associated with the expansion of agriculture and forest plantations, and trace embodied emissions through global supply chains to consumers. We find that in the period 2010–2014, expansion of agriculture and tree plantations into forests across the tropics was associated with net emissions of approximately 2.6 gigatonnes carbon dioxide per year. Cattle and oilseed products account for over half of these emissions. Europe and China are major importers, and for many developed countries, deforestation emissions embodied in imports rival or exceed emissions from domestic agriculture. Depending on the trade model used, 29–39% of deforestation-related emissions were driven by international trade. This is substantially higher than the share of fossil carbon emissions embodied in trade, indicating that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land-use change need to consider the role of international demand in driving deforestation. Additionally, we find that deforestation emissions are similar to, or larger than, other emissions in the carbon footprint of key forest-risk commodities. Similarly, deforestation emissions constitute a substantial share (˜15%) of the total carbon footprint of food consumption in EU countries. This highlights the need for consumption-based accounts to include emissions from deforestation, and for the implementation of policy measures that cross these international supply-chains if deforestation emissions are to be effectively reduced.     

Keeping the forest for the climate's sake: avoiding deforestation in developing countries under the UNFCCC

Abstract

A process for reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries has been initiated under the UNFCCC. Efforts to agree on a legally binding instrument to halt deforestation have previously failed in other international fora. The magnitude of the social, economic, technical and political complexities underlying deforestation have led to negotiations being challenging. What policy instruments could provide incentives to reduce deforestation, and how could these instruments be framed, under the UNFCCC? This article analyses the advantages and disadvantages of the available alternatives within and outside of the Kyoto Protocol. Staying within the Kyoto framework means low institutional development costs, established but limited incentives for action, and low flexibility. Alternatives outside the Protocol provide higher institutional development costs, uncertainties with regard to the incentives, but greater flexibility. We argue that a separate protocol may be the most viable option, as it could offer the necessary flexibility and avoid some technical and political pitfalls that would be likely to beset new efforts under the Kyoto Protocol. The article also presents the concept of ‘committed forests’ as a means of defining geographically where the reduction of emissions from deforestation can take place.     

Beyond REDD+ readiness: land-use governance to reduce deforestation in Peru

Peru contains the fourth largest area of tropical forest in the world, yet faces a worsening net deforestation rate. In 2008, to address this threat, the national government announced its ambition to reduce deforestation to zero by 2021. Via literature review and key informant interviews, this study assess two years of REDD+ readiness preparations according to six readiness functions. A mixed pattern of outcomes emerge. Although significant advances were made by various local-level initiatives, national-level efforts continue to struggle. Three crucial challenges persist: (1) greater involvement and coordination of ministries and government agencies associated with REDD+ planning, (2) better understanding of deforestation agents and drivers, and (3) integration of REDD+ policies into national and regional plans, which includes clarification of safeguard procedures and design of incentive mechanisms. Integrated land use planning is presented as a platform to foster dialogue that helps to reconcile divergent stakeholder perspectives, coordinate changes to land use, and resolve overlapping land rights.

Policy relevance

This article presents the outcomes of a multi-dimensional assessment of the REDD+ readiness process in Peru. The six key functions in the analytical framework provide the opportunity to evaluate the process in an integrated and systematic manner and highlights the persistence of complex, transversal governance challenges across diverse economic sectors and government agencies. Research findings also reveal a need for policy change and continued investment to ensure success of the national process in Peru. Strong leadership is needed to generate consensus in cross-sectoral negotiations and to establish coordinated land governance and monitoring mechanisms.     

Rural property size drives patterns of upland and riparian forest retention in a tropical deforestation frontier

Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia accounts for a disproportionate global scale fraction of both carbon emissions from biomass burning and biodiversity erosion through habitat loss. Here we use field- and remote-sensing data to examine the effects of private landholding size on the amount and type of forest cover retained within economically active rural properties in an aging southern Amazonian deforestation frontier. Data on both upland and riparian forest cover from a survey of 300 rural properties indicated that 49.4% (SD = 29.0%) of the total forest cover was maintained as of 2007, and that property size is a key regional-scale determinant of patterns of deforestation and land-use change. Small properties (≤150 ha) retained a lower proportion of forest (20.7%, SD = 17.6) than did large properties (>150 ha; 55.6%, SD = 27.2). Generalized linear models showed that property size had a positive effect on remaining areas of both upland and total forest cover. Using a Landsat time-series, the age of first clear-cutting that could be mapped within the boundaries of each property had a negative effect on the proportion of upland, riparian, and total forest cover retained. Based on these data, we show contrasts in land-use strategies between smallholders and largeholders, as well as differences in compliance with legal requirements in relation to minimum forest cover set-asides within private landholdings. This suggests that property size structure must be explicitly considered in landscape-scale conservation planning initiatives guiding agro-pastoral frontier expansion into remaining areas of tropical forest.     

Community forest management in Mexico: carbon mitigation and biodiversity conservation through rural development

Forest management is an important carbon mitigation strategy for developing countries. As demonstrated by the case of Mexico, community forest management is especially effective because it offers tangible local benefits while conserving forests and sequestering carbon. Community forestry receives minimal government support now, but the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol could leverage additional resources to promote the approach in Mexico and elsewhere. We argue that adequately designed and implemented, community forestry management projects can avoid deforestation and restore forest cover and forest density. They comprise promising options for providing both carbon mitigation and sustainable rural development. These kinds of projects should be included in the CDM.     

The role of soybean production as an underlying driver of deforestation in the South American Chaco

South America’s tropical dry forests and savannas are under increasing pressure from agricultural expansion. Cattle ranching and soybean production both drive these forest losses, but their relative importance remains unclear. Also unclear is how soybean expansion elsewhere affects deforestation via pushing cattle ranching to deforestation frontiers. To assess these questions, we focused on the Chaco, a 110 million ha ecoregion extending into Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay, with about 8 million ha of deforestation in 2000–2012. We used panel regressions at the district level to quantify the role of soybean expansion in driving these forest losses using a wide range of environmental and socio-economic control variables. Our models suggest that soybean production was a direct driver of deforestation in the Argentine Chaco only (0.08 ha new soybean area per ha forest lost), whereas cattle ranching was significantly associated with deforestation in all three countries (0.02 additional cattle per hectare forest loss). However, our models also suggested Argentine soybean cultivation may indirectly be linked to deforestation in the Bolivian and Paraguayan Chaco. We furthermore found substantial time-delayed effects in the relationship of soybean expansion in Argentina and Paraguay (i.e., soybean expansion in one year resulted in deforestation several years later) and deforestation in the Chaco, further suggesting that possible displacement effects within and between Chaco countries may at least partly drive forest loss. Altogether, our study showed that deforestation in the Chaco appears to be mainly driven by the globally surging demand for soybean, although regionally other proximate drivers are sometimes important. Steering agricultural production in the Chaco and other tropical dry forests onto sustainable pathways will thus require policies that consider these scale effects and that account for the regional variation in deforestation drivers within and across countries.     

Oil palm expansion in Cameroon: Insights into sustainability opportunities and challenges in Africa

Oil palm production expanded 1.2 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990, with expansion accelerating in several heavily forested countries since 2000. Despite a narrative of expansion driven by multinational corporations, we provide evidence of a dynamic non-industrial oil palm production sector linked to a burgeoning informal milling enterprise. Surveys were conducted with oil palm farmers in Cameroon (n = 546), the third largest palm oil producer on the continent with the greatest amount of deforestation due to recent expansion, to determine who is expanding into forest. Seventy-three percent of survey respondents reported clearing forest, the magnitude of which was explained by differences in milling strategies and supply chain integration. Large-scale, non-industrial producers played a disproportionate role in deforestation, many of which were engaged in informal supply chains through the use of non-industrial mills. Farms associated with more clearing tended to use high-yielding seedlings. Even the highest yielding farms, however, averaged only 7.7 tons fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, well below the potential 20 tons FFBs ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ yield for Cameroon. We also found a strong relationship between deforestation and land claims. Most farms claimed ownership of their land, although only 5% had official land titles. Conservation challenges in the region arise from land tenure laws that incentivize forest clearing. This study sheds light on the role of informal supply chains in deforestation and highlights the need for strict implementation and enforcement of land use zoning policies.     

Avoiding deforestation in Panamanian protected areas: An analysis of protection effectiveness and implications for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is likely to be central to a post-Kyoto climate change mitigation agreement. As such, identifying conditions and factors that will shape the success or failure of a reduced deforestation scheme will provide important insights for policy planning. Given that protected areas (PAs) are a cornerstone in forest conservation, we draw on interviews and secondary data to analyze the effects of available PA resources, governance ability, the level of community involvement, and provincial deforestation rates on land-cover change in nine PAs in Panama. Our results illustrate that coupling surveillance measures with greater funding and strong governance are paramount to reducing deforestation. Alone, however, these factors are insufficient for forest protection. We argue that conservation approaches that complement effective surveillance with community participation and equitable benefit sharing will address the wider issues of leakage and permanence.     

Equity implications of marketing ecosystem services in protected areas and rural communities: Case studies from Meso-America

This paper investigates the equity implications of marketing ecosystem services in protected areas and rural communities. We use a three-tiered equity framework to analyse four distinct efforts to commercialise watershed recharge and carbon dioxide fixation by forests in Meso-America. We show that project development and participation are strongly mediated by organisational networks, as well as existing rights of access over land and forest resources. We demonstrate that procedural fairness diverges strongly when initiatives are implemented in protected areas or in rural communities. While in the former reserve managers and intermediaries concentrate all decision-making power, initiatives working with rural communities are able to integrate more significantly service providers in management decisions. Marketing ecosystem services in protected areas contributes to reduce expenditure rates for protected area management, but also results in less equitable outcomes, as rural communities and forest resource users become excluded from receiving sustained development benefits. When ecosystem services are commercialised by rural farmers, payments do not cover opportunity costs but act as a significant incentive for participation in most cases. Ecosystem service providers also benefit from complementary project activities, such as forest management training and agricultural extension support. We argue that limited economic impact and existing inequities in decision-making and outcomes can be explained by problems of institutional design, in particular the inability of markets and payments for ecosystem services to account for context-related factors, such as property rights.     

A two-track CDM: improved incentives for sustainable development and offset production

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been criticized in the literature for encouraging a focus on offset production (OP) at the expense of achieving or encouraging sustainable development (SD). It is argued that one explanation for this is that there is no commonly agreed definition of SD and, moreover, the priority of CDM project developers is often to produce cost-effective OP. Many of the proposals to address these drawbacks are not politically feasible. It is argued that the CDM should be split into a two-track mechanism, with one track for offset production and the other for offset production with an emphasis on sustainable development benefits. This would enable the political deadlock to be broken, allow the inclusion of SD benefits in the price mechanism itself, and allow both SD and OP objectives to be simultaneously achieved.

Policy relevance

The CDM has been criticized for failing to achieve its sustainable development objective, for verification problems regarding the mitigation effects of projects’ emissions, for being complex and bureaucratic, and for the very limited participation by the least developed countries. Given the adoption of a second period of the Kyoto Protocol and the discussion of new market mechanisms in the context of negotiating a new global climate agreement to be adopted in 2015, it is time to explore the ways in which the CDM might be reformed. A two-track version of the CDM is proposed, with one track focused on credit (offset) production and the other track focused on sustainable development. This system could improve the incentive for achieving sustainable development, reduce the uncertainty regarding whether real emissions reductions have been achieved, and be attractive to both developing and industrialized countries.     

Forest protection and tenure status: The key role of indigenous peoples and protected areas in Panama

Using recent land cover maps, we used matching techniques to analyze forest cover and assess effectiveness in avoiding deforestation in three main land tenure regimes in Panama, namely protected areas, indigenous territories and non-protected areas. We found that the tenure status of protected areas and indigenous territories (including comarcas and claimed lands) explains a higher rate of success in avoided deforestation than other land tenure categories, when controlling for covariate variables such us distance to roads, distance to towns, slope, and elevation. In 2008 protected areas and indigenous territories had the highest percentage of forest cover and together they hosted 77% of Panama's total mature forest area. Our study shows the promises of matching techniques as a potential tool for demonstrating and quantifying conservation efforts. We therefore propose that matching could be integrated to methodological approaches allowing compensating forests’ protectors. Because conserving forest carbon stocks in forested areas of developing countries is an essential component of REDD+ and its future success, the discussion of our results is relevant to countries or jurisdictions with high forest cover and low deforestation rates.     

Transportation costs and the spatial distribution of land use in the Brazilian Amazon

We examine the question of whether reducing transport costs in the Amazon has lead to increased land clearing. Data on land clearing, transport costs and other related variables from 1975 to 1995 is analyzed using econometric approaches that exploit the dynamic time series dimension of the data to control for possible omitted variables and endogeneity. Our results suggest that the impact of changes in transport costs on clearing depends greatly on the initial land use. Specifically, we find that in regions where a greater proportion of the land is already cleared, reducing transport costs can lessen the rate of future clearing. On the other hand, reducing transport costs through areas that have seen little human activity is more likely to increase deforestation.     

Temporal patterns of deforestation and fragmentation in lowland Bolivia: implications for climate change

The lowlands of eastern and northeastern Bolivia are characterized by a transition between the humid evergreen forests of the Amazon Basin and the deciduous thorn-scrub vegetation of the Gran Chaco. Within this landscape lies one of the world’s best preserved areas: the ecoregion known as the Chiquitano dry forest, where deforestation patterns over a 30 year period were analyzed. Results indicate that the area of the natural cover was reduced from 97.21 % before 1976 to 82.10 % in 2008, causing significant change in the landscape, especially in the spatial configuration of forest cover. The density of forest fragments increased from 0.073 patches per 100 ha before 1976 to 0.509 in 2008, with a mean distance between patches of 151 and 210 m over the same period, leading to a considerable reduction in the fragment sizes, from 1,204 ha before 1976 to a mere 54 in 2008. This pattern, observed in forests, does not occur in the savannas because, on one hand the savanna area is much lower compared to that of forests, and on the other because the deforestation process tended to be concentrated within forested areas. Based on the observed patterns, it is possible that in the future the natural landscapes will be substituted principally by anthropic landscapes, if there is no change in the economic and land distribution policies. If this process continues, it will stimulate the expansion of mechanized agriculture and the colonization of new areas, which will lead to further deforestation and landscape fragmentation.     

Community forest management in Indonesia: Avoided deforestation in the context of anthropogenic and climate complexities

Community forest management has been identified as a win-win option for reducing deforestation while improving the welfare of rural communities in developing countries. Despite considerable investment in community forestry globally, systematic evaluations of the impact of these policies at appropriate scales are lacking. We assessed the extent to which deforestation has been avoided as a result of the Indonesian government’s community forestry scheme, Hutan Desa (Village Forest). We used annual data on deforestation rates between 2012 and 2016 from two rapidly developing islands: Sumatra and Kalimantan. The total area of Hutan Desa increased from 750 km² in 2012 to 2500 km² in 2016. We applied a spatial matching approach to account for biophysical variables affecting deforestation and Hutan Desa selection criteria. Performance was assessed relative to a counterfactual likelihood of deforestation in the absence of Hutan Desa tenure. We found that Hutan Desa management has successfully achieved avoided deforestation overall, but performance has been increasingly variable through time. Hutan Desa performance was influenced by anthropogenic and climatic factors, as well as land use history. Hutan Desa allocated on watershed protection forest or limited production forest typically led to a less avoided deforestation regardless of location. Conversely, Hutan Desa granted on permanent or convertible production forest had variable performance across different years and locations. The amount of rainfall during the dry season in any given year was an important climatic factor influencing performance. Extremely dry conditions during drought years pose additional challenges to Hutan Desa management, particularly on peatland, due to increased vulnerability to fire outbreaks. This study demonstrates how the performance of Hutan Desa in avoiding deforestation is fundamentally affected by biophysical and anthropogenic circumstances over time and space. Our study improves understanding on where and when the policy is most effective with respect to deforestation, and helps identify opportunities to improve policy implementation. This provides an important first step towards evaluating the overall effectiveness of this policy in achieving both social and environmental goals.     

风廓线雷达的发展与现状

通过对国内外主要风廓线雷达产品发展情况的介绍,比较了它们的主要技术指标和测量性能,分析了天线、发射机采用不同技术体制时的优缺点。对未来的主要工作提出了建议。