The recently launched Brazilian “forest certificates” market is expected to reduce environmental compliance costs for landowners through an offset mechanism, after a long history of conservation laws based in command-and-control and strict rules. In this paper we assessed potential costs and evaluated the cost-effectiveness of the instrument when introducing to this market constraints that aim to address conservation objectives more specifically. Using the conservation planning software Marxan with Zones we simulated different scopes for the “forest certificates” market, and compared their cost-effectiveness with that of existing command-and-control (C&C), i.e. compliance to the Legal Reserve on own property, in the state of São Paulo. The simulations showed a clear potential of the constrained “forest certificates” market to improve conservation effectiveness and increase cost-effectiveness on allocation of Legal Reserves. Although the inclusion of an additional constraint of targeting the BIOTA Conservation Priority Areas doubled the cost (+95%) compared with a “free trade” scenario constrained only by biome, this option was still 50% less costly than the baseline scenario of compliance with Legal Reserve at the property.

Brazil’s Forest Code (FC) is a landmark law that, despite dating back to the 1930s, has low compliance. Illegal deforestation continues, and millions of hectares that were set to be reforested remain degraded. Although sector agreements such as the Amazon Soy Moratorium (ASM) have been important in the fight against deforestation, the implementation of the FC represents the key long-term strategy to halt deforestation in the soy supply chain. Here, we used datasets of the boundaries of rural properties, deforestation permits, environmental licensing, and land cover in Mato Grosso to quantify illegal deforestation and analyzed compliance with the Forest Code (FC) on soy farms to explore how loopholes in the implementation of the FC allow deforestation to continue unabated. Our analyses show that between August 2009 and July 2019, soy farms in Mato Grosso State, the largest Brazilian soy producer, were responsible for 15% (or 468.1 thousand hectares) of all land cleared in registered properties. Half of this deforestation was illegal. The FC implementation within these properties has been slow: only 11% of registered soy farms have made it to the final stage of the registration process, thus being considered fully compliant. This novel analysis reinforces that accelerating the implementation of the FC could significantly reduce deforestation and advance the restoration of illegally cleared land particularly in the Cerrado, where 50% of the original cover has already been lost, as well as in the Amazon. By achieving full compliance in the soy sector, Brazil’s position in the international market would be strengthened as a supplier of sustainably produced, deforestation-free commodities.

Estudos morfométricos e socioambientais foram realizados na bacia hidrográfica do rio Monte Sinai, em Carlinda, MT, visando à criação de subsídios para a sua sustentabilidade ambiental. Para tanto, foram utilizados dados SRTM 90 m, reamostrados para 30 m, para a geração do modelo digital de elevação e dados SPOT (10 m), para a avaliação do uso e cobertura da terra, através de técnicas de SIG. Além disso, foram feitas entrevistas semiestruturadas com os moradores locais e visitas de campo. Os resultados apontaram que a bacia apresenta padrão dentrítico de quarta ordem. A razão altimétrica, declividade, densidade de drenagem e fator de forma indicaram forte controle estrutural da drenagem da bacia hidrográfica. Entretanto, o atual uso e cobertura da terra, dominada por pastagens e mata ciliar degradada, favorecem os processos erosivos e, consequentemente, a perda da ferlitiladade do solo e o assoreamento dos cursos d'água. Foram apontados indicadores de degradação, assim como estratégias de manejo adequadas à melhoria ambiental que venham contribuir e garantir a sustentabilidade ambiental da bacia.

O objetivo deste estudo é entender a dinâmica do sistema de médias e grandes propriedades rurais em Cotriguaçu, Mato Grosso, e discutir sua resiliência como um sistema socioecológico complexo. Para isso, foi realizada uma análise do histórico do sistema focal, a caracterização de atributos, variáveis-chave e fatores desencadeantes, análise de sua panarquia envolvendo sistemas em outras escalas, e o desenvolvimento de cenários futuros. A metodologia envolveu levantamentos participativos, entrevistas e avaliação por especialistas. A conclusão e discussão final do estudo focaram na análise da resiliência do sistema e na aplicabilidade da ferramenta de avaliação da resiliência para pesquisa e gestão socioambiental na Amazônia. Entre outros aspectos, a discussão ressalta a importância do desenvolvimento de políticas públicas e gestão com foco em uma abordagem adaptativa e não em soluções que fatalmente serão temporárias e sujeitas a mudanças e problemas futuros.

The Brazilian Amazon is a complex social-ecological system, the management of which includes diverse groups of social actors whose values and interests influence decision making and outcomes. Such management requires leaders who appreciate the multiple knowledge systems and historical land occupation trajectories that have shaped this region. Twenty-three emerging leaders from universities, government agencies, the private sector, and social movement organizations participated in a two-year Specialization Course in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Course participants applied the Resilience Assessment (RA) Workbook for Practitioners to analyze three livelihood sub-systems within the municipality of Cotriguaçu. This paper offers reflections on the utility of the RA workbook as a tool for bridging multiple stakeholders’ knowledge, identities, power and interests in collaborative social-ecological management. Our experience points to the risks of conducting expert-led RAs in regions dominated by historical legacies of oppression, weak institutions, and limited governance.