Search

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The aim of the study was to investigate prevalence and impact of incidental renal masses (IRMs) accompanying increasing computed tomography (CT) work-up for symptomatic aortic valve stenosis (sAVS) of the elderly with regard to the relevance of urological consultation for overall survival (OS). Methods: A retrospective analysis of pre-transcatheter aortic-valve implantations (TAVIs) CT scans of patients with sAVS (N = 1,253) harboring IRM was performed for 2014–2019. According to the clinical management, groups 1 (urologic consultation) and 2 (findings ignored) were formed and analyzed in terms of OS. Results: The prevalence of IRM was 9% (119/1,253). In 19% (23/119), urological advice was sought (group 1). At baseline, group 1 showed a significantly higher rate of malignancy-specific lesions compared to 2 (p < 0.01). Other clinical parameters (e.g., age, cardiological scores, comorbidities) did not differ between groups (p > 0.05). In group 1, 4 (17%) findings were histologically confirmed, of which 3 (13%) underwent surgery. There was no significant difference in median OS at a median follow-up of 24.7 months between groups 1 and 2 with 35.7 (95% CI, 5.9; 65.4) and 47.4 months (95% CI, 33.0; 61.7), respectively (p = 0.4). In Cox regression analysis, chronic kidney disease but not urologic work-up or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or heart failure emerged as an independent unfavorable predictor of OS (HR 2.44, 95% CI 1.37; 4.36, p = 0.003). Conclusion: For the first time, a TAVI population with IRM was analyzed from the urologist's perspective. Urologic co-evaluation and work-up does not confer a significant benefit in terms of OS in this particular population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the treatment of advanced urothelial (aUC) and renal cell carcinoma (aRCC), biomarkers such as PD-1 and PD-L1 are not robust prognostic markers for immunotherapy (IO) response. Previously, a significant association between IO and a change in splenic volume (SV) was described for several tumour entities. To the best of our knowledge, this study presents the first correlation of SV to IO in aUC and aRCC. Methods: All patients with aUC (05/2017–10/2021) and aRCC (01/2012–05/2022) treated with IO at our academic centre were included. SV was measured at baseline, 3 and 9 months after initiation of IO using an in-house developed convolutional neural network-based spleen segmentation method. Uni- and multivariate Cox regression models for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were used. Results: In total, 35 patients with aUC and 30 patients with aRCC were included in the analysis. Lower SV at the three-month follow-up was significantly associated with improved OS in the aRCC group. Conclusions: We describe a new, innovative artificial intelligence-based approach of a radiological surrogate marker for IO response in aUC and aRCC which presents a promising new predictive imaging marker. The data presented implicate improved OS with lower follow-up SV in patients with aRCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a wealth of case-specific insights from agricultural adoption studies, we lack systematic evidence on which technology characteristics matter for adoption across different innovation contexts. We synthesise the results of 304 quantitative farm-level adoption studies for a wide range of agricultural innovations across more than 60 countries using multi-level meta regression. Our results show that land, capital and knowhow are generally more important when an innovation uses the respective factor intensively, but this effect is reduced in contexts where the factor is abundant. Our findings have implications for the design of rural development and agricultural extension programmes. Both should consider the interplay of geographic context and innovation characteristics to develop more effective sustainable intensification strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the extent of COVID‐19‐related food insecurity in Kenya, Tanzania, and Namibia. Using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, we measure food insecurity in various dimensions and document several food access disruptions associated with the COVID‐19 pandemic between April and July 2020. Furthermore, we assess the association of COVID‐19 countermeasures with the adoption of various strategies in line with the coping strategies index. We rely on a unique phone survey that followed households who participated in an earlier field‐based survey. First, through Ordinary Least‐Squares and Probit regressions, we show a strong and statistically significant association between COVID‐19 countermeasures and food access disruptions and food insecurity in each of the three countries. We then use a multivariate probit regression model to understand the use of the various coping strategies, including reducing food intake, increasing food search, and relying more on less nutritious foods. We provide evidence on the complementarities and trade‐offs in using these coping strategies. COVID‐19 and related lockdown measures coincided with a deleterious increase in food insecurity in rural Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Emerging Evidence on the Effectiveness of Tropical Forest Conservation" published in the journal PLoS ONE. The correction addresses an error in the first equation in the Forest conservation effectiveness subsection under Synthesis of Findings. The corrected equation is provided in the document. The authors of the article are Jan Börner, Kathy Baylis, Esteve Corbera, Driss Ezzine-de-Blas, Paul J. Ferraro, Jordi Honey-Rosés, Renaud Lapeyre, U. Martin Persson, and Sven Wunder. [Extracted from the article]

Legislation and consumer preference for more sustainability in the food system require farmers to adopt more stringent sustainably measures without sacrificing business profitability. Scientific and technological innovations, such as beneficial soil microbes for in-field application, may help to achieve this goal, but adoption rates have remained slow thus far. The adopter's perspective is essential to understanding why. This research investigates factors that drive the perceptions of soil microbe solutions across three groups of (potential) adopters as an input to the design of effective communication strategies to accelerate technology diffusion. Factors included in the analyses are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability and image of applying soil microbes at the farm level. The analysis is based on 28 in-depth qualitative interviews in Germany and the UK, and a focus group discussion in the UK. Data were analysed via content analysis using deductive and inductive processes. Deductive codes were derived from the diffusion of innovations theory. Our results show that soil microbes are still perceived as a challenging product in all three adopter groups, despite the acknowledgement of several advantages and benefits. Predominantly, farmers evaluate the innovation as complex. Furthermore, the observability of the soil microbes was perceived as challenging, which also transfers to the trialability of the innovation. Despite this, in all adopter groups the need for the innovation was recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study analyzes potential agro-industrial soybean expansion dynamics and is the first to project soybean expansion Paraguayan Chaco. This biodiverse region, home to the greatest diversity of indigenous groups in Paraguay, has recently seen some of the world’s highest deforestation rates, losing 3.4 Mha of forestland between 2001 and 2014. Soy, a globally traded commodity crop and Paraguay’s largest export product, recently arrived in the area and may exacerbate the high deforestation rates currently attributed to pastureland expansion. We combine extensive field, trade, and satellite data, to analyze the context, and push-pull factors that are driving frontier expansion dynamics, and assess the potential impacts of soybean-based land use change using geo-located accounts of current soybean production sites. Our analysis finds that roughly 742,000 ha in the Paraguayan Chaco are suitable for soybean frontier expansion with an additional 940,000 ha moderately suitable for expansion. We identify the main drivers of soybean expansion in the region as agricultural technology and land price appreciation. However, infrastructure investments are set to further drive soybean expansion dynamics and connect the region via navigable rivers and roads with access to ports on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as part of the multi-national Corredor-Bioceánico “bi-oceanic corridor” road project. The continued rapid development of this fragile landscape could transform the Paraguayan Chaco into a major South American logistics hub for soybean and other agricultural production. Without appropriate governance systems in place, this development could lead to irreversible large-scale damage to the socio-environmental systems, similar to boom dynamics seen in other South American frontiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laws to stamp out deforestation, pollution and child labour in global supply chains might have unintended consequences. Researchers need to investigate these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that rainfall in the Amazon decreases if forest loss exceeds some threshold, but the specific value of this threshold remains uncertain. Here, we investigate the relationship between historical deforestation and rainfall at different geographical scales across the Southern Brazilian Amazon (SBA). We also assess impacts of deforestation policy scenarios on the region's agriculture. Forest loss of up to 55–60% within 28 km grid cells enhances rainfall, but further deforestation reduces rainfall precipitously. This threshold is lower at larger scales (45–50% at 56 km and 25–30% at 112 km grid cells), while rainfall decreases linearly within 224 km grid cells. Widespread deforestation results in a hydrological and economic negative-sum game, because lower rainfall and agricultural productivity at larger scales outdo local gains. Under a weak governance scenario, SBA may lose 56% of its forests by 2050. Reducing deforestation prevents agricultural losses in SBA up to US$ 1 billion annually. Deforestation in the Amazon region has suggested to influence precipitation in a non-linear way. Here, the authors show that forest loss is associated with decreasing precipitation after a scale-dependent threshold is crossed, which can cause stress on agriculture if deforestation is expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of increasingly complex sustainability challenges, societal transformations of currently unsustainable socio-economic production and consumption patterns are imperative. At the same time, international scholarly debates emphasise a decline in the policy capacity of societal actors to deal with the complexity of putting policy into practice. South Africa's national development strategy of utilising its unique biodiversity for developing natural products and biopharmaceuticals was anticipated by the government to help overcome the country's triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Accompanied by a set of national regulations, introduced to safeguard biodiversity thresholds and regulate socio-economic activities along biomass value chains, this policy of a biodiversity economy is framed by the South African government, as a societal transformation. Informed by a plural theoretical lens drawing upon insights from international scholarly literature on transitions and transformations and insights from policy capacity, implementation research and governance literature, we interrogate qualitative empirical evidence from the field for how and whether such transformation has materialised for different bioprospecting actors in South Africa. Asking which factors enabled or limited this transformation, we distil criteria for what we call transformative policy capacity. We argue that transformations are political and deeply context-dependent relying on the resources and capabilities of involved societal actors to put political plans into practice, including the policy target group. We conclude that a biodiversity economy-driven transformation has yet to become a reality for many South Africans, but efforts are being made to foster the policy capacity of central actors and to adapt the regulatory system to be more conducive for the anticipated change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has gained international attention over the past decade, as manifested in both United Nations policy discussions and hundreds of voluntary projects launched to earn carbon-offset credits. There are ongoing discussions about whether and how projects should be integrated into national climate change mitigation efforts under the Paris Agreement. One consideration is whether these projects have generated additional impacts over and above national policies and other measures. To help inform these discussions, we compare the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method. We find that the crediting baselines assume consistently higher deforestation than counterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites. This gap is partially due to decreased deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early implementation phase of the REDD+ projects considered here. This suggests that forest carbon finance must strike a balance between controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets. Relatedly, our results point to the need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic sectors relying on the use of biological organisms, processes, and principles to create products and services are expected to experience accelerated growth due to innovation in the bioeconomy. Associated benefits and risks for sustainable development are increasingly subject to societal debate. We compiled expectation patterns from a global survey with bioeconomy experts and a systematic literature review identifying areas of consensus and controversy across dimensions of the sustainable development goals (SDG). Positive connotations dominated in both expert opinions and the scientific literature, but the level of consensus varied across sectors of the bioeconomy and in relation to applied methodological approaches (scientific literature) and type of employer (experts). In both sources, we found more differentiated views on potential impacts of bioeconomic development pathways on sustainability in more established bioeconomy‐related discourses, which indicates that expectation patterns in more recent fields of bio‐based innovation are subject to early "hype cycle" dynamics. Our findings suggest the need to systematically mainstream sustainability risk appraisals across relevant application contexts in technology impact assessments for the bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation driven by agricultural expansion is a major threat to the biodiversity of the Amazon Basin. Modelling how deforestation responds to environmental policy implementation has thus become a policy relevant scientific undertaking. However, empirical parameterization of land-use/cover change (LUCC) models is challenging due to the high complexity and uncertainty of land-use decisions. Bayesian Network (BN) modelling provides an effective framework to integrate various data sources including expert knowledge. In this study, we integrate remote sensing products with data from farm-household surveys and a decision game to model LUCC at the BR-163, in Brazil. Our 'business as usual' scenario indicates cumulative forest cover loss in the study region of 8,000 km2 between 2014 and 2030, whereas 'intensified law-enforcement' would reduce cumulative deforestation to 1,600 km2 over the same time interval. Our findings underline the importance of conservation law enforcement in modulating the impact of agricultural market incentives on land cover change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical dry forests and savannas harbour unique biodiversity and provide critical ES, yet they are under severe pressure globally. We need to improve our understanding of how and when this pressure provokes tipping points in biodiversity and the associated social-ecological systems. We propose an approach to investigate how drivers leading to natural vegetation decline trigger biodiversity tipping and illustrate it using the example of the Dry Diagonal in South America, an understudied deforestation frontier. The Dry Diagonal represents the largest continuous area of dry forests and savannas in South America, extending over three million km² across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Natural vegetation in the Dry Diagonal has been undergoing large-scale transformations for the past 30 years due to massive agricultural expansion and intensification. Many signs indicate that natural vegetation decline has reached critical levels. Major research gaps prevail, however, in our understanding of how these transformations affect the unique and rich biodiversity of the Dry Diagonal, and how this affects the ecological integrity and the provisioning of ES that are critical both for local livelihoods and commercial agriculture. Inspired by social-ecological systems theory, our approach helps to explain: (i) how drivers of natural vegetation decline affect the functioning of ecosystems, and thus ecological integrity, (ii) under which conditions, where, and at which scales the loss of ecological integrity may lead to biodiversity tipping points, and (iii) how these biodiversity tipping points may impact human well-being. Implementing such an approach with the greater aim of furthering more sustainable land use in the Dry Diagonal requires a transdisciplinary collaborative network, which in a first step integrates extensive observational data from the field and remote sensing with advanced ecosystem and biodiversity models. Secondly, it integrates knowledge obtained from dialogue processes with local and regional actors as well as meta-models describing the actor network. The co-designed methodological framework can be applied not only to define, detect, and map biodiversity tipping points across spatial and temporal scales, but also to evaluate the effects of tipping points on ES and livelihoods. This framework could be used to inform policy making, enrich planning processes at various levels of governance, and potentially contribute to prevent biodiversity tipping points in the Dry Diagonal and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Ethiopia’s energy sector faces critical challenges to meeting steadily increasing energy demand given limited infrastructure, heavy reliance on hydroelectric power and underdevelopment of alternative energy resources. The purpose of this paper was to identify optimal least cost investment decisions for integrated energy source diversification. The authors seek to contribute to the relevant literature by paying particular attention to the role of public policy for promoting renewable energy investment and to better understand future energy security implications of various sources of uncertainty.Design/methodology/approach The authors created a dynamic linear programming model using General Algebraic Modelling System software to explore the national energy security implications of uncertainties associated with increasing technological advances and efficiency, and climate change scenarios.Findings To cope with the impacts of drought expected from future climate change on hydroelectric power production, Ethiopia would need to invest in the development of alternative energy resources. Such investment would not only enhance the sustainability and reliability of energy production but also increase costs. Greater rates of technological and efficiency innovations, however, were found to improve electricity diversification and reduce production costs and shadow prices or resource scarcity, and are thus key for enhancing energy security and reducing the risks posed by drought.Originality/value The dynamic linear programming model by the authors represents a flexible sector modelling tool for exploring the sustainability and efficiency of energy resource development pathways and evaluating the effects of different sources of uncertainty on the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation and forest degradation in the Peruvian Amazon represent a major threat to biodiversity-related ecosystem services and the global climate. In 2010, the Peruvian Ministry of Environment launched the National Forest Conservation Program for Climate Change Mitigation, an innovative approach to maintaining forest cover of over 54 million hectares of land in protected areas and indigenous and peasant communities. A key component is a payments for environmental services scheme encouraging investments in sustainable land and forest uses in community-controlled territories. We conducted an ex-ante assessment of how the program would play out in terms of conservation cost–effectiveness, income effects and distributional (equity) outcomes if payments were up-scaled, as intended, to all native communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Our spatially explicit impact assessment relied on remotely sensed deforestation data and field data-supported estimates of conservation opportunity costs. We found that the spatially heterogeneous distribution of forestland and economic returns to multiple land uses across communities results in important tradeoffs between hypothetical cost–effectiveness, poverty alleviation and equity outcomes. Nevertheless, our scenario analyses suggested that alternative design options for payment schemes could improve both cost–effectiveness and equity outcomes simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The PLOS ONE Collection “Measuring forest conservation effectiveness” brings together a series of studies that evaluate the effectiveness of tropical forest conservation policies and programs with the goal of measuring conservation success and associated co-benefits. This overview piece describes the geographic and methodological scope of these studies, as well as the policy instruments covered in the Collection as of June 2016. Focusing on forest cover change, we systematically compare the conservation effects estimated by the studies and discuss them in the light of previous findings in the literature. Nine studies estimated that annual conservation impacts on forest cover were below one percent, with two exceptions in Mexico and Indonesia. Differences in effect sizes are not only driven by the choice of conservation measures. One key lesson from the studies is the need to move beyond the current scientific focus of estimating average effects of undifferentiated conservation programs. The specific elements of the program design and the implementation context are equally important factors for understanding the effectiveness of conservation programs. Particularly critical will be a better understanding of the causal mechanisms through which conservation programs have impacts. To achieve this understanding we need advances in both theory and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important part of conservation practice is the empirical evaluation of program and policy impacts. Understanding why conservation programs succeed or fail is essential for designing cost-effective initiatives and for improving the livelihoods of natural resource users. The evidence we seek can be generated with modern impact evaluation designs. Such designs measure causal effects of specific interventions by comparing outcomes with the interventions to outcomes in credible counterfactual scenarios. Good designs also identify the conditions under which the causal effect arises. Despite a critical need for empirical evidence, conservation science has been slow to adopt these impact evaluation designs. We identify reasons for the slow rate of adoption and provide suggestions for mainstreaming impact evaluation in nature conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped substantially after a peak of over 27 thousand square kilometers in 2004. Starting in 2008, the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment has regularly published blacklists of critical districts with high annual forest loss. Farms in blacklisted districts face additional administrative hurdles to obtain authorization for clearing forests. In this paper we add to the existing literature on evaluating the Brazilian anti-deforestation policies by specifically quantifying the impact of blacklisting on deforestation. We first use spatial matching techniques using a set of covariates that includes official blacklisting criteria to identify control districts. We then explore the effect of blacklisting on change in deforestation in double difference regressions with panel data covering the period from 2002 to 2012. Multiple robustness checks are conducted including an analysis of potential causal mechanisms behind the success of the blacklist. We find that the blacklist has considerably reduced deforestation in the affected districts even after controlling for the potential mechanism effects of field-based enforcement, environmental registration campaigns, and rural credit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a review of trade-offs and synergies of bioenergy within the water–energy–food security nexus, with emphasis on developing countries. It explores the links of bioenergy with food security, poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, health, and gender equity. It concludes that applying the nexus perspective to analyses of bioenergy widens the scope for achieving multiple-win outcomes along the above aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unanticipated events can cause considerable economic hardship for poor rural households. Some types of negative shocks, for example weather-related agricultural losses and vector-borne diseases, are expected to occur more frequently as a result of climate change. In this paper we measure the role of household- and location-specific characteristics in conditioning behavioural responses to a wide range of idiosyncratic and covariate shocks. We use data from 8,000 rural households in 25 developing countries, compiled in the global database of the Poverty Environment Network. We employ a hierarchical multinomial logit model to identify the importance of characteristics observed at different levels of aggregation on a set of strategies aimed at coping with economic shocks. Results indicate that in response to idiosyncratic shocks, households tend to deplete financial and durable assets, whereas covariate and thus often climate-related shocks predominantly result in reduced consumption. Households in sites characterised by high asset wealth tend to cope with shocks in a more proactive way than those in sites with average or below average asset wealth, but the role of asset types in conditioning shock responses varies across regions. Our findings have implications for rural development and climate change adaptation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulatory enforcement of forest conservation laws is often dismissed as an ineffective approach to reducing tropical forest loss. Yet, effective enforcement is often a precondition for alternative conservation measures, such as payments for environmental services, to achieve desired outcomes. Fair and efficient policies to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) will thus crucially depend on understanding the determinants and requirements of enforcement effectiveness. Among potential REDD candidate countries, Brazil is considered to possess the most advanced deforestation monitoring and enforcement infrastructure. This study explores a unique dataset of over 15 thousand point coordinates of enforcement missions in the Brazilian Amazon during 2009 and 2010, after major reductions of deforestation in the region. We study whether local deforestation patterns have been affected by field-based enforcement and to what extent these effects vary across administrative boundaries. Spatial matching and regression techniques are applied at different spatial resolutions. We find that field-based enforcement operations have not been universally effective in deterring deforestation during our observation period. Inspections have been most effective in reducing large-scale deforestation in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará, where average conservation effects were 4.0 and 9.9 hectares per inspection, respectively. Despite regional and actor-specific heterogeneity in inspection effectiveness, field-based law enforcement is highly cost-effective on average and might be enhanced by closer collaboration between national and state-level authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon had in 2012 declined to less than 5,000 sqkm, from over 27,000 in 2004. Mounting empirical evidence suggests that changes in Brazilian law enforcement strategy and the related governance system may account for a large share of the overall success in curbing deforestation rates. At the same time, Brazil is experimenting with alternative approaches to compensate farmers for conservation actions through economic incentives, such as payments for environmental services, at various administrative levels. We develop a spatially explicit simulation model for deforestation decisions in response to policy incentives and disincentives. The model builds on elements of optimal enforcement theory and introduces the notion of imperfect payment contract enforcement in the context of avoided deforestation. We implement the simulations using official deforestation statistics and data collected from field-based forest law enforcement operations in the Amazon region. We show that a large-scale integration of payments with the existing regulatory enforcement strategy involves a tradeoff between the cost-effectiveness of forest conservation and landholder incomes. Introducing payments as a complementary policy measure increases policy implementation cost, reduces income losses for those hit hardest by law enforcement, and can provide additional income to some land users. The magnitude of the tradeoff varies in space, depending on deforestation patterns, conservation opportunity and enforcement costs. Enforcement effectiveness becomes a key determinant of efficiency in the overall policy mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates rural household-level forest reliance in the western highlands of Guatemala using quantitative methods. Data were generated by the way of an in-depth household income survey, repeated quarterly between November 2005 and November 2006, in 11 villages ( n = 149 randomly selected households). The main sources of income proved to be small-scale agriculture (53 % of total household income), wages (19 %) and environmental resources (14 %). The latter came primarily from forests (11 % on average). In the poorest quintile the forest income share was as high as 28 %. All households harvest and consume environmental products. In absolute terms, environmental income in the top quintile was 24 times higher than in the lowest. Timber and poles, seeds, firewood and leaf litter were the most important forest products. Households can be described as 'regular subsistence users': the share of subsistence income is high, with correspondingly weak integration into regional markets. Agricultural systems furthermore use important inputs from surrounding forests, although forests and agricultural uses compete in household specialization strategies. We find the main household determinants of forest income to be household size, education and asset values, as well as closeness to markets and agricultural productivity. Understanding these common but spatially differentiated patterns of environmental reliance may inform policies aimed at improving livelihoods and conserving forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land uses is considered an essential ingredient of an effective strategy to mitigate global warming. Required changes in land use and forestry, however, often imply foregoing returns from locally more attractive resource use strategies. We assess and compare the prospects of mitigating climate change through emission reductions from forestry and agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon. We use official statistics, literature, and case study material from both old and new colonization frontiers to identify the scope for emission reductions, in terms of potential additionality, opportunity costs, technological complexity, transaction costs, and risks of economic and environmental spillover effects. Our findings point to a comparative advantage in the Brazilian Amazon of forest conservation-based over land-use modifying mitigation options, especially in terms of higher potential additionality in emission reductions. Low-cost mitigation options do exist also in use-modifying agriculture and forestry, but tend to be technologically complex thus requiring more costly intervention schemes. Our review points to a series of regional development deficits that may come to hamper attempts to tap into the large-scale climate change mitigation potential often associated with the Amazon. Low-hanging fruits for mitigation do exist, but must be carefully identified based on the performance indicators we discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Important transformations are underway in tropical landscapes in Latin America with implications for economic development and climate change. Landscape transformation is driven not only by national policies and markets, but also by global market dynamics associated with an increased role for transnational traders and investors. National and global trends affect a disparate number of social, political and economic interactions taking place at the local level, which ultimately shapes land-use and socio-economic change. This paper reviews five different trajectories of landscape change in tropical Latin America, and discusses their implications for development and conservation: (1) Market-driven growth of agribusiness; (2) expansion and modernization of traditional cattle ranching; (3) slow growth of peasant agriculture; (4) logging in production forest frontiers; and (5) resurgence of agro-extractive economies. Contrasting trade-offs between economic development and forest conservation emerge across these landscapes, calling for nuanced policy responses to manage them in the context of climate change. This discussion sets the background to assess how reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+) aims should be better aligned with current landscape trajectories and associated actors to better address climate-change mitigation in forest landscapes with effective and equitable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Savannas cover the greater part of Africa and Australia and almost half of South America and contribute to the livelihoods of more than 350 million people. With the intensification of land use during the second half of the 20th century, savannas have become increasingly degraded through bush encroachment as a consequence of increased grazing pressure. Research on rangeland dynamics, however, provides contradicting answers with regard to the causes and possible remedies of bush encroachment. In this article we present results from an application of a simulation-optimization model to the case of extensive rangeland management in South Africa. Our model differs from previous approaches in that it explicitly accounts for the influence of stochastic prices and rainfall on economically optimal management decisions. By showing the implications of neglecting price variation and stochasticity in rangeland models we provide new insights with regard to the determinants of bush encroachment and rangeland managers' economic return. We demonstrate that, in the case of South Africa, optimal rangeland management is likely to lead to bush encroachment that eventually makes livestock holding unprofitable. Yet, we identify the costs of fire management to be a limiting factor for managers to counteract bush encroachment and explore the impact of policy measures to reduce fire control costs on the ecological and economic sustainability of livestock holding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In humans, alterations of circadian rhythms and autophagy are linked to metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological dysfunction. Autophagy constitutes a specific form of cell recycling in many eukaryotic cells. Aging is the principal risk factor for the development of neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, we assume that both the circadian clock and autophagy are indispensable to counteract aging. We have previously shown that the hippocampus of Per1−/−-mice exhibits a reduced autophagy and higher neuronal susceptibility to ischemic insults compared to wild type (WT). Therefore, we chose to study the link between aging and loss of clock gene Per1−/−-mice. Young and aged C3H- and Per1−/−-mice were used as models to analyze the hippocampal distribution of Aβ42, lipofuscin, presenilin, microglia, synaptophysin and doublecortin. We detected several changes in the hippocampus of aged Per1−/−-mice compared to their wild type littermates. Our results show significant alterations of microglia morphology, an increase in Aβ42 deposition, overexpression of presenilin, decrease in synaptophysin levels and massive accumulation of lipofuscin in the hippocampus of 24-month-old Per1−/−-mice, without alteration of adult neurogenesis. We suggest that the marked lipofuscin accumulation, Aβ42 deposition, and overexpression of presenilin-2 observed in our experiments may be some of the consequences of the slowed autophagy in the hippocampus of aged Per1−/−-mice. This may lead during aging to excessive accumulation of misfolded proteins which may, consequently, result in higher neuronal vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use change results from the decisions of diverse actors in response to economic and political contexts. Identification of underlying decision-making processes is key to understanding land-use patterns, anticipating trends, and designing effective environmental governance mechanisms. Here, we use a scenario-based decision game to examine hypothetical land-use decisions among four groups of rural producers in the municipalities of Sinop, Guarantã do Norte and Novo Progresso in the Brazilian Amazon. We simulate changes in agricultural prices, production cost, and frequency of environmental monitoring (in situ inspections) to understand how land-use decisions are made and change with shifts in economic and governance incentives. Hypothetical land-use decisions vary across scenarios, but not across study sites; environmental law enforcement influence land decisions, but not to the extent of dominating market factors and not for all types of producers. Decision games cannot substitute approaches to explain behavioral responses from observational data. However, they can provide immediate feedback on behavioral hypotheses before comprehensive observational data becomes available and support the development of models for land-use policy planning at local and regional scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European forestry sector is a potential driver of transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy. Forest products are increasingly used in high-tech and high-value-added industries, e.g., chemicals and the automotive industry. So far, however, research on the European bioeconomy has largely focused on agriculture as a provider of food, feed, fuel, and fiber to bio-based industries. Here we assess the potential impacts of a stronger reliance on forestry sector inputs to the European Union (EU28) bioeconomy on output, prices, final demand, and land use. Specifically, we run a sensitivity analysis of a 1% increase of input use of forest products in the EU28 economy in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) framework accounting for land use by Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at high regional and sectoral resolution. We find that such a shift to a more forest-based bioeconomy would provoke small indirect land use effects globally due to existing international trade linkages and land market effects. Simulated increases in planted forest cover are associated with net GHG emission savings, but our scenario analysis also points to higher imports of forest products from countries with vulnerable tropical forest biomes, such as Brazil and Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Command-and-control policies are often criticized as insufficient to tackle tropical deforestation. Over the past two decades, both academics and policy-makers have promoted incentive-based policies, notably REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), as attractive alternatives to curb forest loss, while also potentially contributing to the poverty reduction of forest-dwelling populations. Governments have been the driving force behind the largest incentive-based forest conservation programs in Latin America. Many science-based recommendations on how to design effective incentive-based policies have, however, not found much resonance within policy circles. To understand the gap between recommendations and practice, it is important to analyze how these schemes are designed towards achieving environmental and non-environmental outcomes. To this end, we analyzed the comprehensive history of governance dynamics behind two government-led incentive schemes in Ecuador and Peru. We found that electoral interests and bureaucratic politics exerted pressure on policy design teams, which eventually traded off long-term societal efficiency concerns against short-term administrative goals. Priority was often given to non-environmental concerns, due to perceptions of political feasibility, the influence of non-environmental government agencies, and beliefs in particular government roles or public response. These findings are especially relevant for scholars studying the design, implementation and impacts of incentive-based conservation policies, and for practitioners aiming to enhance policy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, the expansion of soy plantations has been a major driver of land-use/cover change (LUCC) in Brazil. While a series of recent public actions and supply-chain commitments reportedly curbed the replacement of forests by soy, the expansion of the agricultural commodity still poses a considerable threat to the Amazonian and Cerrado biomes. Identification of areas under high risk of soy expansion is thus paramount to assist conservation efforts in the region. We mapped the areas suitable for undergoing transition to soy plantations in the Legal Amazon with a machine-learning approach adopted from the ecological modeling literature. Simulated soy expansion for the year 2014 exhibited favorable validation scores compared to other LUCC models. We then used our model to simulate how potential future infrastructure improvements would affect the 2014 probabilities of soy occurrence in the region. In addition to the 2.3 Mha of planted soy in the Legal Amazon in 2014, our model identified another 14.7 Mha with high probability of soy conversion in the region given the infrastructure conditions at that time. Out of those, pastures and forests represented 9.8 and 0.4 Mha, respectively. Under the new infrastructure scenarios simulated, the Legal Amazonian area under high risk of soy conversion increased by up to 2.1 Mha (14.6%). These changes led to up to 11.4 and 51.4% increases in the high-risk of conversion areas of pastures and forests, respectively. If conversion occurs in the identified high-risk areas, at least 4.8 Pg of CO2 could be released into the atmosphere, a value that represents 10 times the total CO2 emissions of Brazil in 2014. Our results highlight the importance of targeting conservation policies and enforcement actions, including the Soy Moratorium, to mitigate future forest cover loss associated with infrastructure improvements in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than forty states worldwide currently pursue explicit political strategies to expand and promote their bioeconomies. This paper assesses these strategies in the context of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our theoretical framework differentiates between four pathways of bioeconomic developments. The extent to which bioeconomic developments along these pathways lead to increased sustainability depends on the creation of effective governance mechanisms. We distinguish between enabling governance and constraining governance as the two fundamental political challenges in setting up an effective governance framework for a sustainable bioeconomy. Further, we lay out a taxonomy of political support measures (enabling governance) and regulatory tools (constraining governance) that states can use to confront these two political challenges. Guided by this theoretical framework, we conduct a qualitative content analysis of 41 national bioeconomy strategies to provide systematic answers to the question of how well designed the individual national bioeconomy strategies are to ensure the rise of a sustainable bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of countries develop bio-economy strategies to promote a stronger reliance on the efficient use of renewable biological resources in order to meet multiple sustainability challenges. At the global scale, however, bio-economies are diverse, with sectors such as agriculture, forestry, energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, as well as science and education. In this study, we developed a typology of bio-economies based on country-specific characteristics, and describe five different bio-economy types with varying degrees of importance in the primary and the high-tech sector. We also matched the bio-economy types against the foci of their bio-economy strategies and evaluated their sustainability performance. Overall, high-tech bio-economies seem to be more diversified in terms of their policy strategies while the policies of those relying on the primary sector are focused on bioenergy and high-tech industries. In terms of sustainability performance, indicators suggest that diversified high-tech economies have experienced a slight sustainability improvement, especially in terms of resource consumption. Footprints remain, however, at the highest levels compared to all other bio-economy types with large amounts of resources and raw materials being imported from other countries. These results highlight the necessity of developed high-tech bio-economies to further decrease their environmental footprint domestically and internationally, and the importance of biotechnology innovation transfer after critical and comprehensive sustainability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]