Search

Pasturelands, often degraded, represent most of the converted lands globally. Here we present the results from a field experiment in Brazil where we tested the impact of different soil enhancers on soil quality and productivity of three tropical forages grasses: Brachiaria (Syn. Urochloa) brizantha cv. Marandu, Brachiaria brizantha cv. BRS Piatã, and Brachiaria brizantha cv. BRS Paiaguás. Soil enhancers included: biochar - a carbon-rich product from biomass pyrolysis, moinha, a local charcoal residue, traditional fertiliser containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, lime and forage peanut (Arachis pintoi cv. Amarillo). Independent of treatment and Brachiaria cultivar, dry matter tended to be greatest in the first harvesting period, decreasing sharply in the second. Considering the total biomass produced over the experiment (sum of four harvests), the highest production (dry biomass) was for Piatã cultivar (14.07 Mg ha-1; treatment with the biochar application rate of 30 Mg ha-1). For Marandu and Piatã, the highest forage biomass increases were observed with the treatment that included biochar at the rate of 30 Mg ha-1. Marandu and Piatã yields generated an income of U$ 1,291 per year and U$ 1,183, respectively. For Paiaguas, the treatment that generated the greatest yield increase was forage peanut forage + 15 Mg ha-1 with its total income peak at U$ 991. The results reflected positive changes in soil characteristics such as improvement in cation exchange capacity, pH and nutrient contents. This research was developed in collaboration with the landowners within a bottom-up approach. Views of the landowners regarding land management are included in the discussion. Improved management of tropical pasturelands holds opportunity for more sustainable food production and also ecosystem services protection and recuperation, for example, biodiversity net-gain, water regulation and carbon sequestration.

Human impacts on the Earth’s biosphere are driving the global biodiversity crisis. Governments are preparing to agree on a set of actions intended to halt the loss of biodiversity and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. We provide evidence that the proposed actions can bend the curve for biodiversity, but only if these actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner.

Area-based conservation measures, including protected areas (PA) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM), play an important role in biodiversity conservation. In the Brazilian Amazon, even though Conservation Units and Indigenous Lands have been shown to reduce deforestation, few studies have addressed Quilombola Territories, and none of the above-mentioned areas were evaluated according to their role in promoting native vegetation regrowth. Here, we used a matching analysis to show that Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Lands, Quilombola Territories, and two types of protected areas (Conservation Units of Restrict Use and Sustainable Use) contribute to reduced native vegetation conversion, when compared to their control areas. Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units of Restrict Use lost respectively 17 and five times less native vegetation cover than their unprotected control areas, between the years of 2005-2012. Similarly, Quilombola Territories had native vegetation loss rates 5.6 times lower than in matched controls. Importantly, our results demonstrate for the first time that between 2012-2017 Indigenous Lands and Quilombola Territories contributed two and three times more to native vegetation regrowth – a critical process for safeguarding biodiversity in many, if not all, parts of the world. Our results underscore the biological importance of areas beyond the formal protected areas system in conserving biodiversity and promoting forest regrowth.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) can be an effective and efficient means of mitigating climate change. However, the perceived equity in the distribution of financial incentives for REDD could also emerge as a critical issue in international negotiations. The design of reference levels, which provide the benchmark for crediting emissions reductions, affects the economic incentives for national participation in a REDD mechanism and thus the overall willingness to reach an agreement on REDD. This paper compares the equity impacts of five proposed reference level designs using a partial-equilibrium model. Tradeoffs among equity, environmental effectiveness and cost-efficiency indicate the proposals trigger similar aggregate emissions reductions but lead to different outcomes in efficiency and alternative measures of equity. If equity across countries is measured as the financial incentive provided relative to a country's forest carbon stock, then a REDD mechanism compensating a uniform share of at-risk carbon stocks is the most equitable. On the other hand, if equity is evaluated as the financial incentive relative to the opportunity costs of participating in REDD, then the most equitable approach would be compensating emissions reductions but withholding a part of the payments to compensate for carbon stocks, which also encourages broader country participation under our model.

The climate benefit and economic cost of an international mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) will depend on the design of reference levels for crediting emission reductions. We compare the impacts of six proposed reference level designs on emission reduction levels and on cost per emission reduction using a stylized partial equilibrium model (the open source impacts of REDD incentives spreadsheet; OSIRIS). The model explicitly incorporates national incentives to participate in an international REDD mechanism as well as international leakage of deforestation emissions. Our results show that a REDD mechanism can provide cost-efficient climate change mitigation benefits under a broad range of reference level designs. We find that the most effective reference level designs balance incentives to reduce historically high deforestation emissions with incentives to maintain historically low deforestation emissions. Estimates of emission reductions under REDD depend critically on the degree to which demand for tropical frontier agriculture generates leakage. This underscores the potential importance to REDD of complementary strategies to supply agricultural needs outside of the forest frontier.