Soares Simulação da tendência do desmatamento nas Cabeceiras do Rio Xingu 2008

8/6/2019 Soares Simulao da tendncia do desmatamento nas Cabeceiras do Rio Xingu 2008

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Woods Hole Research Center, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Instituto dePesquisa Ambiental da Amaznia

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Amazon Protected Areas and Indigenous Lands: A Brazilian initiative for the

service of humanity

Britaldo Silveira Soares-Filho

Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, The Woods Hole Research Center

[email protected]

A gigantic conservation effort is taking place in the Amazon, where Brazil hasexpanded its network of protected areas (PA) in 640 thousand km2 since 2002, whenARPA (the Amazon Protected Area Program) was created. Today, this network,comprising three major PA designations i.e. strict protected, sustainable use, andmilitary areas plus indigenous lands (IL), embraces 1.8 million km2, the equivalent to43 % of the Amazon biome in Brazil and 51% of its remaining forest (Soares-Filho etal., 2008a) Fig. 1. This initiative has enormous implications for the ecosystemservices that the Amazon provides to the World. Amazon forests house an unmatchedgreat biological and cultural richness and are crucial to regulating regional and

continental climates as well as the hydrologic regime of the worlds largest river basin.Hence, essential components for a basin-wide conservation strategy, Amazon protectedareas and indigenous lands also play a major role in tempering global climate change,given their potential to avoid the emission to the atmosphere of a large portion of the479 gigatons of carbon stocked in the Brazilian Amazon forests (adapted from Saatchiet al., 2007). As a result, the expansion of PA network largely supported by ARPA hasestablished a new conservation paradigm that focuses not only on biodiversity hotspots(Mittermeier et al., 2000), but also seeks to set aside large blocks of forest to act asgreen barriers against deforestation. However, conversely to the traditionalconservation approach, this daringly innovative strategy demands a prompt inflow ofresources to match the great challenge of consolidating protected areas in regions under

immediate anthropogenic threat. In this context, this study assesses the historical andfuture roles of Amazon protected areas and indigenous lands in avoiding deforestationand associated carbon emissions, along with the costs of such a conservation initiative,as a means to position Brazil to receive economic incentives from emerging voluntaryand formal carbon markets for native forests.

Fig. 1 Amazon protected area and indigenous land network


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Based on analyses of deforestation rates during 2000-2007 within the regions

240 protected areas and 282 indigenous lands, and their surrounding zones at 0-10 km,0-20 km and < 50 km distance, we found that the probability of deforestation was 9-10times less within PA/IL than in their surrounding areas, and it increased progressively in

zones increasingly distant. In addition, we found that for areas without ARPA support,the effectiveness in reducing deforestation was statistically similar between strictprotected areas, sustainable use protected areas and indigenous lands, but substantiallyless in military areas. Strict protected areas supported by ARPA showed statisticallyhigher relative effectiveness in reducing deforestation than those areas not supported bythe program, while sustainable use protected areas supported and not supported byARPA showed no statistical difference. Nevertheless, when we weight the effectivenessof PA/IL by its areal extent, indigenous lands become more important. In this respect,some indigenous lands, such as the Xingu/Menkragnot/Kayap/Jarina complex, standout as important key barriers against deforestation (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Effectiveness of PA/IL in inhibiting deforestation

To examine the effect of indigenous lands and protected areas and in general,and those established under the ARPA program specifically, on future deforestation and

carbon emissions, we ran SimAmazonia-2 model (Soares-Filho et al. (2008b) a more

advanced version of the model developed by Soares-Filho et al. (2006)

under a set ofagricultural scenarios (moderately and fast growing) to establish an uncertainty boundfor the effects PA expansion on deforestation in reference to 2002 baseline. The modelshowed that by 2050, expansion of PA during 2003-07 would reduce deforestation by237 thousand km2, thereby reducing emissions by 3.31.1 gigatons of carbon (GT C), ofwhich 0.4 GTC was attributable to 13 protected areas established with ARPA support.Including an additional 127 thousand km2 of new protected areas in process ofestablishment during 2008 under ARPA, the program would reduce a total of 1.4GT C(or 5.1 GT CO2) in emissions by 2050. For purposes of comparison, the latter figurerepresents ~16% of global CO2e emissions per year, or ~70% of emissions targeted forreduction under the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The results from our

modeling exercise also showed that, in PA/IL adjacent to active deforestation zones,potential carbon emissions were high relative to total carbon stocks, due to the high risk


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of deforestation in those areas (Fig. 3). Based on this finding, it is clear that establishingand effectively implementing protected areas in these zones offers high payoffs forreducing carbon emissions, and as a result should be essential components of a regionalconservation strategy.

Fig. 3 Carbon stocks and potential emissions of key protected areas and indigenous lands

However, we cannot fail to notice the costs of such a comprehensiveconservation program, especially for Brazil, a developing country full of socialpriorities. Those costs must encompass two components; one consists of forgone profits

from setting aside large tracts of forest that could be converted to agriculture or used forforestry, and another comprises investments needed to implement and manage PA/ILfor the long term, in order to ensure additionality to the act of their creation and thepermanence of their biodiversity and carbon assets. To value the carbon forest of theBrazilian Amazon PA/IL, we applied our spatially-explicit models of potential rentsfrom soy, cattle and timber production to estimate the opportunity costs for avoidingforest conversion into agriculture land (Nepstad et al., 2007). For each forested parcel (4km2), net present values (NPV) for each land use (soy, cattle, and timber) are calculatedfor 30 years, assuming a 5% annual discount rate. All models run into the future with aplausible schedule of road paving and waterway development. Thus, the rents aresensitive to infrastructure improvement. The opportunity costs of forest maintenance are

estimated as follows: (a) maximum potential NPV between soy and cattle plus thepotential NPV for sustainable timber management. Rent from timber is disregarded forthe national and state forests, since those areas can support sustainable logging. Finally,the spatial costs of carbon are obtained dividing the map of opportunity costs by a mapof forest carbon stocks (Saatchi et al., 2007). The average opportunity cost for theBrazilian Amazon PA/IL network is US$ 10 per ton of carbon and its total carbon stockof 25.30.5 gigatons amounts, in present value, to approximately U$ 133 billion. Inaddition, estimates for annual costs of PA management average U$ 3.72/ha (Amend etal. 2008), which adds up for all current Amazon PA/IL over a period of 30 years to asum of U$ 10.5 billion in present value.

Therefore this study shows that, in addition to their critical role in conservingbiodiversity, protected areas and indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon biomeeffectively reduce deforestation and associated carbon emissions. These effects


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complement their other roles in maintaining essential environmental services such asmaintenance of hydrological regimes, regulation of regional climate, and prevention offorest fires. Our analyses also reveal that establishing and effectively implementingprotected areas in zones under high current or near-future anthropogenic threat offershigh payoffs for reducing carbon emissions, and as a result should receive special

attention in planning investment priorities for regional conservation. On the other hand,this strategy presents greater risks than a more conventional approach of prioritizingareas with high biodiversity and under a low degree of threat, thus requiring in order tosucceed a prompt and permanent flow of investments. In a specific decision concerningdeforestation at recent meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCC), it is acknowledged that reducing emissions fromdeforestation in developing countries requires stable and predictable resources.Therefore, as demonstrated in this study, the Amazon protected areas and indigenouslands, whether through ARPA program, the Amazon Fund or other financialmechanisms, are ready to become integrated into future formal and/or voluntary marketsfor reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

Cited references

Amend, M; Gascon, C; Reid, J; da Silva J. M. C. Parks Produce Local Economic Benefits inAmaznia. Conservation Strategy Fund Report, 2005. http://conservation-strategy.org/en/reports/reports

Nepstad, D.; Soares-Filho, B. S.; Merry, F.; Moutinho, P.; Rodrigues, H. O.; Bowman, M.; Schwartzman,S.; Almeida, O.; Rivero, S. The Costs and Benefits of Reducing Carbon Emissions fromDeforestation and Forest Degradation in the Brazilian Amazon. Report launched in the UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Conference of the Parties (COP),Thirteenth session. Bali, Indonesia. December, 2007. http://whrc.org/BaliReports/

Mittermeier, R., Myers, N., Mittermeier, C. G., Fonseca, G. & Kent, J. Biodiversity hotspots for

conservation priorities.Nature403, 853-858 (2000).

Saatchi, S. S.; Houghton, R. A.; Dos Santos Alval, R. C.; Soares, Z. J. V.; Yu, Y. Distribution ofaboveground live biomass in the Amazon basin. Global Change Biology 13, 816837. 2007.

Soares-Filho, B. S.; Nepstad, D. C.; Curran, L. M.; Cerqueira, G. C.; Garcia, R. A.; Ramos, C. A.; Voll,E.; Mcdonald, A.; Lefebvre, P.; Schlesinger, P. Modelagem da Conservao na Bacia Amaznica.Nature, 2006.

Soares-Filho, B. S.; Dietzch, L.; Moutinho, P.; S., A. F.; Rodrigues, H.; Pinto, E.; Maretti, C.; Suassuna,K.; SCaramuzza, C. A.; Vasconcelos, F. Reduction of carbon emissions and associated carbonemissions in Brazil: the role of the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA). Braslia:IPAM, 2008. v. 1. 32 p. http://www.climaedesmatamento.org.br/biblioteca

Soares-Filho, B. S.; Garcia, R. A.; Rodrigues, H.; Moro, S.; Nepstad, D. Nexos entre as dimenses

socioeconmicas e o desmatamento: A caminho de um modelo integrado. In: Batistella, M.; Alves,D.; Moran, E. (Org.). Amaznia. Natureza e Sociedade em Transformao. Edusp. So Paulo, 2008b.

Soares Simulação da tendência do desmatamento nas Cabeceiras do Rio Xingu 2008

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