Alice Dantas Brites

Purpose: This paper aims to shed light on the private sector's perspective on REDD+ in Brazil, and how this perspective has evolved over time. Methodology/Approach: This research is part of the Global Comparative Study on REDD+ (GCS REDD+) on policies and political processes from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Findings: Our results indicate that national business organizations believe that REDD+ is an affordable way to mitigate climate change. However, it suggests that while this sector is seeking financial benefits from REDD+ activities, it is taking a very cautious and risk-averse approach. The private sector is not engaged and does not self-identify within the operational challenges that REDD+ policymakers are grappling with as they seek to embrace the possibilities of this mechanism. Research Limitation/Implication: To explore how these private sector actors perceive REDD+, whether such a perspective has changed from 2010 to 2019, and its implications for further REDD+ design in the national context. Originality/Value of the paper: private actors' positions on key statements about financing, benefit sharing and equity, governance, and challenges over three different time periods. A better understanding of how the private sector perceives REDD+ will contribute to national framing and more effective multi-level governance.

Natural ecosystems are under severe threat worldwide and environmental policies are essential to minimize present and future impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate change. The New Forest Act in Brazil is the main policy to protect native vegetation in private lands, which comprise 54% of the remaining Brazilian native vegetation. However, conflicts between environmental and agricultural concerns in its implementation demand for balanced solutions based on scientific evidence. To face the challenge of applying science in environmental policy establishment, we developed a scientific project funded by the São Paulo State Research Foundation (FAPESP) to support the implementation of the New Forest Act in São Paulo State, as part of the Biota/FAPESP Program. The project was conducted differently from a regular research project: the broad objective was to provide scientific support to the State’s implementation of the New Forest Act, based on a participatory interaction among stakeholders to build specific objectives, methods, and discussion of results, within an interdisciplinary and intersectoral research team. Here, we present the lessons learned during and after the four years of the research project development to evaluate how scientific knowledge can be produced and adopted in the implementation of a specific environmental policy. We present the main outcomes and the challenges faced in trying to include scientific data in the decision-making process. We also present current and future challenges in the New Forest Act implementation that could be solved with scientific evidence. The lessons learned showed that even designing the project in order to meet the needs to support the implementation of the environmental policy, avoiding difficulties normally pointed out by similar projects, there was a great difficulty for scientific contributions to be adopted in the decision-making process. Most of the scientific information and advice, even after discussion and common understanding among a diverse stakeholder group, were ignored or over-ruled in the final decision-making phases.

Brazil offers a complex and unique example of tropical landscapes. The country has considerably decreased deforestation since 2004, but Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is arguably under question, both as a concept and as a tool to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as deforestation levels have increased over the last five years. This article investigates how different policy actors have perceived REDD+ over time, how they have engaged in REDD+ efforts over the past decade, and how REDD+ implementation in Brazil should move forward accordingly. We analyzed qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and actors’ “stances”, i.e., their positions—with regards to key issues connected to REDD+ governance and its challenges—over three different time periods (Phase 1: 2010–2011, Phase 2: 2015–2016, and Phase 3: 2019), so as to identify the practical implications of these diverse interpretations. We argue that the way actors perceive REDD+ is intimately related to the way they interpret and assign meanings towards it and, in consequence, the way they coordinate REDD+-related practices and efforts. We focus on the link between perceptions and efforts so as to comprehend the relevance that different interpretations have to both the concept and implementation of REDD+ in Brazil. Our analysis concentrates on the potential to improve the coordination and integration of REDD+ implementation and diverse actors’ efforts with regards to REDD+ activities. Results suggest that actors’ perceptions of REDD+ generated a plurality of meanings, highlighting a range of dialectical and ontological interactions that have, in turn, resulted in multiple REDD+ interpretations. Findings highlight that different actors have the same interests when it comes to their organizational efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, suggesting that there is room for a better coordination of efforts towards this end, as well as increased collaboration.

A análise de discurso aplicada à implementação do novo Código Florestal no estado de São Paulo permite um melhor entendimento do estabelecimento deste mecanismo legal e, consequentemente, pode auxiliar no direcionamento de políticas mais efetivas. A análise de 243 documentos revelou a existência de três discursos centrais a este contexto, cada qual representado por um conjunto de narrativas e coalizões de atores. O primeiro discurso, chamado de social econômico, é composto por narrativas que focam na facilitação do processo de regularização ambiental, no direito de uso da propriedade privada e no valor econômico do uso agropecuário da terra. Um segundo discurso, aqui chamado de ambiental conservacionista, baseia-se na valorização dos serviços ecossistêmicos fornecidos pela vegetação nativa do Estado e na insuficiência da lei estadual atual em proteger tais recursos. O terceiro discurso identificado enfatiza a necessidade de estratégias para atingir um equilíbrio entre uso econômico das terras em propriedades privadas rurais e a conservação da vegetação nativa presente nas mesmas. A escala estadual reflete os conflitos e impasses existentes na escala federal desde a proposta de revisão do Código Florestal de 1965. Fatores como, o uso do conflito entre atores como uma estratégia para alcançar interesses específicos e o atual contexto político brasileiro, dificultam o estabelecimento de uma solução de equilíbrio, como a proposta pelo terceiro discurso. No entanto, um melhor entendimento de quais são estes conflitos, através da análise de discurso, pode auxiliar na tomada de decisões que visem esta situação ganha-ganha em termos econômicos e ambientais.

Brites AD. 2020. New Forest Code effects over smallholder’s intention to trade non-timber forest products. Asian J For 21: 41-45. The Brazilian new Forest Code (NFC) allows the sustainable economic use of one of its main mechanisms for native vegetation protection: the Legal Reserves. Smallholders' intention to trade non-timber forest products (NTFP) from such areas was accessed. Data were collected through 350 in-person surveys in two municipalities from Bahia, Brazil. Outcomes showed that more than half of the respondents do not intend to trade NTFP from their Legal Reserve areas and, the lack of knowledge about the process to obtain government permission for the economic use of these areas, was the main reason gave to justify it. Further, higher household incomes showed a negative correlation with the intention. Incentives from public or private policies and dissemination about the steps needed to obtain permission for Legal Reserve’s sustainable use are needed for engaging smallholders in NTFP trade. With these incentives, it would be possible to increase the NFC potential for adding economic value to the protected native vegetation and for linking conservation with the economic development of rural areas inhabitants. Thus, these outcomes add up to previous findings of the benefits of NTFP trade, and in terms of practice and policy, they can help in the development of environmental policies that incentivize the NTFP trade, contributing to increase landholders’ incomes and to the NFC compliance.

The Native Vegetation Protection Law - 2012 - (NVPL) is the main Brazilian regulation for protecting native vegetation (NV) on private land. The NVPL, currently in the implementation phase, reduced Legal Reserves (LR) requirements compared to its previous version, the 1965's Forest Act (FA), through several legal mechanisms. Among them, Article 68 (Art.68) exempts landholders from LR obligations if NV was converted without offending the legislation in place at the time of the conversion. The technical implementation of Art. 68 is controversial and its effects are still unknown. We developed a model to estimate the effects of Art.68 on LR using São Paulo State (Brazil) as case study. We analyzed former environmental laws to identify key periods in which NV preservation requirements had changed. After, we searched for past spatial data on NV cover with sufficient accuracy for each legal benchmark. Combining legal benchmarks with spatial data, we created two scenarios for Art.68 effects, plus a baseline scenario. The first scenario considered a single legal benchmark, the 1965's FA (scenario "1965"), while the other included the 1989 Cerrado's protection Federal Law as a second benchmark (scenario "1965/89"). The baseline scenario did not include Art.68 effects. Scenario "1965" reduced LR deficits in 49% compared to the baseline scenario, waiving landholders from restoration or offsetting needs in 423 thousand hectares (kha) of NV. Scenario "1965/89" waved 507 kha of NV from restoration needs and represented a 59% reduction in LR deficit compared to the baseline scenario. The LR reduction by scenario "1965/89" assumed particular importance considering that the additional cutback was concentrated on Cerrado, an already very fragmented and impacted region. Together with reductions from other NVPL rules, the additional effects of Art. 68 unfolded great concerns about the role of LR as a tool for NV preservation on private land, threating governmental restoration commitments, and pointing that conservation command and control approaches should be complemented with incentive policies to achieve the desired and committed standards.

Harvesting and trading non-timber forest products is advocated as a win-win strategy for conservation and development, yet it can produce negative ecological and socioeconomic impacts. Hence, monitoring exploitation outcomes is essential, and participatory monitoring has been suggested to be the most suitable approach. Among possible approaches, participatory monitoring is preferred because it is likely to increase people’s awareness and beliefs regarding impacts or potential impacts, thus inducing behavioral changes, although the evidence in this regard is contradictory. We therefore evaluated whether people’s beliefs about the potential ecological and socioeconomic impacts of non-timber forest product exploitation increased their likelihood of volunteering to monitor. We studied a community of forest inhabitants in the Brazilian Amazon who harvested and traded a commercially important non-timber forest product. Two methods of data gathering were employed: (i) a survey of 166 adults (51 households) to evaluate people’s beliefs and their stated intention to engage in four different monitoring tasks and (ii) four pilot monitoring tasks to evaluate who actually participated. Based on mixed-effects regressions, the results indicated that beliefs regarding both types of impacts could predict participation in certain tasks, although gender, age and schooling were occasionally stronger predictors. On average, people had stronger beliefs about potential socioeconomic impacts than about potential ecological impacts, with the former also predicting participation in ecological data gathering. This finding reinforces the importance of monitoring both types of impacts to help achieve the win-win outcomes originally proposed by non-timber forest product trade initiatives.

Efeitos ecológicos da exploração de produtos florestais não madeireiros: uma revisão sistemática