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This article analyses the impact of COVID-19 on the rights of indigenous peoples, particularly in Brazil. It deals with the current situation of the Brazilian indigenous peoples, the impacts of the pandemic, the rights created on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people and land rights in Brazil. Does the Brazilian government comply with international law, with constitutional rights of indigenous peoples in the current COVID-19 crisis, particularly with the Brazilian Supreme Court decision on the adoption of protective sanitary measures for indigenous people? With a focus on the 2020 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this paper will identify and examine the gaps in protection of the indigenous peoples rights by reason of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. This paper argues that the crisis is misused as an occasion for land invasions, deforestation, forest fires and the denial of basic indigenous rights. Especially in Brazil, a transformative change, an emergency support for indigenous peoples, and a still stand agreement on logging and extractive industries operating next to indigenous communities are needed. Brazilian NGO statements give guidelines as to how to manage the threats of the present pandemic on indigenous peoples of Brazil. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation all offer further relevant suggestions as to how to address the serious impacts in the response to and the aftermath of this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How relevant is the role of CO2 from harvested wood products (HWPs) for the Brazilian GHG emission balance? The C stocks and CO2 emissions and removals from the HWPs in Brazil during 1900–2016 were evaluated using three methodological approaches: stock-change approach (SCA), production approach (PA), and stock-change of domestic origin (SCDOA). Data from the FAO's FAOSTAT system on production, import and export of semi-finished products (sawnwood, wood-based panels and paper/paperboard) were analyzed, considering distinct land-use activities: deforestation (D), forest management (FM) and afforestation/reforestation (A/R). Two scenarios to evaluate the effect of HWPs from D were evaluated. The C stock in HWPs in 2016 reached 252 Mt C, by SCA. Contributions to C storage historically were higher from sawnwood, but wood-based panels and paper/paperboard have recently outperformed it. A/R is the major activity responsible for C storage in HWPs. The CO2 removal by HWPs was 521 Mt during 1990–2016, which corresponds to 1.1% of the country's emissions in the same period. It was concluded that Brazil has become a major producer and wood consumer and that HWPs are allies for a positive C balance and fulfillment of the commitments assumed by the country regarding climate change. AFOLU Agriculture, forestry and other land uses A/R Afforestation/reforestation D Deforestation FAO United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization FM Forest management HWPs Harvested wood products IBGE Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics PA Production approach PEVS Plant extraction and forestry SCA Stock-change approach SCDOA Stock-change of domestic origin approach [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest restoration has gained traction as a solution to mitigate climate change, contribute to biodiversity conservation, and support forest livelihoods. Yet there is limited evidence on the spatial locations where restoration is most likely to occur. In landscapes that primarily contain private properties, assessing the likelihood of restoration can be informed by understanding the enabling and limiting factors that have influenced property-level restoration in the past. In this paper, we tested the relationships between restoration, property size, and forest cover, for 8451 properties between 1985 and 2019 in Southern Bahia, Atlantic Forest, Brazil. We found that spatial property-level variables were strongly associated with restoration. First, we found that property size was positively correlated with the amount of restoration per property. Medium-sized properties (between 40 and 127 ha) accounted for the most restoration in aggregate. Second, we found that properties with less forest cover were associated with higher amounts of restoration. In addition, for properties larger than 20 ha, those with intermediate amounts of forest cover had high amounts of restoration. Third, we found that restoration was a spatial process that occurred in hotspots rather than randomly across the study landscape, indicating that restoration often occurred near to other restored properties. Understanding these relationships may assist restoration planners in making more informed estimates of the conditions that might enable future restoration. Given that restoration is a complex process that may require different approaches in different socio-environmental contexts, decision-makers may consider identifying and prioritizing properties of different sizes and with different amounts of forest cover depending on their specific priorities, landscape-level conditions, and restoration context. Our spatial analysis techniques assist in improving broader understanding of possible ways in which land use policy could prioritize for restoration at the property level and could later be applied to other socio-environmental tropical forest systems. • It is novel to evaluate property-level characteristics of forest restoration. • Larger properties were associated with higher amounts of restoration. • Properties with less forest cover were associated with higher amounts of restoration. • Restoration was a spatial process that occurred in hotspots. • Spatial prioritization may be useful for restoration decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural trade and climate change have altered land cover and land use worldwide. For example, the recent growth of international soybean demand has been associated with 1.3 Mha primary Amazon forest loss and up to 13-fold increase in double-cropping areas in Brazil. Many studies have tried to understand which and how global and local drivers affect deforestation and agricultural intensification processes at the landscape level, yet few have incorporated the direct perspectives of actual land users. Under the influence of a variety of social, economic, and cultural factors, producers are the ones who make decisions that will cause a significant impact on the environment. In this paper, we adopted Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs), a semi-quantitative modeling approach to represent complex decision-making systems, and we modeled land use and agricultural management perceptions of 27 crop producers from the three states - Mato Grosso, Goiás, and Tocantins - important soybean production and export areas in Brazil. We analyzed individual models and integrated them into aggregated regional models to compare individual and regional differences among the producers. In addition, we simulated how producers from the three states will make land-use decisions under more trade and extreme climatic events scenarios using the FCMs. Our results indicate that extreme climatic events are among the most important factors producers consider when it comes to the sustainability of their operations. Climate change scenarios have a stronger overall impact than trade scenarios on local land-use changes, causing a 12% reduction in total agricultural production. The improvement of technology packages can effectively mitigate climate change risks and has an overall positive impact on land-use intensification than expansion. On the other hand, sharing accurate climate information and socio-economic improvements such as credits have larger impacts on agricultural expansion than productivity itself. Moreover, the model complexity shows differences among the three states. Soybean trade has more weight in the perception of producers in Goiás and Tocantins than Mato Grosso. Based on the results, we discuss the importance of co-designing place-based, alternative policies and mitigation options for both agricultural intensification and environmental conservation, taken into consideration through the intertwined global and local forces. • Mapping perceptions of soybean producers across Brazil reveals heterogeneous characters, concepts, and relationships. • Climate change has vast and more severe impacts to land-use change decisions than trade. • Producers acknowledge the contribution of international trade to local production, social, and infrastructure development. • Land actors' varied perceptions demand place-based policies, balancing environmental and agricultural sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The Energy-Water-Food Nexus is one of the most complex sustainability challenges faced by the world. This is particularly true in Brazil, where insufficiently understood interactions within the Nexus are contributing to large-scale deforestation and land-use change, water and energy scarcity, and increased vulnerability to climate change. The reason is a combination of global environmental change and global economic change, putting unprecedented pressures on the Brazilian environment and ecosystems. In this paper, we identify and discuss the main Nexus challenges faced by Brazil across sectors (e.g. energy, agriculture, water) and scales (e.g. federal, state, municipal). We use four case studies to explore all nodes of the Nexus. For each, we analyse data from economic and biophysical modelling sources in combination with an overview of the legislative and policy landscape, in order to identify governance shortcomings in the context of growing challenges. We analyse the complex interdependence of developments at the global and local (Brazilian) levels, highlighting the impact of global environmental and economic change on Brazil and, conversely, that of developments in Brazil for other countries and the world. We conclude that there is a need to adjust the scientific approach to these challenges as an enabling condition for stronger science-policy bridges for sustainability policy-making. Highlights • Overview of the Energy-Water-Food Nexus in Brazil for science, law and policy. • Review of the complex linkages in the Nexus for water, energy and food security. • Review of the law addressing the Nexus and its coordination deficiencies. • Recommendations for strengthening the Nexus science-policy bridge in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • Specialisation at national level hampers mitigation-adaptation integration. • Local actors prioritize climate adaptation but lack of influence hinders action. • Decentralisation affects cross-level power differentials in land and climate domains. • Dominant national level communities exclude localities from policy decisions. Abstract This article proposes an innovative theoretical framework that combines institutional and policy network approaches to study multi-level governance. The framework is used to derive a number of propositions on how cross-level power imbalances shape communication and collaboration across multiple levels of governance. The framework is then applied to examine the nature of cross-level interactions in climate change mitigation and adaptation policy processes in the land use sectors of Brazil and Indonesia. The paper identifies major barriers to cross-level communication and collaboration between national and sub-national levels. These are due to power imbalances across governance levels that reflect broader institutional differences between federal and decentralized systems of government. In addition, powerful communities operating predominantly at the national level hamper cross-level interactions. The analysis also reveals that engagement of national level actors is more extensive in the mitigation and that of local actors in the adaptation policy domain, and specialisation in one of the climate change responses at the national level hampers effective climate policy integration in the land use sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil was the first country to submit a reference level (RL) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to claim results-based payments for reduced emissions from deforestation in the REDD+ mechanism. This voluntary RL submission has passed an official technical assessment process by the UNFCCC on the accordance of the data and method applied, which was finalised in December 2014. After years of international negotiations this has become possible by the REDD+ framework finally agreed. Although never formally adopted, the rules of procedure of the UNFCCC foresee consensus among the 196 parties to the convention. Due to the wide heterogeneity in national circumstances and capacities between these parties, the decided REDD+ framework represents a compromise, and in some points space for interpretation remains due to a lack of clear definitions. E.g., no internationally standardised method exists for the design of RLs under UNFCCC; rather each country has the possibility to apply its own approach within a given range of requirements. We argue that these nationally designed RLs involve the danger of raising a ‘cherry-picking’ mentality, which would reduce cost-efficiency of the payments. Especially in the light of the ongoing pressure to fight anthropogenic global climate change, the overall objective of REDD+ should be climate effectiveness. Therefore, apparently contradictory objectives—of integrating as many developing countries as possible, by keeping the barriers low, and of effective emission reductions by persisting on strict rules for national carbon accounting—had to be balanced. According to the technical assessment by the UNFCCC, the submitted Brazilian RL fulfils all formal requirements. However, as implication of the negotiated framework, there remain some questions on the climate effectiveness and the cost-efficiency of the submitted approach, which this viewpoint paper aims to critically reflect. Brazil chose for its present RL design the eligible options of a subnational coverage, with consideration of the activity of deforestation only. But only comprehensive accounting of all activities on national scale can ensure that all potential emissions are accounted for. By the present accounting gap, doubts on climate effectiveness arise. Furthermore, Brazil chose a fixed starting year for historic emissions and did not consider national circumstances, which results in reference emissions of about 1100 Mt CO 2 /a between 2006 and 2010. This potentially profitable RL setting for Brazil raises doubt on the cost-efficiency of the implied REDD+ payment. Whether these problems arising from the four eligible but critical RL options applied by Brazil emerge in other RLs as well, was checked for further five RL proposals submitted up to now. None of these country submissions has passed the technical assessment yet. The submitted approaches for RL design differ among the considered countries but one can see a tendency towards profitable individual RL definitions, similar to the Brazilian RL. From our findings we conclude that individually determined RLs without standardised methods bear the risk of national ‘cherry-picking’ which can compromise climate effectiveness and cost-efficiency of the whole REDD+ mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the relative contribution of Land Use and Cover Changes (LUCC) and climate changes on runoff still represents a great challenge for water resources management. This issue is particularly critical for the Upper Paraná River Basin (UPRB), one of the most important basins in South America and responsible for most of the production of food, ethanol, and electricity generation in Brazil. In this paper, we used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to quantitatively assess the relative contribution of both forcings. The simulation period included a time of great importance for climate studies, known as the 1970s global climate shift, and of great impact on river discharge within the UPRB. Three land use and cover scenarios were assigned to the 1961–1990 period of simulations, representing land use and cover during a pristine period (around the Year 1500), 1960, and 1985. Thirteen years of precipitation before and after the climate shift (considered to be the period 1974–1977) were analyzed and compared. Results showed a precipitation increase for the basin in general after the climate shift. The increase in rainfall reached up to 15% in many northern areas and more than 20% in the southern parts of the basin. By comparing all simulations, results indicate that both LUCC and precipitation increase due to the climate shift had a significant effect on the changes in annual discharge of the largest rivers of the UPRB. However, the results suggest that the impact of the precipitation increase on the discharge exceeded that of the LUCC. Between 1960 and 1985 the LUCC accounts for about 16% of the increase of the median annual discharge, whereas climate shift accounts for an increase of about 32%. These findings, suggesting a more relevant role for the climate, are consistent with two recent water crisis experienced by the country in the last decades, caused by prolonged below-normal rainfall throughout 2001/2002 and again in 2014/2015. [Display omitted] • We simulated land use and cover from a pristine period (Year 1500), 1960, and 1985. • We evaluated the effects of precipitation change on discharge from 1961 to 1990. • Natural vegetation fell by more than half of the original area up to 1985. • Precipitation increased by more than 20% after the 1970s global climate shift. • Results suggest that climate shift is the main driver in increasing annual discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial modelling is a resourceful approach largely used in land use planning and occupation dynamics. The use of land change and urban growth simulations are indispensable for supporting the development and implementation of urban planning policies. This paper develops potential scenarios of land use change (status-quo and law enforcement) and urban occupation in the north coast of São Paulo using spatial dynamics modelling. Cellular automata-based modelling and EGO Dynamic simulations were used to produce past and future scenarios of land use occupation and growth expansion. These scenarios are compared between them and with vulnerability maps to identify areas at risk. The outcomes show that the north coast of São Paulo is highly vulnerable to expansion of irregular occupations when regulations are not enforced. Forest areas are the first areas to be suppressed by an unsystematic urban development. The extent to which people are exposed to environmental and climatic changes is influenced by urban infrastructure developments and decision making regulations. Findings of this work can guide future planning decisions on such as the revision of the ecological-economic zoning and local land use plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]