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In 2010, the Brazilian authorities approved the National Policy on Solid Waste (NPSW) with the aim of promoting the recycling and reuse of solid waste. However, assessing the distribution and progress of recyclable material recovery following the implementation of this key government policy remains a challenging task. Therefore, this study employs a spatial-temporal analysis to investigate the impact of the NPSW on the recovery of recyclable waste in Brazil. We employed spatial statistical techniques such as Getis-Ord Gi* and Global Moran's I. The results revealed significant and heterogeneous clustering of recycled materials among municipalities, both before and after the implementation of the NPSW. The analysis demonstrated that recycled waste tended to cluster in more developed and urbanized areas, while a considerable number of cold spots were observed in less developed regions or densely populated areas, indicating low recycling rates. These findings raise environmental concerns for policymakers and emphasize the need for interventions to enhance recycling efforts. The study highlights the urgency of improving municipal solid waste management and raising awareness among local communities about the economic and environmental benefits of recycling, particularly in areas characterized by unsanitary living conditions, poverty, and low-income disparities. Therefore, it is recommended to tailor the legal framework to local realities, considering the vast and socioeconomically diverse landscape of Brazil. [Display omitted] • This study examined the spatial-temporal trends in the recovery of recyclable waste. • The recovery of recycled waste exhibits significant heterogeneity in Brazil. • Increasing recycling rates poses a challenge and raises concerns for the environment. • It is crucial to adapt laws in local contexts in order to enhance recovery rates. • Governments and stakeholders should explore the potential of recycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We explore spatial links between 9 ecosystem services (ES) in a tropical region of high forest cover. • Both positive (n = 20) and negative (n = 12) spatial associations were found. • Agricultural lands and forests had the highest total ES output. • Forest ES provision varied nonlinearly with distance to the forest edge. • The approach provides a broad perspective at low cost of ES provision over a vast tropical region. Abstract Ecosystem service (ES) assessments have flourished globally in recent years and are now frequently used by policymakers and environmental managers. However, data scarce regions continue to be less well studied, limiting the comprehensiveness of the approach and its potential benefits. Here we aim to assess multiple ES and their spatial relationships in a region with high tropical forest cover, the state of Amapá, in the Brazilian Amazon. We develop a simple method to measure nine ES, identify spatial associations between them, and explore the impact of land use change on the capacity of forests to provide those services. The ES analysed include biodiversity, regional climate regulation, indigenous heritage, agricultural production, and NTFP extraction. Both negative (n = 20) and positive (n = 12) spatial associations are found, with agricultural land and forests having the highest total ES provision. We also show that this varies nonlinearly with distance to forest edges. In the face of currently unavoidable data scarcities in high biodiversity tropical areas, we show that this approach can provide useful evidence for land use management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the effects of public policies on the occurrence of natural disasters related to extreme rainfall. By using a unique and geolocated database on natural disasters in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I test whether variables related to public policies - e.g. forest cover and urban infrastructure - affect the occurrence of natural disasters, conditional on the existence of extreme rainfall. Results point to a significant role for public policies in order to mitigate effects of extreme weather events. More specifically, results point to an important role for urban infrastructure, as proper sewage and waste collection, and forest cover in reducing the impacts of extreme rainfall. Moreover, I discuss how these heterogeneous effects have distributional consequences and can be linked to the Environmental Justice literature. Finally, this paper reinforces the idea that adaptation policies to disasters are essential in reducing local vulnerabilities and can yield distributional and fiscal benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability perception can be understood as humans' awareness of the environment. This study assessed the sustainability perception of the Paraná III Basin residents in Brazil through item response theory (IRT). For this purpose, a scale to measure sustainability perception, in which the items and latent features of respondents in the same unit of measurement are positioned, was constructed. Fifty-two items (sustainability indicators) evaluated through structured questionnaires applied to 2519 respondents, residents of three cities in the study area, were created. The results indicated that 52.3% of respondents have no, very low or low perception of sustainability, and the study population was allocated between levels 90 and 100 of the perception scale. IRT was suitable for the data analysis because it enabled quality evaluation of the items, construction of a scale to quantify sustainability perception and identification of perception levels. The developed tool - the measurement scale for sustainability perception - can be used by those responsible for local environmental governance to develop projects aimed at social and environmental education with the goal of identifying alternatives to raise the perception levels of the local residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Ecosystem Services (ES) indicators can help designing, implementing and monitoring public environmental policies. Such indicators may be used as a support tool for natural resources management, like in forest areas, which are important ES providers. In this context, military areas are particularly challenging due to the nature of the activities conducted and the need to conciliate them with ecological protection, without undermining military readiness. It is argued that in addition to technical issues, considering stakeholders’ opinions is beneficial for the selection and design of ES indicators. The main aim of this research is to develop forest ES indicators supported by a participatory indicator selection process. A case study is made of an Atlantic Forest area in the Northeast of Brazil, under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Army. To accomplish that aim, a questionnaire survey was sent to a group of stakeholders in order to evaluate an initial set of proposed 44 indicators for several forest ES. Through a weighting of stakeholders’ scores, 25 ES indicators for the Atlantic forest were obtained. The selected indicators portray the study area mainly as a provider of regulating, cultural and habitat services and less of provisioning services, which can be related with military and nature protection restrictions on the use of provisioning ES. Nevertheless, the three top-rated indicators dealt with water availability, regulation and quality (for human consumption). Together with the predominance of water-related ES that was observed (ten out of 25 indicators), this points out the relevance of forest water-related ES in the study area. On the other hand, the specificity of the military context was not clearly reflected by the indicators selected, since most of them are applicable in areas or contexts other than a military one. Alongside indicators expressing the benefits provided by nature, stakeholders’ scorings reveal recognition of the importance of biodiversity and resilience of the area. This stresses the importance of biodiversity and resilience to support ES supply, but is also linked with one of the major challenges for managing a military area with high natural value: that of conciliating military activities (that support military readiness) with nature protection. Other forest areas under military or similar particular jurisdiction, often representing a major fraction of national forests, could learn from this approach and identify areas for priority response measures. These indicators could be also a driver to increase and improve environmental management of military training activities and safeguarding natural resources in important ES providing areas like Atlantic forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive reforestation may be required to avert dramatic loss of biodiversity, system resilience and ecosystem services from Brazil's Atlantic Forest, and is legally required by Brazil's Forest Code. Restoration on farmland however threatens agricultural output and the livelihoods of small family farmers, leading to weak enforcement of the law and a national debate over the Code which resulted in revisions in 2012 that significantly reduced legally mandated restoration. To inform the design of effective environmental policies, we interviewed 60 typical dairy family farmers utilizing pasture-based agroecological grazing practices to assess their perceptions and knowledge of the pre-2012 Forest Code, its impacts and their willingness to comply. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) identified three distinct clusters: farmers who understood the forest code and its ecological impacts and were willing to comply; farmers who understood the ecological benefits of restoration, but were unwilling to comply; and those with little knowledge of benefits or interest in compliance. We evaluate three policy options for promoting restoration, paying particular attention to their impacts on farmer livelihoods and on their intrinsic willingness to restore and preserve forest cover. We conclude that payments for ecosystem services in the form of subsidies for agroecology practices are promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tropical forest conservation is considered a low-cost option for climate change mitigation. But mitigation cost assessments have featured opportunity costs, neglecting policy implementation costs. Here we use official data to identify the Brazilian federal government's operational and institutional budgets related to forest conservation policies implemented from 2000 to 2014. We distinguish the allocated and executed budgets of these policies, and provide scenario-based estimates of their cost-effectiveness. On average, Brazil spent US$ 1 billion/year on forest conservation policies at the federal level. Brazil's substantial reduction in annual forest loss after 2004 was accompanied by a higher operational budget execution of disincentive-based policy instruments, and an absolute increase in both allocated and executed institutional budgets. The post-2004 successful mitigation effort represented additional implementation costs to the Brazilian federal government of US$ 308–923/ha of avoided deforestation, or US$ 0.87–2.60/tCO 2 of avoided emissions. Factoring in also approximate municipal and state expenditures, these costs increase to US$ 385–1153/ha or US$ 1.09–3.25/tCO 2 . We conclude that implementations costs are non-trivial in size, including compared to estimates of land users' opportunity costs. This has important implications for REDD + policy design, in the sense that implementation costs need to be adequately considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) can use many design features. We investigate the impact of payment conditionality types, i.e. different specifications when to pay and when not to pay, for PES on deforestation and agricultural production in a lab-in-the-field experiment. Our experiment also tests variations in contract period and payment volatility. We designed a highly visual simulation game to characterize the decision situation of a cattle rancher in Brazil. The player can expand extensive pasture by deforestation or intensify existing pasture. The model includes both a land and a capital constraint. We applied the game in an economic, framed lab-in-the-field experiment in Tocantins, Brazil. Payments conditional on forest carbon stock lead to slow, but steady deforestation, while payments conditional on forest carbon stock-change suppressed deforestation more strongly. But payments conditional on stock increase cattle production while payments conditional on stock-change have no effect on production. Thus, depending on the level of leakage, either type of conditionality can be more cost-effective in reducing global carbon emissions. Contracts with limited periods lead to strong deforestation after the end of the payment period. Payment volatility had no significant effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) for Brazil from 1970 to 2010 as an alternative indicator to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). After a growing disparity between these two indicators in the 1980s, when Brazil's per capita GPI featured a 35% decline, there was a relative catch-up in per capita GPI, but not one sufficiently strong enough to reduce the historical GPI–GDP gap. The recent trend of rapidly increasing environmental and social costs, along with the decline in unpaid labour and infrastructure services, poses concerns about the sustainability of an increasing GPI for Brazil into the future. Policies aimed at reducing environmental costs are necessary if Brazil is to enjoy a sustainable pattern of non-declining economic welfare. Brazil must pursue a higher rate of productivity in material and energy consumption in order to keep environmental pressures to a minimum level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have become a popular instrument in the last decades and this growing trend is also clearly evident in Brazil. However, challenges related to implementation of these schemes are often underestimated. Any guarantee that a payment will secure or provide such a service is subject not only to underlying ecological uncertainties but also to those entailed by the kinds of social interaction that are inherent to policy implementation. It is argued that the objectives proposed with these instruments can only be attained by ensuring a wide participation of land users. This article advances this topic reporting and discussing evidence on farmer's reasons to participate in three PES-water schemes in Brazil using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Results indicate that the diverging opinions regarding how ecosystem services are generated or secured, decentralized governance structures and the involvement of representative bodies in scheme design and implementation are important factors to consider. Furthermore, access to information and general environmental concern were found to be important variables to explain the propensity of farmers to participate. This generates serious policy implications for developing consistent communication and consultation strategies with scheme beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the relationship between socio-economic factors and public opinion on environmental policies in Brazil, drawing on a survey conducted in June 2012. There are few systematic studies of the determinants of environmental preferences in emerging economies, and Brazil is a particularly interesting case because of its democratic political system, rapid economic growth, and importance for the global environment. In general, we find that the Brazilian public is highly supportive of environmental protection. To explain variation in environmental preferences, we focus on the effects of income and education. Many previous studies suggest that both should have positive effects, but the empirical evidence is mixed. Indeed, we find that income has no effect on environmental preferences. However, education is a strong predictor of environmental preferences. While college education is not necessary for environmental awareness, there is a large difference between Brazilians with primary and secondary education. For policy, the findings imply that investment in secondary education can raise environmental awareness, regardless of income levels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Developing countries have been recently addressing the respiratory health impact of agricultural burnings with innovative environmental policy. In Acre state, Brazilian Amazon, mechanization is subsidized, enabling smallholders to comply with a cap on burned area. To appraise amendments in the policy, a statistical Hicks-Kaldor test was developed and applied to stakeholders' stated choice surveys coupled with an econometric estimate of fire's effect on health. The test unveiled the trade-off between urban dwellers' health and smallholders' production. It also avoided the large disparity of groups in size and in goods valued to result into instability of efficiency assessment across six alternative group weighting schemes. The amendments that increased joint welfare required a great expansion of mechanization supply. Such change, which is not presently feasible at state level, could be piloted at municipal level by relying on the private sector and smallholders' organizations, and also on subsidized credit and power tillers. • A statistical Hicks-Kaldor test, robust to stakeholders' disparities, is devised. • It is applied to a policy replacing agricultural fires with subsidized tractors. • A health and welfare trade-off is unveiled by alternative stakeholder weightings. • · The test proved highly stable across six alternative group weightings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The Brazilian Ecological Fiscal transfer (ICMS-E) has, to date, promoted the creation of new protected areas (PAs). • The quality of that impact may be lower than expected: new PAs belong mostly to a category that impose low local costs. • The quantity of that impact is unlikely to still be high, as the incentive in ICMS-E's formula declines as PA stock rises. • State and local governments respond differently to ICMS-E incentive, respectively focused more on impact or revenue. Brazil's ecological intergovernmental fiscal transfer (ICMS-E) is a conservation incentive for protected areas (PAs). It redistributes tax revenues to reward municipalities for hosting PAs. To quantify its impact on the creation of state and municipal PAs, we used panel regressions on a longitudinal municipality dataset that combined information on PA creation and ICMS-E implementation for the 1467 municipalities in 6 Brazilian states in the Atlantic Forest region that never changed borders, from 1987 to 2016. We found that the percent of the municipal area covered with state or municipal PAs increased as a consequence of ICMS-E implementation. However, the magnitude of this effect declined as the ICMS-E revenue is shared more widely due to the expansion of PAs that reduced the gain from new PAs. We also found that ICMS-E policy primarily spurred the creation of PAs with less restrictive rules – similar to IUCN category V reserves – mainly by municipalities. For more restrictive PAs with higher local costs for municipalities, ICMS-E promoted state-proposed PAs but not municipal PAs. Our results suggest that states used ICMS-E to incentivize local implementation of their conservation preferences, including strict conservation, while municipal governments responded mostly with low-cost actions to increase their revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a multi-agent model system to characterize land-use change dynamics. The replicable parameterization process should be useful to the development of simulation frameworks, important to environmental policy makers to analyze different scenarios during decision making process. The methodological two-fold approach intends to form a solid backbone based on: (i) the systematic and structured empirical characterization of the model; and (ii) the conceptual structure definition according to the agent-based model documentation protocol – Overview, Design concepts and Details. A multi-agent system for land-use change simulation was developed to validate the model, which is illustrated with a case study of the Brazilian Cerrado using LANDSAT ETM images. The simulation results prove the model importance with a figure of merit greater than 50%, what means the amount of correctly predicted change is larger than the sum of any type of error. The results are very good compared with nine popular peer-reviewed land change models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Environmental policies based on the extended producer responsibility (EPR) concept have been adopted in various countries, and the EU, as a strategy to promote product redesign and to reduce the amount and toxicity of solid waste. This paper describes the development and implementation of an EPR-inspired policy in Brazil to deal with tyre waste, and analyses its constraints. It is argued that the experience was an attempt to use an institutional solution to overcome structural problems. The findings provide a basis for recommending that governments pay attention to the potential constraints upon the effective implementation of foreign policy solutions before these are imported. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Contemporary environmental challenges have led governments to seek innovative ways to overcome the limits of traditional regulatory models, demanding a "change management". This article addresses a case study regarding innovations promoted in the extended-producer responsibility (EPR) implementation by São Paulo state, Brazil. After facing resistance from industry, local government changed its approach from traditional regulation to negotiated agreements. As one of the researchers was an active part of the process, the Active Research method was adopted, through the "changing as three steps" model, aiming to understand how change occurs and what its critical factors (facilitators, barriers and improvement opportunities). Results indicate that the incorporation of the principles of regulatory quality has made it possible to overcome the gridlock and reopen the dialog, leading to agreements between industry and government. The evidence also shows that the EPR strategy has been continued and expanded, with the renewal of commitments with more ambitious goals, besides the inclusion of retailers in some EPR systems. Regulation has also evolved, with the incorporation of EPR in the environmental permitting, intending to combat free riders. Facilitators for change included recognition of the government, a gradual approach, cultural changes in companies and the systematization of information. Among the barriers, the most crucial were the low adherence of retailers and importers, the considerable presence of free riders, difficulties with the participation of municipalities, the absence of tax incentives, the low adhesion of generators, high operating costs, and collection problems. Finally, among the opportunities for improvement, results show the expansion of participants, mainly municipalities and retailers, a tax review, inclusion in environmental education programs, incorporation in environmental permitting, increased surveillance to combat free riders, and incentives to the recycling chain. Finally, the conclusions emphasize the success in incorporating principles of environmental regulatory quality in the São Paulo EPR implementation strategy. This fact strengthens the conclusions of previous research and suggests that its incorporation in policy design has the potential to overcome implementation gridlocks in complex environmental regulations. • The consideration of "principles of regulatory quality" at environmental policy design can improve its performance. • Most relevant facilitators to change management were: the recognition of companies efforts, gradual approaches, companies cultural changes and information systematization. • Most relevant barriers to change management were: low adherence of regulated community, presence of free riders, absence of tax incentives, and high operating costs. • Negotiated agreements has the potential do overcome implementation gridlocks at complex environmental regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil has created a market mechanism for compensating past deforestation based on the acquisition of forest surplus from different properties. This mechanism, known in Brazil as the 'CRA market', could become the world's largest forest compensation program. The success of this market depends on the specifics of regulations that are yet to come. The objective of this article was to explore three relevant issues to the regulation of a future CRA market within the Atlantic Forest of Minas Gerais state: the balance between supply and demand; incentives for trade in priority areas; and potential policy overlaps between different compensation programs. Based on geospatial evaluations and content analysis of government documents, the study revealed a potential oversupply of CRAs in the Minas Gerais Atlantic Forest, as surplus areas were found to be 2.76 greater than deficit areas. Eventual incentives for trade in priority areas could lessen oversupply, but unfold into sensitive territorial trade-offs. The potential overlap between the CRA market and the existing compensation program of the Atlantic Forest Act, while still unclear, is unlikely to be a very relevant one. Future avenues of research are suggested. • The CRA market could become the world's largest forest compensation program. • Relevant issues for an eventual Atlantic Forest market are evaluated. • CRA oversupply is likely to occur. • Incentive for trade in priority areas could unfold into controversial trade-offs. • Interactions between compensation programs need further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]