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Wholesale conversion of natural Amazonian ecosystems has been encouraged by Brazil's extreme antienvironmental government, and historical forest loss explains municipal-scale voting prevalence. Embracing a new administration would strengthen local-to-regional governance, suppress illegal land grabbing, deforestation, logging, and gold mining, thereby protecting the world's most species-rich forest domain and ensuring global sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian scientific community and non-governmental groups have been working to establish forest restoration programs, compensating for deforestation and mitigating losses from biodiversity and ecosystem services. In contrast, the previous Brazilian government moved in an opposite direction, revoking legal acts and providing scope for the rural producers to sustain non-compliance activities according to the legal regulations. Among rural producers, there is a recognized conflict between agricultural production and forest restoration programs, which results in a chaotic condition where the implementation of the environmental laws is impaired. In this context, restoration projects are often practiced without effective integrated territorial planning. This scenario challenges the success of large-scale restoration programs. The Brazilian government needs to effectively adopt sound guidelines already suggested to promote a genuine state of governance, fostering restoration programs, and moving the country's development towards an ecologically planned environment. • Landowners hamper forest restoration programs instituted by the Brazilian Government. • Forest restoration is not voluntarily practiced in Brazil. • Restoration initiatives have been practiced without effective territorial planning. • By relaxing the environmental laws the previous government fostered non-compliance. • Bringing science and society together is crucial to ensure effective policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rio Paraiba do Sul is a highly polluted river in south central Brazil, that is contaminated by industrial, agricultural and municipal wastes, as well as being impacted by dams, water withdrawals and deforestation in the watershed. Since only very intensive and farreaching environmental policies could result in water quality improvements, valuing the restoration of the river presents many unique challenges. We develop a choice-modeling approach to valuation of the restoration of this river, with general tightening of environmental policy as the policy, and an increase in prices as the payment vehicle. The estimation is performed in willingness to pay space, adjusting for heterogeneity of tastes. We find that respondents, who are primarily low income, exhibit higher willingness to pay for complete restoration than moderate restoration, higher for moderate restoration in comparison to minimal restoration, and that they prefer restoration sooner, rather than later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Up to 80% of each private rural property in the Brazilian Amazon is protected by law through the Legal Reserve (LR) mechanism of the federal Forest Code, underlining the conservation importance of forests on private lands in one of the world́s most important biomes. However, our understanding of the discrepancies in levels of forest protection on private lands as obligated by the law versus what occurs in practice remains very poor. We assessed patterns of forest cover and legal compliance with the Forest Code in the 1.25 Mkm 2 Brazilian state of Pará, which has the highest deforestation rate in the Amazon. We evaluate the LR deficit and surplus patterns for different sized properties and across 144 municipalities, and found that the total LR surplus (12.6 Mha) was more than five times the total area of deficit (2.3 Mha). Yet, from the total surplus, only 11% can be legally deforested while the remaining 89% is already protected by law but can be used (sold or rented) to compensate for areas that are under deficit. Medium and large-scale properties make up most of the total LR deficit area, while agrarian reform settlements had comparatively large amounts of both compensation-only surplus and deforestable surplus. Most of the municipalities (77%) in the state could compensate their total deficit with surplus areas of LR in the same municipality, while the remainder can be compensate their deficit in one or more neighbouring municipalities, indicating compensation can always take place close to the source of the deficit. Maximising the environmental benefits of achieving Forest Code compliance requires measures that go beyond the existing legal framework, including interventions to avoid further deforestation in places where it is still legal, compensate in close proximity to areas with legal reserve deficit and promote local restoration on degraded lands. [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]

Fake controversies have influenced policy making on health and environmental issues for decades, resulting in major implementation setbacks worldwide. As a case study, in this paper we examine fake controversies produced by a small group of active Brazilian researchers that have seriously impacted environmental conservation, particularly in issues related to deforestation and climate change. Based on the literature, we develop a typology of strategies deployed in fake controversies, which include manufacturing uncertainty, misusing scientific credentials, and disregarding scientific literature. Afterwards, we examine the influence of this group of contrarians at the National Congress. We then analyze the fake controversies promoted by these contrarians and argue that, to properly understand them, we need to consider a strategy so far overlooked in the literature: the manufacture of "pseudo-facts", namely, affirmations at odds with the established literature but that strives to appear as scientific facts. Unlike other contexts, in which contrarians have mainly sought to cast doubt on consensual issues by arguing that there are still considerable uncertainties surrounding them, in Brazil pseudo-facts on deforestation have been produced and published outside the peer-reviewed literature. We conclude the study with recommendations on how to oppose fake scientific controversies that threaten environmental conservation in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Land reform settlements (LRS) in the Brazilian Amazon have been suggested to hold promise for the successful implementation of incipient efforts to reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). However, differences in forest cover, deforestation behaviour and settler welfare plus the inevitable overlap of upcoming REDD efforts with existing conservation policies, mean that scope and impact of REDD in LRS will not be uniform across settlements. Based on evidence from a case study of four LRS and a Brazilian Amazon regional analysis of opportunity costs, this paper explores the actual scope for targeting initial Brazilian REDD efforts to LRS and discusses potential welfare and equity implications based on scenario analysis. While our findings confirm considerable economic scope for compensation-based schemes for avoided degradation and deforestation, the pre-existence of legal use right limitations in combination with the distribution of forest cover among LRS means that less than half of settlements – poorer – will be able to derive economic gains. Exploring a mix between incentives and disincentives seems to offer the most promising future regarding efficiency and equity successful results. The paper concludes with the implications of the results in the international debate on the constraints ahead to implement the REDD principles. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]