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Cattle ranching in Brazil is a key driver of deforestation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Brazilian government plans to reduce national GHG emissions by at least 36%, partly by reducing emissions in the livestock sector through strategies such as intensification, pasture improvement, and rotational grazing. In response, sustainability programs promoting these practices have begun operation. Though studies have previously investigated aspects of GHG emissions and sequestration in improved pastures, they have not linked improvements with programmatic interventions. We surveyed 40 cattle ranchers located in the Brazilian Amazon biome to investigate how GHG emissions differed between farms participating in livestock sustainability programs with intensified production and farms not participating in these programs. We found that participating farms produced 8.3 kg of CO 2 e/kg of carcass weight (CW) less than did non-participating farms, which represents 19% fewer emissions. Farms that had participated in a sustainability program for at least two years showed larger differences in emissions: 19.0 kg of CO 2 e/kg CW less for program farms compared with their counterparts, or 35.8% fewer emissions. Key drivers of the total CO 2 e/kg CW in all farms were enteric fermentation and manure management. This paper provides farm-level data supporting intensification as a possible strategy to reduce emissions per kilogram of beef produced, and suggests that future research efforts should focus on long-term impacts of intensification and expand metrics for success beyond GHG calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working lands are an attractive solution for conservation in the conterminous United States where 76% of area is privately owned. Conservation of private lands often relies on participation in temporary incentive-based programs. As incentives expire landowners make decisions that determine whether environmental benefits continue. In the U.S., the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts for 10–15 years to replant ~90–140.5 thousand km2 of cropland back to grassland. Temporary set-aside programs, such as CRP, are implemented with minimal planning to retain durable investments after payments end. We used known fate models and remotely-sensed cropland layers to estimate durability of CRP after contract expiration and to identify areas of greater predicted durability. The durability of conservation through CRP is the probability of continued provision of grass cover after incentive-based payments have ended. We expected durability would vary among landscapes and regions. Overall, 58% (SE = 0.40) of expired fields remained in grassland. However, durability ranged widely (36–76%) across six U.S. states for 13,231 contracts that expired in 2007. Reversion to cropland increased for CRP grasslands with an inherently high tillage risk, in more northerly regions, and for larger fields including those surrounded by cropland. Temporally, conversion was prevalent within five years of contract expiration, during years with higher corn prices, and in wetter years. Findings provide guidance for allocating CRP contracts in areas where grassland conservation benefits may be maximized and where transition from set-aside programs to working grasslands may promote durability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global shifts in climate patterns and human land use practices have exacerbated the process of desertification in xeric grasslands of the continent. Although a formidable task to address these broad scale changes to grasslands, we use a bioindicator of the Southern Great Plains, the lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) to deliver conservation triage. We outline an approach to improve the conservation of the prairies but perhaps save an imperiled species dependent upon such landscapes. We focus our efforts on removal of honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) as one method to improve ecosystem function, but we use the ecology of the lesser prairie-chicken to target conservation efforts. We modeled the occurrence of lesser prairie-chicken leks (i.e., breeding arenas, n = 711 from 2002 to 2012) and quantify the areas that will likely provide the greatest ecological return on conservation investment. Our models indicated that lesser prairie-chickens exhibited strong avoidance in the presence of low density mesquite. Combining ecological response of the vegetation and species needs, we identify that treating low density mesquite provides the most cost-effective first step in addressing this threat to prairie-ecosystems. We suggest using bioindicator species could target conservation efforts to slow the tide of desertification in other regions of the globe. • Highlights of Slowing the tide of mesquite invasion: using a bioindicator species to deliver conservation triage. • Lesser prairie-chickens exhibited strong avoidance of low density mesquite. • Lesser prairie-chickens exhibited strong avoidance of uniformly distributed mesquite. • Treating low density mesquite is a cost-effective first step in prairie restoration. • These treatments may lead to larger ecosystem service benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]