The SimPeru model is a specialized tool designed to address deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. It relies on statistical analysis of environmental and physical variables to predict where deforestation is likely to occur up to 2030. SimPeru also calculates deforestation emissions, making it a valuable resource for policymakers and researchers. By inputting the expected amount of deforestation, the model provides insight into where it may occur and estimates the resulting emissions.
Tag: deforestation
The mixed impacts of peer punishments on common-pool resources: Multi-country experimental evidence
The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus), while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts.
Cocoa, livelihoods, and deforestation within the Tridom landscape in the Congo Basin: A spatial analysis
In the context of emerging international trade regulations on deforestation-free commodities, the drivers of households’ deforestation in conservation landscapes are of interest. The role of households’ livelihood strategies including cocoa production, and the effects of human-elephant conflict are investigated. Using a unique dataset from a survey of 1035 households in the Tridom landscape in the Congo basin, the spatial autoregressive model shows that: (1) Households imitate the deforestation decisions of their neighbors; (2) A marginally higher income from cocoa production-based livelihood portfolios is associated with six to seven times higher deforestation compared to other livelihood strategies with a significant spillover effect on neighboring households’ deforestation. The increase in income, mainly from cocoa production-based livelihoods in open-access systems can have a negative effect on forests. Households with a higher share of auto-consumption are associated with lower deforestation. If economic development brings better market access and lower auto-consumption shares, this is likely to positively influence deforestation. Without proper land use planning/zoning associated with incentives, promoting sustainable agriculture, such as complex cocoa agroforestry systems, may lead to forest degradation and deforestation.
Making conservation incentives work for Indigenous People and local communities: Insights and recommendations from Peru
Key messages
- Achieving global climate goals requires mutually beneficial partnerships between states, Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP&LCs).
- Conservation incentives present implementation challenges and can result in potential conflicts, injustices, gender inequality, and loss of cultural values for IP&LCs.
- Peru’s Conditional Direct Transfers illustrate the risks and benefits that come with incentive programmes for IP&LCs, with some best practice lessons for those implementing similar programmes.
- Participatory decision making, supporting community administrative capacity, data sharing, and inclusion strategies will facilitate transparent, mutually beneficial partnerships with IP&LCs.
- An effective integrated approach requires collaboration between different institutions, government offices, and local, regional, and national experts.
REDD+ organisational arrangements and potential for sectoral integration: Evidence from Cameroon
The organisational arrangements of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism have been scrutinised for their capacity to support emissions reduction and promote local stakeholder participation. Yet, whether they facilitate REDD+ integration into land use sectors driving deforestation has received little attention. We assess the potential of the organisational arrangements of the Cameroonian REDD+ scheme to support sectoral integration. We draw on analysis of documentary material and conceptual literature on organisational structures for environmental integration, which distinguishes horizontal and vertical integration mechanisms with distinct features and potentials to foster integration. Our analysis reveals that the Cameroonian REDD+ scheme chaired by the environmental department and featuring a multisectoral steering committee aligns with horizontal integration. Such arrangements would infuse the REDD+ mechanism with the technical expertise of the leading department, but expose REDD+ integration to sectoral resistance and funding challenges because of the limited institutional leverage of the environmental department. The organisational reforms proposed by the national REDD+ strategy featuring the Prime Minister’s leadership of the REDD+ process might enhance political support for REDD+ integration, but could expose REDD+ development to the vagaries of political shifts. We propose a hybrid organisational arrangement combining horizontal and vertical integration mechanisms, with the potential to minimise their respective weaknesses, maximise their strengths, and enhance REDD+ integration into land-use sectors. We recommend further feasibility analyses into the applicability of the proposed arrangement to other settings.
Tocantins, Brazil: Low-emission rural development (LED-R) at a glance
- Newest Brazilian state, located in the Tocantins-Araguaia Hydrographic Region (largest watershed entirely within Brazilian territory)
- Comprised of Amazon (13%) & Cerrado (87%) biomes, each with distinct environmental policies & governance
- Part of NE Brazil’s MATOPIBA region: agricultural frontier of Cerrado spanning Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, & Bahia states
- Agriculture & ranching represent majority of land use; private landowners active in soy & livestock sectors influence local & national politics
- 2008-2017: 947,287 ha of natural forest converted to soy & livestock areas
- 3rd ranking state in terms of number of contracts under the national Low-Carbon Agriculture Plan (ABC), with 784 contracts (signed 2018-2019) totaling ~USD 44 million in finance
Amapá, Brazil: Low-emission rural development (LED-R) at a glance
- Historically lowest deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, with zero deforestation during Brazil’s REDD+ baseline period (1996-2005) – low priority of federal government & international donors for investments in REDD+ activities due to high forest/low deforestation (HFLD) status
- 73% (~10 million ha) of state under protection (Conservation Units [UCs] or Indigenous Territories)
- Increasing production of soy for exportation in Cerrado biome (7% of state territory): 200% increase in area planted with soybeans from 2013-2016 (~150 km2 in 2016); projected to reach 4000 km2 by 2026
- Historically low pressure on forests creates opportunity for development of forest sector (e.g., sustainable timber exploration & extractive production)
The pluriversality of efforts to reduce deforestation in Brazil over the past decade: An analysis of policy actors’ perceptions
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.
REDD+ achievements and challenges in Brazil: Perceptions over time (2015-2019)
Key messages
- This Infobrief examines and discusses REDD+ achievements and challenges in Brazil for the period 2015–2019, reflecting the opinions of relevant actors within the REDD+ policy domain in the country.
- Over time, REDD+ initiatives have promoted changes in Brazilian political articulation, funding possibilities and mobilization of civil society, and brought more visibility to the importance of combating deforestation and forest degradation within the country.
- In terms of practical implementation, the national REDD+ framework is still quite limited.
- Further development of the national REDD+ strategy is a considerable challenge for Brazil, as it is becoming clearer that the current national political rhetoric does not consider fighting and controlling deforestation and climate change as government priorities.
- Several major challenges exist because weak forest resource governance, poor enforcement of the environmental legislation, social inequalities, land use conflicts, and lack of political commitment remain in the country’s profile. However, international pressure on Brazil to stop deforestation might provide an opportunity for those actors who until now had little presence in the REDD+ political arena.
What happens after conservation payments stop? Key findings from REDD+ in Brazil
Key messages
- We assess the impacts of a REDD+ project that paid smallholders to reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, during and after payments.
- We find that payments were effective at reducing deforestation, but only while they were ongoing.
- After payments had ended, deforestation resumed, but not at a rate that eliminated previous forest conservation outcomes.
- Deforestation reductions required payments, but the environmental gains lasted.