Resumen de The impact of commodity price and conservation policy scenarios on deforestation and agricultural land use in a frontier area within the Amazon
René Verburg, Saulo Rodrigues-Filho, Diego Lindoso, Nathan Debortoli, Gabriela Litre, Marcel Bursztyn
Deforestation in the Amazon is caused by the complex interplay of different drivers. Price of commoditiessuch as beef and soya, and incoming migration are paramount factors. Construction of new highways is akey aspect, as they enable a growing flow of people and economic activities, provoking an intensification ofthe conversion of forests into pasture and agricultural areas. The pavement of road BR-163 accelerates theexpansion of the agricultural frontier from the state of Mato Grosso to Pará, inside the Amazon. Today, theBrazilian government applies two main kinds of policies to protect the environment. First by establishingconservation units (CUs) that include an array of reserve types from natural areas to indigenous lands,and second by enforcing the Forest Code (FC), a law that limits the occupation and use of forests. Legalreserve requirements for rural properties are 80% in the Amazon rainforest, 35% in the Cerrado shrublandsand 20% in other regions. However, the effectiveness of these policies relies on a fragile institutionalcapacity, which causes a flawed monitoring, law enforcement and control. To assess the impact of effectiveconservation policies on land use and deforestation by 2020, we used the LUSMAPA model in combinationwith two scenarios, one that included different commodity price developments and migration rates andone on the assumption of the institutional strength to uphold the conservation policies. A revision of theFC from an average 80% policy target to 60% effective implementation and disregard borders of CUs byallowing 5% deforestation in CUs, that both corresponds to a "weak" governmental enforcement, leadsto additional deforestation of 41-57%, depending on the commodity price scenario. The results of thesimulations are discussed in the light of recent policy changes in Brazil.
