Science
25 April 2014 vol 344, issue 6182, pages 333-440
http://www.sciencemag.org/current.dtl
Policy Forum
Land Use – Cracking Brazil’s Forest Code
Britaldo Soares-Filho, Raoni Rajão, Marcia Macedo, Arnaldo Carneiro, William Costa, Michael Coe, Hermann Rodrigues, and Ane Alencar
Science 25 April 2014: 363-364.
Brazil’s controversial new Forest Code grants amnesty to illegal deforesters, but creates new mechanisms for forest conservation.
Summary
Roughly 53% of Brazil’s native vegetation occurs on private properties. Native forests and savannahs on these lands store 105 ± 21 GtCO2e (billion tons of CO2 equivalents) and play a vital role in maintaining a broad range of ecosystem services (1). Sound management of these private landscapes is critical if global efforts to mitigate climate change are to succeed. Recent approval of controversial revisions to Brazil’s Forest Code (FC)—the central piece of legislation regulating land use and management on private properties—may therefore have global consequences. Here, we quantify changes resulting from the FC revisions in terms of environmental obligations and rights granted to land-owners. We then discuss conservation opportunities arising from new policy mechanisms in the FC and challenges for its implementation.