Publications

There is hope for achieving ambitious Atlantic Forest restoration commitments

by Ana Castro 04/06/2019 0

Achieving ambitious global restoration commitments is a huge challenge. The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, created in 2009 as a movement to restore 15M ha of degraded/deforested lands by 2050, pledged 1M ha towards the 2020 Bonn Challenge. We documented the restoration of an estimated 673,510–740,555ha of native forests from 2011 to 2015 in the Atlantic Forest, and expect that a total of 1.35–1.48M ha will be under recovery by 2020. The Pact is one of the first Brazilian restoration initiatives to monitor an international restoration commitment and to demonstrate that ambitious targets can be reached. Part of this success in large -scale restoration is related to three main Pact activities: (i) development of restoration governance, communication and articulation;(ii) promotion of strategies to influence public policies; and (iii) establishment of restoration monitoring systems. The experience and lessons learned by the Pact could inspire and inform other restoration initiatives worldwide.

Soil erosion as a resilience drain in disturbed tropical forests

by Ana Castro 13/05/2019 0

Tropical forests are threatened by intensifying natural and anthropogenic disturbance regimes. Disturbances reduce tree cover and leave the organic topsoil vulnerable to erosion processes, but when resources are still abundant forests usually recover. Across the tropics, variation in rainfall erosivity – a measure of potential soil exposure to water erosion – indicates that soils in the wetter regions would experience high erosion rates if they were not protected by tree cover. However, twenty-first-century global land cover data reveal that in wet South America tropical tree cover is decreasing and bare soil area is increasing. Here we address the role of soil erosion in a positive feedback mechanism that may persistently alter the functioning of disturbed tropical forests. Based on an extensive literature review, we propose a conceptual model in which soil erosion reinforces disturbance effects on tropical forests, reducing their resilience with time and increasing their likelihood of being trapped in an alternative vegetation state that is persistently vulnerable to erosion. We present supporting field evidence from two distinct forests in central Amazonia that have been repeatedly disturbed. Overall, the strength of the erosion feedback depends on disturbance types and regimes, as well as on local environmental conditions, such as topography, flooding, and soil fertility. As disturbances intensify in tropical landscapes, we argue that the erosion feedback may help to explain why certain forests persist in a degraded state and often undergo critical functional shifts.

Strategic approaches to restoring ecosystems can triple conservation gains and halve costs

by Ana Castro 17/12/2018 0

International commitments for ecosystem restoration add up to one-quarter of the world’s arable land. Fulfilling them would ease global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity decline but could displace food production and impose financial costs on farmers. Here, we present a restoration prioritization approach capable of revealing these synergies and trade-offs, incorporating ecological and economic efficiencies of scale and modelling specific policy options. Using an actual large-scale restoration target of the Atlantic Forest hotspot, we show that our approach can deliver an eightfold increase in cost-effectiveness for biodiversity conservation compared with a baseline of non-systematic restoration. A compromise solution avoids 26% of the biome’s current extinction debt of 2,864 plant and animal species (an increase of 257% compared with the baseline). Moreover, this solution sequesters 1 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent (a 105% increase) while reducing costs by US$28 billion (a 57% decrease).

Limiting the high impacts of Amazon forest dieback with no-regrets science and policy action

by Ana Castro 06/11/2018 0

Researchers reviewed published studies on the Amazonian savannalization hypothesis, which predicts deep changes in the world’s largest rainforest due to climate change, and reported that without taking any action, the estimated costs of socio-economic damage to the region 30 after savannisation would range from $ 957 billion to $ 3.589 billion, while the estimated cost of preventive actions would range between $ 64.2 billion and $ 122 billion, a substantially lower estimate than damage estimates; however, the authors note that while the effectiveness of mitigation measures to avoid savannization – including reduced deforestation – remains uncertain, the adaptation actions proposed in the study would be beneficial, even if this savannization never occurs, according to the published Perspective in the scientific journal PNAS.

Searching for solutions for the conflict over Europe’s oldest forest

by Ana Castro 11/10/2018 0

Logging of Europe’s oldest forest, Białowieża Forest in Poland, has recently been suspended, likely driven by the European Court of Justice decision to impose fines of 100 000 euros per day, if clearing of the old stands continues. Although this is perceived as a victory of environmental activists over the Polish Forestry Sector, both sides claim to act in the best societal interest, backed up by the best science available. The near future of Białowieża Forest remains uncertain The dispute over Białowieża Forest is a typical conflict of interests represented by different stakeholders: environmentalists, scientists, local government, foresters and local business owners, and is related to value perception. We also highlight the financial aspect of the conflict and discuss how impacts on tourism may have far reaching consequences not only for the local population of Białowieża region, but also for the provision of worldwide-important ecosystem services such as unique biodiversity protection.

Ecosystem services availability after changes in the land use and vegetation coverage: the case of Paraíba do Sul river valley

by Ana Castro 03/10/2018 0

Agnieszka Latawiec and Aline Rodrigues are the authors of the chapter “Ecosystem services availability after changes in the land use and vegetation coverage: the case of Paraíba do Sul river valley”, from the book Geography of coffee in the Paraíba do Sul River Valley. The work presents reflections, studies and proposals for revitalization and sustainability for the Paraíba valley region, traversing the history of the coffee passage through the Paraíba River Valley and showing both the geographic and historical environmental view as well as the ecological and social costs incurred in the period.

Look down— there is a gap— the need to include soil data in Atlantic Forest restoration

by Ana Castro 20/09/2018 0

Consideration of soil quality indicators is fundamental for understanding and managing ecosystems. Despite the evidence regarding the importance of soil for provision of local and global ecosystem services, such as water regulation and carbon sequestration, soil remains an under-investigated and undermined aspect of the environment. Here we evaluate to what extent soil indicators are taken into account in restoration. We focused on the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a highly fragmented biome and a global biodiversity hotspot. We conducted a systematic literature review and we showed that the majority (59%) of the studies on restoration did not consider any soil indicator. Studies that demonstrated the importance of soil indicators most commonly reported soil pH (71%, n=44), followed by potassium content (66%, n=41) and phosphorus (64.5%, n=40), while the least reported indicator was water retention (6.5%, n=4). Only 40% of the retrieved studies included information about reference sites or project baseline information. We complement our literature review with a case study on restoration in two areas of the Atlantic Forest. We found a relation between soil indicators such as soil organic matter, nitrogen, sodium and sand content, and aboveground indicators, confirming a necessity to include soil screening in restoration. Moreover, we found that prior to restoration none of these soil indicators were analyzed. This study highlights the gap that exists in soil data in restoration in studies on the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We urge scientists and practitioners to include basic soil analysis to maximize the successful outcomes of restoration.

Evaluating the impact of future actions in minimizing vegetation loss from land conversion in the Brazilian Cerrado under climate change

by Ana Castro 19/09/2018 0

The global network of protected areas (PAs) is systematically biased towards remote and unproductive places. Consequently, the processes threatening biodiversity are not halted and conservation impact—defined as the beneficial environmental outcomes arising from protection relative to the counterfactual of no intervention—is smaller than previously thought. Yet, many conservation plans still target species’ representation, which can fail to lead to impact by not considering the threats they face, such as land conversion and climate change. Here we aimed to identify spatial conservation priorities that minimize the risk of land conversion, while retaining sites with high value for threatened plants at risk from climate change in the Brazilian Cerrado. We compared a method of sequential implementation of conservation actions to a static strategy applied at one time-step. For both schedules of conservation actions, we applied two methods for setting priorities: (i) minimizing expected habitat conversion and prioritizing valuable sites for threatened plants (therefore maximizing conservation impact), and (ii) prioritizing sites based only on their value for threatened plants, regardless of their vulnerability to land conversion (therefore maximizing representation). We found that scenarios aimed at maximizing conservation impact reduced total vegetation loss, while still covering large proportions of species’ ranges inside PAs and priority sites. Given that planning to avoid vegetation loss provided these benefits, vegetation information could represent a reliable surrogate for overall biodiversity. Besides allowing for the achievement of two distinct goals (representation and impact), the impact strategies also present

The environmental costs and benefits of high- yield farming

by Ana Castro 14/09/2018 0

How we manage farming and food systems to meet rising demand is pivotal to the future of biodiversity. Extensive field data suggest that impacts on wild populations would be greatly reduced through boosting yields on existing farmland so as to spare remaining natural habitats. High-yield farming raises other concerns because expressed per unit area it can generate high levels of externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient losses. However, such metrics underestimate the overall impacts of lower-yield systems. Here we develop a framework that instead compares externality and land costs per unit production. We apply this framework to diverse data sets that describe the externalities of four major farm sectors and reveal that, rather than involving trade-offs, the externality and land costs of alternative production systems can covary positively: per unit production, land-efficient systems often produce lower externalities. For greenhouse gas emissions, these associations become more strongly positive once forgone sequestration is included. Our conclusions are limited: remarkably few studies report externalities alongside yields; many important externalities and farming systems are inadequately measured; and realizing the environmental benefits of high-yield systems typically requires additional measures to limit farmland expansion. Nevertheless, our results suggest that trade-offs among key cost metrics are not as ubiquitous as sometimes perceived

Researcher of CSRio and partners publish article on the relationship between habitat quantity and species richness

by Ana Castro 20/08/2018 0

The paper, recently published in the renowned Biological Conservation, tests the hypothesis of habitat amount when assessing if this the major factor to explain species richness. Robust configuration measures were compared, such as the average isolation of all forest patches within a certain buffer zone – which done in the wrong way, can lead to incorrect conclusions. The work demonstrates that the amount of habitat or average isolation of forest patches, if measured correctly, can explain species richness. According to CSRio´s research Renato Crouzeilles— one of the authors – “the impact of this research is the implications of the results for decision-making on conservation and restoration strategies”.

One more published article from the CSRio team and partners: Best practice for the use of scenarios for restoration planning

by Ana Castro 11/12/2017 0

Scenarios are important tools to facilitate the communication among scientists, practitioners, and decision-makers, and, thus to support policy and management decisions. The use of scenarios has an enormous potential to reduce ecosystem restoration costs and to optimize benefits, but this potential remains poorly explored. Here, we recommend and illustrate six best practices to guide the use of scenarios for planning native ecosystem restoration. We argue, first, for a participatory process to consider aspirations of multiple stakeholders along the whole scenario building process, from planning to implementation and review phases. Second, targeted restoration outcomes should be defined by key-actors (those who have direct interests in restoration) and directly involved stakeholders, within a clear socio-environmental context and under a well-defined problem statement, considering a broad range of nature and human benefits that can be derived from ecosystem restoration. Third, methodological choices, such as scenariotypes, spatial andtemporal scales,drivers,restorationrelatedvariables, andindicators, shouldbedefinedaccording to the multiple desired outcomes. Fourth, we encourage the consideration of the interactions among variables, within a spatially explicit, and temporally dynamic multi-criteria approach. Fifth, analysis and dissemination of scenario results should highlight the trade-offs and synergies among different restoration outcomes, identifying the scenarios that maximize benefits and minimize costs and resistance (i.e. the costeffective and most feasible scenario) for multiple targets. Finally, promoting capacity building, through a wider consultation process including interaction with a broader group of stakeholders, is critical for the successful implementation and review of restoration interventions. Scenarios that support ecosystem restoration should follow an adaptive and iterative process, aiming to continuously improve restoration interventions and outcomes. For additional informations: Renato Crouzeilles – r.crouzeilles@iis-rio.org To read the full article go to: http://www.iis-rio.org/publicacoes or https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351730146X

Researcher at CSRio and colaborators publish the article “Persistent effects of pre-Columbian planting on Amazonian forest composition” in Science in March 2017, receive cquestions and respond through a letter in Science from October 2017

by Ana Castro 27/10/2017 0

In 2017 a group of researchers led by ecologist Carolina Levis (National Institute of Amazonian Research / Wageningen University), among which the CSRio researcher André Junqueira, published an article in Science (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6328/925) showing that the distribution of domesticated species in the Amazon forest is related to past human occupation patterns. A group of researchers sent a reply to the article by Levis et al., in which they raise the possibility that the distribution of domesticated species could result from post- (and not pre-) Columbian human activity. In reply to this criticism, the CSRio researcher André Junqueira and collaborators published a letter in Science. Download the letter here.