Oriana Almeida

The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Government commitments and market transitions lay the foundation for an effort to save the forest and reduce carbon emission. Brazil has two major opportunities to end the clearing of its Amazon forest and to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. The first is its formal announcement within United Nations climate treaty negotiations in 2008 of an Amazon deforestation reduction target, which prompted Norway to commit

Pecuária e desmatamento: uma análise das principais causas diretas do desmatamento na Amazônia

1 billion if it sustains progress toward this target (1). The second is a widespread marketplace transition within the beef and soy industries, the main drivers of deforestation, to exclude Amazon deforesters from their supply chains (2) [supplementary online material (SOM), section (§) 4]. According to our analysis, these recent developments finally make feasible the end of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which could result in a 2 to 5% reduction in global carbon emissions. The

Market Formalization, Governance, and the Integration of Community Fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon

7 to

Forest Transitions in Mosaic Landscapes: Smallholder's Flexibility in Land-Resource Use Decisions and Livelihood Strategies From World War II to the Present in the Amazon Estuary

18 billion beyond Brazils current budget outlays that may be needed to stop the clearing [a range intermediate to previous cost estimates (3, 4)] could be provided by the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism for compensating deforestation reduction that is under negotiation within the UN climate treaty (5), or by payments for tropical forest carbon credits under a U.S. cap-and-trade system (6).

Social Vulnerability to Climatic Shocks Is Shaped by Urban Accessibility

Na Amazonia Brasileira a principal atividade responsavel pelo desmatamento e a pecuaria. Esse trabalho analisa a evolucao das causas imediatas do desmatamento da Amazonia, utilizando-se de regressoes lineares com dados em painel. O modelo avalia a contribuicao dos principais usos do solo na regiao ao desmatamento, de 2000 a 2006. Dados do PRODES de desmatamento, o numero de cabecas bovinas de 782 municipios da Amazonia e area plantada de culturas perenes e temporarias foram utilizados para essa analise. O resultado mostrou que o desmatamento e fortemente correlacionado com a pecuaria. A soja tambem aparece positivamente correlacionada com o desmatamento. Esta tendencia e reforcada pelo crescimento nacional e internacional da demanda de carne. Politicas publicas eficazes para a reducao do desmatamento devem, portanto, agir nas causas subjacentes da expansao da pecuaria reduzindo a forca dos processos que produzem a sua expansao na fronteira do desmatamento.

Integrating Comanagement and Land Tenure Policies for the Sustainable Management of the Lower Amazon Floodplain

A major trend in global trade in forest, animal, and agricultural products is the implementation of importation policies and development of private sector standards and certification mechanisms to promote the sustainable management of natural resources in the countries of origin. In many cases, ensuring sustainable origins involves requirements that small-scale rural producers and fishers cannot meet. This article investigates the formalization of community-based floodplain fisheries in the Brazilian Amazon, including (a) the development of federal and state fisheries management policies, (b) the parallel development of community management systems, and (c) the role of these processes in the evolution of fisheries management in the Lower Amazon region. We argue here that market-oriented solutions, such as third-party certification, are insufficient. Government support for and collaboration with producers and industry are essential to creating conditions that enable fishing communities to sustainably manage their fisheries.

Os mitos do Lago Formoso em Penalva, baixada maranhense: uma estratégia de conservação que desaparece

The question of how smallholders of the Amazon estuary, locally known as cabolcos, have adapted their land use systems to produce resources during booms and busts is analyzed in this article. We draw upon more than 50 years of census data and more than 30 years of remotely sensed land-cover data to reconstruct these dynamics from World War II to the present. We found that smallholders are highly flexible in their land use decisions and livelihood strategies and that such flexibility has helped them to adapt their land-use systems to produce resources in demand during market booms and conserve forests. Smallholder mosaic landscapes contain forest fragments that enhance socioecological resilience to floods and other events produced by changes in the local hydro-climatic regimes due to sea-level rise and other climate-related changes. We argue that flexibility is a tool to reduce livelihood vulnerability by facilitating adaptation to global market and climate driven changes over the long term.

A pesca artesanal a jusante da Usina Hidrelétrica (UHE) de Tucuruí, estado do Pará

Despite growing interest in urban vulnerability to climatic change, there is no systematic understanding of why some urban centers have greater social vulnerability than others. In this article, we ask whether the social vulnerability of Amazonian cities to floods and droughts is linked to differences in their spatial accessibility. To assess the accessibility of 310 urban centers, we developed a travel network and derived measures of connectivity and geographical remoteness. We found that 914,654 people live in roadless urban centers (n = 68) located up to 2,820 km from their state capital. We then tested whether accessibility measures explained interurban differences in quantitative measures of social sensitivity, adaptive capacity, and an overlooked risk area, food system sensitivity. Accessibility explained marked variation in indicators of each of these dimensions and, hence, for the first time, we show an underlying spatial basis for social vulnerability. For instance, floods pose a greater disease risk in less accessible urban centers because inadequate sanitation in these places exposes inhabitants to environmental pollution and contaminated water, exacerbated by poverty and governance failures. Exploring the root causes of these spatial inequalities, we show how remote and roadless cities in Amazonia have been historically marginalized and their citizens exposed to structural violence and economic disadvantage. Paradoxically, we found that places with the highest social vulnerability have the greatest natural and cultural assets (rainforest, indigenous peoples, and protected areas). We conclude that increasing accessibility through road building would be maladaptive, exposing marginalized people to further harm and exacerbating climatic change by driving deforestation.

Impacts of the Comanagement of Subsistence and Commercial Fishing on Amazon Fisheries

The ten years between the first and second conferences have been a time of considerable importance for the conservation of the Amazon varzea based on the comanagement of floodplain resources. This paper describes the development of a regional comanagement system in the Lower Amazon varzea. The comanagement system has grown out of the grassroots movement, known as the “acordos de pesca,” in which floodplain communities asserted control over their traditional lake fisheries. In the 1990s these agreements provided the basis for IBAMA’s development of a community-based comanagement policy for floodplain fisheries. The evolving varzea comanagement system has developed in three phases: (1) IBAMA developed and implemented a fisheries comanagement pollcy in the Santarem region; (2) individual varzea communities and the Public Ministry negotiated agreements, Termos de Ajuste de Conduta (TACS), with local cattle owners to regulate cattle grazing on community grasslands;, and (3) these comanagement agreements were integrated into a more comprehensive land tenure and settlement policy based on the Projeto de Assentamento Agroextractivista (PAEs). Thus far 41 varzea PAEs have been created, including some 13,000 families and covering a total area of 740,000 ha in eight Lower Amazonian municipalities. These PAEs are now in the process of preparing the Utilization and Settlement Development Plans needed to obtain environmental licences. A major long-term investment is needed to take advantage of this process and integrate these PAEs into municipal and regional comanagement institutions.

Financiamento internacional para o setor agroindustrial no Mato Grosso: uma oportunidade para conservação?

Na regiao da Baixada Maranhense, na Amazonia Legal Brasileira, mais particularmente no municipio de Penalva, os Aterrados sao parte importante da paisagem, constituindo ambientes peculiares desta regiao. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo principal levantar e analisar a cultura local relacionada as crencas em entidades encantadas que protegem os Aterrados, e as consequencias da perda ou manutencao dessa cultura em relacao a conservacao desses ambientes. A conclusao e de que a conservacao dos Aterrados e fundamental para o sustento continuado das populacoes locais que mantem suas atividades produtivas e de subsistencia com produtos extraidos desses ambientes. A integracao das comunidades as dinâmicas economicas atuais e um dos fatores que contribuem para a degradacao do meio ambiente e perda cultural.