Actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon

Javier Godar; Toby A. Gardner; E. Jorge Tizado; Pablo Pacheco

doi:10.1073/pnas.1322825111

Edited by Gregory P. Asner, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, and approved September 16, 2014 (received for review January 8, 2014)

Significance

The Brazilian Amazon is at a critical juncture after the recent stabilization of deforestation rates. Identifying opportunities for continued deforestation reductions requires an understanding of the contribution of different actors to overall deforestation. We provide the first such assessment, to our knowledge, that reports on two headline findings. First, between 2004 and 2011, areas dominated by properties larger than 500 ha accounted for 48% of the deforestation compared with only 12% for smallholders (<100 ha). Second, the deforestation share attributed to the largest properties (≥2,500 ha) declined by 63% from a peak in 2005, whereas that of smallholders increased by 69%. Further reductions in deforestation are likely to require a shift toward more incentive-based policies that are tailored toward different actors.

Abstract

Annual deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 77% between 2004 and 2011, yet have stabilized since 2009 at 5,000–7,000 km². We provide the first submunicipality assessment, to our knowledge, of actor-specific contributions to the deforestation slowdown by linking agricultural census and remote-sensing data on deforestation and forest degradation. Almost half (36,158 km²) of the deforestation between 2004 and 2011 occurred in areas dominated by larger properties (>500 ha), whereas only 12% (9,720 km²) occurred in areas dominated by smallholder properties (<100 ha). In addition, forests in areas dominated by smallholders tend to be less fragmented and less degraded. However, although annual deforestation rates fell during this period by 68–85% for all actors, the contribution of the largest landholders (>2,500 ha) to annual deforestation decreased over time (63% decrease between 2005 and 2011), whereas that of smallholders went up by a similar amount (69%) during the same period. In addition, the deforestation share attributable to remote areas increased by 88% between 2009 and 2011. These observations are consistent across the Brazilian Amazon, regardless of geographical differences in actor dominance or socioenvironmental context. Our findings suggest that deforestation policies to date, which have been particularly focused on command and control measures on larger properties in deforestation hotspots, may be increasingly limited in their effectiveness and fail to address all actors equally. Further reductions in deforestation are likely to be increasingly costly and require actor-tailored approaches, including better monitoring to detect small-scale deforestation and a shift toward more incentive-based conservation policies.

Footnotes

↵¹To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: javier.godar{at}sei-international.org.

Author contributions: J.G., T.A.G., and E.J.T. designed research; J.G., T.A.G., and E.J.T. performed research; J.G., T.A.G., and E.J.T. analyzed data; and J.G., T.A.G., E.J.T., and P.P. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1322825111/-/DCSupplemental.

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