IPAM - Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia

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25 de Novembro de 2011

The Amazon (and REDD) at the Crossroads:  A New Article

IPAM

Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is now 2/3’s lower than the average rate for 1996 through 2005. Several forces could reverse these gains, however. The profitability of forest conversion to cropland is increasing with the price of soy and other commodities, the long-awaited REDD price signal for forest carbon is in doubt, and the prospect of a substantially weakened Forest Code threatens to unleash a wave of new deforestation.  The Brazilian Amazon region is at a major crossroads, and with it the world’s shining example that it is possible to lower greenhouse gas emissions through REDD.

In a new article, “Systemic Conservation, REDD, and the Future of the Amazon Basin”, three scientists (Nepstad, McGrath, Soares Filho) with several six decades of experience studying the Amazon region present a retrospective of the last six years and two plausible scenarios of the Amazon region in 2020.  In a scenario of “accelerated frontier expansion”, the gains of the last six years are lost, deforestation rates go up, a widespread forest dieback sets in through a vicious cycle of drought and fire, and large-scale infra-structure projects disrupt the fisheries and flows of the region’s mighty rivers.  In an alternative pathway of “low emission rural development”, REDD takes root through emerging compliance markets (e.g. with California) and linkages with agricultural commodity market reform, and rapidly evolves into a new model of “low emission” rural development.  Low emission rural development is reinforced by advances in frontier governance, by a Basin-wide plan for managing the dieback, by co-management systems for managing fisheries and forests, and through alternatives to hydro-electric energy generation.

 

To access this article: http://www.ipam.org.br/biblioteca?arquivo=2011

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