TY - JOUR

T1 - Why Brazil needs its Legal Reserves

AU - Metzger, J.P.

AU - Bustamante, M.M.C.

AU - Ferreira, J.

AU - Fernandes, G.W.

AU - Librán-Embid, F.

AU - Pillar, V.D.

AU - Prist, P.R.

AU - Rodrigues, R.R.

AU - Vieira, I.C.G.

AU - Overbeck, G.E.

N1 - Funding information: We thank Sidinei M. Thomaz, Kaline de Mello, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful revision of the manuscript. We further thank members of the Coalizão Ciência e Sociedade for valuable discussion, and ABECO (Associação Brasileira de Ciência Ecológica e Conservação) for supporting this publication. JPM ( 305484/2017-6 ), MMCB ( 307768/2017-1 ), JF ( 307788/2017-2 ), GWF ( 423358/2016-9 ), VDP ( 307689/2014-0 ), ICGV ( 308778/2017-0 ) and GEO ( 310345/2018-9 ) acknowledge CNPq productivity grants. RRR (grant 2013/50718-5 ) and PRP (grants 2017/11666-0 and 2018/23364-1 ) thank FAPESP . JF ( 441659/2016-0 ) and VDP ( 441570/2016-0 ) received funding within the CNPq PELD program. GWF thanks CNPq and FAPEMIG for research grants. VDP acknowledges a Nexus research grant from CNPq ( 441280/2017-0 ). FLE acknowledges support by the German Research Association (DFG) Research Training Group 1644 “Scaling Problems in Statistics”, grant no. 152112243 . 2017/11666-0 and 2018/23364-1 ) We thank Sidinei M. Thomaz, Kaline de Mello, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful revision of the manuscript. We further thank members of the Coaliz?o Ci?ncia e Sociedade for valuable discussion, and ABECO (Associa??o Brasileira de Ci?ncia Ecol?gica e Conserva??o) for supporting this publication. JPM (305484/2017-6), MMCB (307768/2017-1), JF (307788/2017-2), GWF (423358/2016-9), VDP (307689/2014-0), ICGV (308778/2017-0) and GEO (310345/2018-9) acknowledge CNPq productivity grants. RRR (grant 2013/50718-5) and PRP (grants 2017/11666-0 and 2018/23364-1) thank FAPESP. JF (441659/2016-0) and VDP (441570/2016-0) received funding within the CNPq PELD program. GWF thanks CNPq and FAPEMIG for research grants. VDP acknowledges a Nexus research grant from CNPq (441280/2017-0). FLE acknowledges support by the German Research Association (DFG) Research Training Group 1644 ?Scaling Problems in Statistics?, grant no. 152112243. 2017/11666-0 and 2018/23364-1)

PY - 2019/8/22

Y1 - 2019/8/22

N2 - Brazil's environmental legislation obliges private properties to retain a fixed proportion of their total area with native vegetation, the so-called “Legal Reserves”. Those areas represent practically one third of the country's native vegetation and are well known for their role in biodiversity protection and in the provisioning of a wide range of ecosystem services for landowners and society. Despite their relevance, this instrument has been criticized by part of the agribusiness sector and its representatives in the Brazilian Congress. The Legal Reserve requirement is said to be too restrictive and to impede the full expansion of agricultural activities, and thus to be detrimental for the development of the country. Here, we critically analyze the arguments employed in the justification of a recently proposed bill that aims to completely extinguish Legal Reserves. We demonstrate that the arguments used are mostly unsupported by data, evidence or theory, besides being based on illogical reasoning. Further, we synthesize the principal benefits of Legal Reserves, including health and economic benefits, and emphasize the importance of these reserves for water, energy, food, and climate securities, in addition to their primary function of assisting in the maintenance of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. We also highlight that Legal Reserves are a key-component for effective and less expensive nature-based solutions, and thus should be considered as assets for the development of Brazil rather than liabilities. Based on available sound scientific evidence and agreement on their relevance, we strongly oppose any attempt to extinguish or weaken the maintenance of Brazil's Legal Reserves.

AB - Brazil's environmental legislation obliges private properties to retain a fixed proportion of their total area with native vegetation, the so-called “Legal Reserves”. Those areas represent practically one third of the country's native vegetation and are well known for their role in biodiversity protection and in the provisioning of a wide range of ecosystem services for landowners and society. Despite their relevance, this instrument has been criticized by part of the agribusiness sector and its representatives in the Brazilian Congress. The Legal Reserve requirement is said to be too restrictive and to impede the full expansion of agricultural activities, and thus to be detrimental for the development of the country. Here, we critically analyze the arguments employed in the justification of a recently proposed bill that aims to completely extinguish Legal Reserves. We demonstrate that the arguments used are mostly unsupported by data, evidence or theory, besides being based on illogical reasoning. Further, we synthesize the principal benefits of Legal Reserves, including health and economic benefits, and emphasize the importance of these reserves for water, energy, food, and climate securities, in addition to their primary function of assisting in the maintenance of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. We also highlight that Legal Reserves are a key-component for effective and less expensive nature-based solutions, and thus should be considered as assets for the development of Brazil rather than liabilities. Based on available sound scientific evidence and agreement on their relevance, we strongly oppose any attempt to extinguish or weaken the maintenance of Brazil's Legal Reserves.

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Ecosystem services

KW - Human well-being

KW - Native Vegetation Protection Law

KW - Natural capital

KW - Natural vegetation

KW - Nature-based solution

KW - Sustainability

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070917897&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.pecon.2019.07.002

DO - 10.1016/j.pecon.2019.07.002

M3 - Article

VL - 17

SP - 91

EP - 103

JO - Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation

JF - Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation

IS - 3

ER -