Land Use Change in Amazonia: Institutional analysis and modeling at multiple temporal and spatial scales

Gilberto Câmara, Ana Aguiar, Roberto Araújo, Patrícia Pinho, Luciano Dutra, Corina Freitas, Sidnei Sant’Anna, Leila Fonseca, Isabel Escada, Silvana Amaral, Pedro Andrade-Neto(Earth System Science Centre, INPE)

FAPESP Climate Change Program Workshop 2011

source: Global Land Project Science Plan (IGBP)

Nature, 29 July 2010

Nature, 29 July 2010

Brazil is the world’s current largest experiment on land change and its effects: will it also happen elsewhere?

Today’s questions about Brazil could be tomorrow’s questions for other countries

Brazil is the world’s current largest experiment on land change and its effects: will it also happen elsewhere?

Today’s questions about Brazil could be tomorrow’s questions for other countries

Where will large-scale land change take place?

source: The Economist

Forests and food production: potential conflicts

Impact of land change in Brazil’s emissions

“By 2020, Brazil will reduce deforestation by 80% relative to 2005.” (pres. Lula in Copenhagen COP-15)

Market impact of deforestation reduction in Brazil

EU-15 reduction 2005-202020% of 1990 levels

Avoided def Brazil 2005-2020

From 2005 to 2020, avoided deforestation by Brazil would be 2/3 of the total proposed EU-15 cuts

7,7 Gt CO2eq4,9 Gt CO2eq

What caused the reduction of deforestation in Amazonia?

Markets? Credit crunch? Coercion? Institutional arrangments?

Markets? Credit crunch? Coercion? Institutional arrangments?

Policing actions: illegal wood seizure

50% of operations in 2% of the area

Markets have a positive rôle

The Brazilian Amazon has different institutional arrangements that influence the spatial and temporal patterns of deforestation.

Working hypothesis

Tragedy of the Commons?

Everybody’s property is nobody’s property (Hardin)

Is the tragedy of the commons inevitable?

Experiments show that cooperation emerges if virtuous interactions exist

source: Novak, May and Sigmund (Scientific American, 1995)

Common pool resources (Elinor Ostrom)

The ultimate common pool resource

Governing the commons:institutional arrangments

[Ostrom, Science, 2005]

Elinor Ostrom on governing the commons

“Neither the state nor the market is uniformly successful in enabling individuals to sustain long-term, productive use of natural resource systems.”

What are institutional arrangements?

Araújo and Aguiar , forthcoming

Agreements between private and public organizations about rules of use of common pool resources.

Institutional analysis in Amazonia

Identify different agents and try to model their actions

Field work Land change patterns

Land change modelsUrban networks

PDS (Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável)PAC (Projeto de Assentamento Coletivo)

PA (Projeto de Assentamento)PAE (Proj. Assentamento Agro-extrativista)

Terras Indígenas

UC Proteção Integral

Amazonia is a mosaic of land units

Current situation in Amazonia

Araújo e Aguiar (forthcoming)

Tension between different ways of access to market and natural resources, land tenure regimes (private and public/collective) and political forces.

PA 279

Transamazônica

Baixo Amazonas

Pará State

Brazilian Amazonia

Deforestation

Forest

Non-forest vegeration

Clouds/no data

INPE/PRODES 2005:

BR 163

Lower Amazonas and Transamazônica

PDS E

SPERANCAINCRA: 207 Land Settlements SFB: National forests concession and common land management

Mapping trajectories of changeMapas de Padrões

Érika Saito

2006

Trajetórias

Land use change model

Beef and milk market chain model

Small farmers

Medium and largefarmers

Small farmers

Medium and largefarmers

Landscapemetrics model

Pasture degradation

model

Several workshops to define model rules and variables

Landscape model: different rules for two main types of agents

Landscape model: different rules of behavior at different partitions which also change in time

FRENTE

MEIO

RETAGUARDA

Forest

Not ForestDeforest

River

FRONT

MIDDLE

BACK

SÃO FÉLIX DO XINGU - 2006

Modeling results 97 to 2006

Observed 97 to 2006