The Role of Private Reserves of Natural Heritage (RPPN) on natural vegetation dynamics in Brazilian biomes

Fábio Gabriel Nascibem, Ramon Felipe Bicudo Da Silva, Alessandra Aparecida Viveiro and Oswaldo Gonçalves Junior

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 132, issue C

Abstract: Despite having the richest biodiversity in the world, Brazil has lost vegetation cover in all biomes, with the agribusiness being an important driver of such changes. Different governance systems, decentralized actions and public policies have been developed to control deforestation, and in this study, we focus on the role of Private Reserves of Natural Heritage (RPPN) as an instrument for the conservation and recovery of natural vegetation. Therefore, we raise the following questions: How many RPPNs are there and what are their spatial distribution? Are RPPNs an important mean of conservation/restoration of Brazilian biomes? Do they contribute (at statistically significant levels) to the conservation of natural vegetation within their respective rural properties compared with rural properties without private reserves? Thus, we investigated the natural vegetation cover (between 1990 and 2018) in rural properties with and without RPPNs looking at the municipalities where RPPNs are found, and analyzing the results at country and biome levels. The results indicate that RPPNs are significantly associated with gains in natural vegetation cover in the Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Forest biomes. We conclude that RPPNs have great potential in recovering natural landscapes associated to the Brazilian biomes. However, their few numbers across the Brazilian territory (1750 units of RPPN) and spatially highly concentrated in the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest, challenges the capacity of this conservation strategy to deal with the environmental degradation promoted by the expansion of economics activities across the country.

Keywords: Decentralized governance; Biodiversity; Conservation unit; Land-use and management; Forest recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:132:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723002867

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106820

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