Gerd Sparovek

University of São Paulo | USP · Department of Soil Science (LSO)

Agricultural sustainability standards are an important way of reducing commodity expansion's pressures on biodiversity. Despite the increase of global area under certification and mounting evidence of positive socioeconomic outcomes, certification-derived conservation benefits are less clear. We applied a robust counterfactual approach with a diffe...

Ensuring the protection of natural vegetation is a complex challenge that demands a mix of policies. In Brazil, conservation on private land relies on large-scale command-and-control instruments and a few Payments for Ecosystem Services schemes, with taxation playing a minimal role for conservation. The Rural Land Tax (Imposto Territorial Rural, IT...

Falsas controvérsias têm influenciado a elaboração de políticas sobre questões ambientais e de saúde há décadas, resultando em grandes retrocessos na implementação dessas políticas em todo o mundo. Utilizando um estudo de caso, neste artigo são examinadas falsas controvérsias produzidas por um pequeno grupo de pesquisadores brasileiros que têm afet...

Fake controversies have influenced policy making on health and environmental issues for decades, resulting in major implementation setbacks worldwide. As a case study, in this paper we examine fake controversies produced by a small group of active Brazilian researchers that have seriously impacted environmental conservation, particularly in issues...

Natural ecosystems are under severe threat worldwide and environmental policies are essential to minimize present and future impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate change. The New Forest Act in Brazil is the main policy to protect native vegetation in private lands, which comprise 54% of the remaining Brazilian native vegetation. H...

Esta avaliação traz uma série de textos cuidadosamente elaborados por inúmeros autores e instituições para compor um quadro oportuno sobre a implementação do atual Código Florestal Brasileiro (Lei nº 12.651/2012) e seus avanços de 2017 a 2020. Ela dá continuidade à publicação anterior referente ao período 2012–2016, fazendo um balanço completo desd...

Native vegetation in private lands plays an important role in providing ecosystem services and safeguarding biodiversity worldwide. Legal protection rules of this vegetation are thus crucial. In Brazil, since 1934, there has been a requirement for landowners to preserve a percentage of their land covered with native vegetation, the Legal Reserve. H...

Consumer countries and blocs, including the UK and the EU, are defining legal measures to tackle deforestation linked to commodity imports, potentially requiring imported goods to comply with the relevant producer countries’ land-use laws. Nonetheless, this measure is insufficient to address global deforestation. Using Brazil’s example of a key exp...

Science-based stakeholder dialogue is a strategy to bring science closer to decision-making with increasing importance for the design of environmental policies. The need for such an approximation has been stressed, but documented implementations are rare. We present our experience of developing a science-based dialogue for the Brazilian Forest Code...

Although offsetting schemes may avoid biodiversity loss, the implementation of these schemes can be challenging, given the difficulty of balancing biodiversity benefits with the resulting increase in compensation costs. Here we have developed a novel offsetting methodological approach to balance environmental gains and land availability to support...

Consumer countries and blocs, including the UK and the EU, are defining legal measures to tackle deforestation linked to commodity imports, potentially requiring imported goods to comply with the relevant producer countries’ land-use laws. Nonetheless, this measure is insufficient to address global deforestation. Using Brazil’s example of a key exp...

Environmental policies that require native vegetation conservation can be challenging to implement, especially in productive agricultural landscapes. In Brazil, the Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law mandates ‘Legal Reserves’, protected native vegetation that landowners must retain on their properties. If landowners do not have the required...

Sugarcane covers 10.6 Mha of Brazilian agricultural land (13 % of all cropland), mainly in the south-central region. In tropical climate conditions, the physiological characteristics of sugarcane allow a wide range of management systems with contrasting soil erosion outcomes. Models can assess these differences and the Universal Soil Loss Equation...

In the last decade, significant changes in the national scenario have altered the productive and social dynamics of Family Agriculture (FA) and public policies for this public, such as Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (TARE), can play an important role in its strengthening. This study carried out a territorial analysis of the dynamics of ac...

Gaining information on the dynamics of land cover changes is a valuable step towards improving practical conservation actions. In recent years, the Brazilian presidential elections in 2018 and the recovery from one of the nation's worst economic recessions defined a political scenario that has been causing shifts in the patterns of land cover chang...

RESUMO A determinação do risco de degradação das terras em uma microbacia hidrográfica constitui importante subsídio para o planejamento agrícola e ambiental. A tendência atual é que as informações necessárias para a avaliação das terras sejam compatíveis com técnicas de geoprocessamento e tratadas de forma menos subjetiva. Todavia, critérios ou pa...

RESUMO A desigualdade da distribuição da posse da terra no Brasil é uma das mais acentuadas do mundo, sendo associada a processos históricos de grilagem, conflitos sociais e impactos ambientais. A recente revisão de regulações que tratam da situação fundiária de áreas protegidas e de terras não destinadas e as de regularização fundiária pode acentu...

In Brazil, the Forest Code requires landholders to maintain fixed-width buffers of native vegetation along watercourses – legally called Areas of Permanent Preservation (APPs). In 2012, agricultural activities started to be partially allowed in APPs, but only if best management practices on soil and water conservation are adopted and if a narrow bu...

Introdução No dia 1 de outubro o titular da Secretaria Especial de Assuntos Fundiários do Ministério da Agricultura (SEAF/MAPA) anunciou a edição em breve de uma Medida Provisória (MP) para promover a regularização fundiária por meio da autodeclaração de ocupantes de imóveis rurais 1. O governo estima haver 800 mil imóveis rurais sem títulos no paí...

Este diagnóstico é o primeiro esforço nacional no âmbito da Plataforma Intergovernamental de Biodiversidade e Serviços Ecossistêmicos (IPBES). Teve como ponto de partida o documento Diálogos1 que foi utilizado como instrumento de consulta e diálogo com diferentes atores que, em suas atividades, direta ou indiretamente afetam ou são afetados pela bi...

Land tenure in many parts of Brazil remains uncertain and controversial. These problems have recently been exacerbatework regulating protected areas and the land market. A particular challenge facing attempts to improve land tenure security and governance in Brazil is the lack of a single, integrated assessment of all types of lands. Here we addres...

This database is cited in the paper that describes the database published in SSSAJ in 2005.

The Native Vegetation Protection Law - 2012 - (NVPL) is the main Brazilian regulation for protecting native vegetation (NV) on private land. The NVPL, currently in the implementation phase, reduced Legal Reserves (LR) requirements compared to its previous version, the 1965's Forest Act (FA), through several legal mechanisms. Among them, Article 68...

The cost of zero deforestation in Brazil

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is protected largely by command and control regulation of public and private land. The Brazilian Forest Act requires private landholders within the Amazon to set aside 80% of their land as legal reserves for nature protection, but this requirement can be reduced to 50% if more than 65% of a state’s territory is prote...

This chapter discusses how the global economy and socio-technical and socio-ecological systems can transition to 1.5°C-consistent pathways and adapt to warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In the context of systemic transitions, the chapter assesses adaptation and mitigation options, including carbon dioxide removal (CDR), and potential so...

Legal Reserve is one of the main mechanisms provided for by Brazilian law to foster conservation in private areas, which is required by the Forest Act, reviewed in 2012. The landowners are obliged to maintain a percentage of native vegetation (varying from 20 to 80%) in the rural properties by restoring the vegetation deficit or compensating it out...

Sustainable feedstock supply is a critical issue for the bioenergy sector. One concern is that feedstock production will impact biodiversity. We analyze how this concern is addressed in assessments of biomass supply potentials and in selected governance systems in the EU and Brazil, including the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED), the EU Common A...

Coordenador do projeto Temático Fapesp 2016/17680-2 d. LAGESA/UFMG-Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais e. Atualmente Secretaria Executiva do Observatório do Código Florestal RESUMO EXECUTIVO • O Código Florestal se aplica em áreas urbanas e rurais, tanto em imóveis e posses rurais como em terras públicas e áreas protegidas. O Cadastro Ambiental Ru...

Brazil is one of the major contributors to land-use change emissions, mostly driven by agricultural expansion for food, feed and bioenergy feedstock. Policies to avoid deforestation related to private commitments, economic incentives, and other support schemes are expected to improve the effectiveness of current command and control mechanisms incre...

Brazil has global importance for food production and conservation of natural resources. The country has plans to increase yields and commitments to decrease deforestation that require higher productivity. Plans and policies for the growth of Brazilian agriculture, however, have been made without an integrated analysis of the harvest and not support...

Scenarios are important tools to facilitate the communication among scientists, practitioners, and decision-makers, and, thus to support policy and management decisions. The use of scenarios has an enormous potential to reduce ecosystem restoration costs and to optimize benefits, but this potential remains poorly explored. Here, we recommend and il...

The Brazilian native vegetation supports essential ecosystem services and biodiversity for the global society, while land use competition may intensify around the increasing needs for food, fibre and bioenergy. The Brazilian Forest Act of 2012 amplified a market-based mechanism for offsetting native vegetation deficits in private farmlands. This me...

Reduction of CO2 emissions will require a transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Expansion of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol1,2 provides one near-term scalable solution to reduce CO2 emissions from the global transport sector. In contrast to corn ethanol, the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol system may offset 86% of CO2 emissions compa...

Brazil is home to the largest tracts of tropical vegetation in the world, harbouring high levels of biodiversity and carbon. Several biomass maps have been produced for Brazil, using different approaches and methods, and for different purposes. These maps have been used to estimate historic, recent, and future carbon emissions from land use change...

Os mecanismos de anistia da Lei 12.651/2012 redu-ziram o passivo de Áreas de Preservação Permanen-te (APPs) e Reservas Legais (RLs) em 41 milhões de hectares de vegetação nativa que deveriam ser res-taurados anteriormente (36,5 milhões de ha de RL e 4,5 milhões de ha de APPs). Mesmo com a anistia, o déficit atual de vegetação na-tiva é de 19 milhõe...

PRINCIPAIS RESULTADOS E CONSIDERAÇÕES As conclusões e recomendações são baseadas em um estudo de caso de uma situação particular, mas representativa das condições ambientais e agropecuárias do Estado de São Paulo e de outras regiões brasileiras. Os resultados obtidos não permitem generalizações, mas apontam tendências importantes que podem subsidia...

Soil erosion in arable fields is intensified on irregular surfaces. Although machine and crop-row patterns following terrain contours reduce runoff and increase water infiltration, these contours are almost never parallel while machine operations always are. In this work, a method is presented to generate patterns of machine paths on sloping land a...

Esta edição do Sustentabilidade em Debate reúne três estudos que se complementam para responder à mesma pergunta: a adoção de boas práticas de gestão, produção, conservação de recursos naturais e condições de trabalho na agropecuária se justificam economicamente? Em outras palavras, a adoção ou busca pela sustentabilidade é um bom negócio para o pr...

This issue of Sustentabilidade em Debate brings together three studies that complement each other with the aim of answering the same question: can the adoption of good management practices for production, conservation of natural resources and working conditions be justified economically? In other words, is the adoption or pursuit of sustainability...

A key question for food, biofuels, and bioproducts production is how agriculture affects the environment, and social and economic development. In Brazil, a large agricultural producer and among the biologically wealthiest of nations, this question is challenging and opinions often clash. The Brazilian parliament and several stakeholders have recent...

Este texto tem o intuito de problematizar a educação superior em Engenharia Agronômica. Partimos da ideia de que esta educação coloca-se dentro de um processo de legitimação, acumulação e produção de conhecimento, necessário para o funcionamento da sociedade tecno-industrial; tal conhecimento entra em choque com outras formas de conhecimento que o...

A key question for food, biofuels, and bioproducts production is how agriculture affects the environment, and social and economic development. In Brazil, a large agricultural producer and among the biologically wealthiest of nations, this question is challenging and opinions often clash. The Brazilian parliament and several stakeholders have recent...

Socio-environmental certification uses evaluation criteria to promote the conservation of the natural environment and landscape connectivity, with the aim of constructing agricultural landscapes more suitable for biodiversity conservation. To test this, we examine whether socio-environmental certification of Brazilian coffee farms contributes to lo...

Brazil seeks to rapidly increase its agricultural production to meet future demands, especially for sugarcane, which is an agricultural commodity and a biofuel source. In this paper, we explore how to achieve this increase without compromising existing forestlands. We propose that it is possible to substantially expand sugarcane production in Brazi...

The 2012 revision of the Brazilian Forest Act changed the relative importance of private and public governance for nature conservation and agricultural production. We present a spatially explicit land-use model for Brazilian agricultural production and nature conservation that considers the spatial distribution of agricultural land suitability, tec...

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented...

Although mainly used for other purposes, and historically mainly established at the expense of tropical forests, oil palm can be the most land efficient feedstock for biodiesel. Large parts of Brazil are suitable for oil palm cultivation and a series of policy initiatives have recently been launched to promote oil palm production. These initiatives...

estudo avaliou a contribuição da certificação para a conservação da vegetação nativa no Brasil, na perspectiva de um instrumento voluntá-rio de incentivo para mudanças. Concluímos que a certificação superou a escala de piloto no país, tendo uma abrangência nacional, presente em diversos biomas e regiões. Por mais de uma década, tem sido implementad...

The aim of this study is to discuss and apply hedonic methodology for the determination and forecast of land prices in specific markets. This is important due to the fact that there is no official or reliable information in Brazil on current prices in land market transactions. This hedonic price methodology uses a multiple regression model which ha...

In 1975 the Brazilian Government launched the National Alcohol Program aiming to partially replace the oil imported by national energy sources. For many reasons, sugarcane became nearly the exclusive feedstock source for bioethanol production (Rosillo-Calle and Cortez, 1998). According to Rudorff et al. (2010) the São Paulo's sugarcane area increas...

Oil palm is a land efficient feedstock alternative for biodiesel production and can be a very profitable alternative for farmers. In this study, a spatially explicit model is used to: (i) map and quantify areas in Brazil where oil palm establishment for biodiesel production would be profitable (positive net present value, NPV) in different future s...

Köppen's climate classification remains the most widely used system by geographical and climatological societies across the world, with well recognized simple rules and climate symbol letters. In Brazil, climatology has been studied for more than 140 years, and among the many proposed methods Köppen's system remains as the most utilized. Considerin...

Does agricultural intensification reduce the area used for agricultural production in Brazil? Census and other data for time periods 1975-1996 and 1996-2006 were processed and analyzed using GIS and statistical tools to investigate whether and if so, how, changes in yield and stocking rate coincide with changes in cropland and pasture area. Complem...

1. Brazil is one of the world’s major producers of food and biofuels. Agricultural expansion has driven rapid economic development but has also had major impacts on biodiversity and the conservation of ecosystem services in the country. 2. Here, we analyse recent advances in applied ecological research on the consequences of agricultural expansion...

Matas ciliares são geralmente associadas à retenção de sedimentos e à mitigação dos impactos extrínsecos da erosão do solo em áreas de lavoura. No entanto, existem poucos estudos quantitativos sobre o tema. O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar a eficiência de uma mata ciliar na retenção dos sedimentos produzidos na área de lavoura utilizando a té...

Increased Brazilian sugarcane ethanol production is expected in response to increasing domestic and international ethanol demand. The Pontal do Paranapanema region, located in the western parts of the São Paulo state, is one of the regions where sugarcane is expected to expand on a large scale. This expansion will most likely affect small-scale dai...

O artigo reúne informações e análises que pretendem demonstrar a importância do Código Florestal para a conservação das importantes reservas de áreas preservadas que ainda temos no Brasil, bem como a necessidade e os caminhos para sua revisão, visando alcançar o possível e plausível equilíbrio entre o respeito à natureza e o desenvolvimento agrícol...

Through the analysis of census data on land use in Brazil this article shows that the dichotomy between food production and preservation of natural vegetation used as the main driver to change the Forest Code is false. We showed here that Brazil has already cleared an area large enough that support the production of food, fiber and bioenergy to mee...