Balanço contábil das nações: reflexões sobre os cenários de mudanças climáticas globais

The objective of this work is to prepare environmental balance sheets of countries based on the scenarios for climate change and global warming indicated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)of the United Nations (UN). We consider the stock of forest resources and the residual balance between emission and capture of carbon or greenhouse gases (GHGs) estimated for each country in 2020 and 2050, according to the two editions (A1B1 and A2B2) of theSpecial Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES). The study is multidisciplinary in nature, involving concepts from the areas of climate change biology, energy, geoscience, economics and accounting. The last discipline was used to delineate the research subject and served as a method, by means of the Inquired Balance Sheet technique, to measure and classify environmental assets, liabilities and net equity. We selected a sample of seven countries, the four leading developing countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRICs) and one developed country each from the Americas, Europe and Asia (USA, Germany and Japan). The balance sheets of each country were calculated in equivalent gross domestic product (GDP) units, adjusted by per capita energy consumption in metric tons of oil equivalent (TOE) and megatons of carbon (MtonC), priced at the cost (in US$) of carbon credits suggested by the UN. The results show that the developed countries are consuming resources not only from other nations, but from future generations as well, and although Brazil and Russia have environmental surpluses, the consolidated balance sheet for the planet in the scenario for 2050 indicates a deficit or bankruptcy situation, with an “uncovered liability” or negative net equity of US$ 2,300 annually for each of the current 6.6 billion people (2008) and an environmental liability equivalent to a quarter of global GDP. This unconventional accounting report is a rendering or global accounts based on future scenarios and suggests the need for coordinated actions involving social, environmental, cultural and economic aspects.O objetivo deste trabalho é elaborar o balanço patrimonial de países com base nos cenários de mudanças climáticas e de aquecimento global apontados pelo Intergovernamental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), da Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU). O estudo leva em consideração o estoque de recursos florestais e o saldo residual entre as emissões e capturas de carbono ou Greenhouse gas (GHG) estimadas para cada país, em 2020 e em 2050, de acordo com os relatórios Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A1B1 e A2B2. A pesquisa foi conduzida de forma multidisciplinar, envolvendo conceitos das áreas de biologia das mudanças climáticas, de energia, de geociência, de economia e da contabilidade. Esta última que foi utilizada para delimitar o objeto da pesquisa e servir de método, por meio da técnica Inquired Balance Sheet, para mensuração e classificação dos ativos, dos passivos e dos patrimônios líquidos ambientais. Selecionou-se uma amostra de sete países representantes do BRIC (Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China) e de países desenvolvidos da América, Europa e Ásia (EUA, Alemanha e Japão). Os balanços contábeis de cada país foram avaliados em unidades equivalentes de produto interno bruto (PIB), ajustados pelo consumo de energia per capita em toneladas equivalente de petróleo (TEP) e em mega toneladas de carbono (MtonC), precificadas pelo custo (US$) de captura de carbono sugeridos pela ONU. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que os países desenvolvidos estão consumindo recursos de outras nações e de gerações futuras e, apesar de Brasil e Rússia apresentarem superávits ambientais, o balanço consolidado do planeta no cenário de 2050 aponta para uma situação deficitária ou falimentar, com “passivo a descoberto” ou patrimônio líquido negativo equivalente a US$ 2,3 mil anuais para cada um dos atuais 6,6 bilhões de habitantes (2008) e um passivo ambiental equivalente a um quarto do PIB mundial. Este relatório contábil não convencional é uma prestação de contas global diante dos cenários futuros e sugere ações coordenadas que envolvam aspectos sociais, ambientais, culturais e econômicos

Characterising the spatial distribution of opportunities and constraints for land sparing in Brazil

Abstract: Brazil is a megadiversity country with more tropical forest than any other, and is a leading agricultural producer. The technical potential to reconcile these roles by concentrating agriculture on existing farmland and sparing land for nature is well-established, but the spatial overlap of this potential with conservation priorities and institutional constraints remains poorly understood. We mapped conservation priorities, food production potential and socio-economic variables likely to influence the success of land sparing. Pasture occupies 70% of agricultural land but contributes ≤11% of the domestic food supply. Increasing yields on pasture would add little to Brazil’s food supply but – if combined with concerted conservation and restoration policies – provides the greatest opportunities for reducing land demand. Our study illustrates a method for identifying municipalities where land-sparing policies are most likely to succeed, and those where further effort is needed to overcome constraints such as land tenure insecurity, lack of access to technical advice, labour constraints, and non-compliance with environmental law

Biocombustíveis, controvérsia agrícola na economia do petróleo: o caso do etanol no Cerrado

No controverso debate em torno dos bicombustíveis, o setor canavieiro, instituições governamental e boa parte de pesquisadores tem defendido uma suposta imunidade brasileira quanto aos problemas decorrentes da competição entre energia e alimentos, e daquela com a preservação dos ecossistemas. O argumento reside no fato de existir uma extraordinária abundância, sem comprometer nem a segurança alimentar, tampouco a integridade dos ecossistemas. É preciso reconhecer as virtudes da cana-de-açúcar no país, cujas vantagens no balanço energético, capacidade de produção, viabilidade econômica e desenvolvimento de tecnologia doméstica não encontra paralelo. Outras vantagens são mais contestáveis: se de fato a cana-de-açúcar ocupa apenas 1% do território nacional, esse percentual é nada menos do 10% das terras agrícolas efetivamente arroteadas, e em São Paulo, 85% das mais caras. A produção de alimentos tradicionais tem, no Brasil, decrescido sistematicamente, enquanto as energéticas crescem. O presente estudo, realizado no sudoeste de Goiás, importante região produtora de grãos, constatou, através de entrevistas a atores locais e imagens de satélite, que no último 1,5 anos, dos 62.420 hectares convertidos, 63% ocorreram sobre agricultura de grãos, 33% sobre pastagens e 5% sobre vegetação nativa do cerrado. Fertilidade do solo, distância e infraestrutura de rodagem que dá acesso às usinas, topografia plana, expectativas de rendimento das glebas e sucesso em negociações com proprietários locais são os principais motivadores da escolha das glebas a serem arroteados. Os impactos locais no mosaico rural são claramente notórios pela competição da cana-de-açúcar com a soja, que é parcialmente deslocada para terras marginais ou migra para regiões da Amazônia Legal. Outra mudança no uso da terra provocada diretamente pela expansão da cana é o desmatamento de cerrados, especialmente quando contíguos a pastagens. A substituição de pastagens, por sua vez, reverberou-se na migração de cerca de 65 mil cabeças de gado para Amazônia Legal e Pantanal. Esses resultados refrutam a idéia de que a o etanol não compete com alimentos ou causa supressões nos ecossistemas frágeis, ao menos regionalmente.In the controversial debate about the impacts of biofuels, Brazil has been trying to sustain a supposed immunity. The argument rests on the extraordinary abundance of degraded grazing land, sufficiently capable of accommodating the expansion of sugarcane without threatening food security or compromising the integrity of ecosystems. Although the enormous advantages in domestic technologies, sugarcane energy balance, ethanol prices and markets, this Ph.D. theses showed, crossing information obtained by local interviews and satellite images, that in the last 1,5 years on southern-west Goiás, the cane activities expanded on grain crops (63%), pasturelands (33%) and (5%) savannas of total 62.420 hectares. Soil fertility, distance and roads conditions to access ethanol mills, favorable topography, expects outputs and contracts opportunities are the main attributes that explain local sugarcane expansion. The impacts on rural mosaics are describe as competition between energy and food, once a large part of the agriculture replaced by sugarcane consists of soybean, which expand itself to marginal lands or Legal Amazon. Other land use change is Local Cerrado deforestation, specifically when contiguous within pasturelands. Further, the impact of replacing grazing land by sugar cane for which the extent of degraded grazing we are unable to estimate reverberate in the Amazon region, thickening the agricultural frontier with 65 thousands cattle expelled by ethanol doesnt compromising food security or the integrity of ecosystems, at least in regional scale

Biocombustíveis, controvérsia agrícola na economia do petróleo: o caso do etanol no Cerrado

No controverso debate em torno dos bicombustíveis, o setor canavieiro, instituições governamental e boa parte de pesquisadores tem defendido uma suposta imunidade brasileira quanto aos problemas decorrentes da competição entre energia e alimentos, e daquela com a preservação dos ecossistemas. O argumento reside no fato de existir uma extraordinária abundância, sem comprometer nem a segurança alimentar, tampouco a integridade dos ecossistemas. É preciso reconhecer as virtudes da cana-de-açúcar no país, cujas vantagens no balanço energético, capacidade de produção, viabilidade econômica e desenvolvimento de tecnologia doméstica não encontra paralelo. Outras vantagens são mais contestáveis: se de fato a cana-de-açúcar ocupa apenas 1% do território nacional, esse percentual é nada menos do 10% das terras agrícolas efetivamente arroteadas, e em São Paulo, 85% das mais caras. A produção de alimentos tradicionais tem, no Brasil, decrescido sistematicamente, enquanto as energéticas crescem. O presente estudo, realizado no sudoeste de Goiás, importante região produtora de grãos, constatou, através de entrevistas a atores locais e imagens de satélite, que no último 1,5 anos, dos 62.420 hectares convertidos, 63% ocorreram sobre agricultura de grãos, 33% sobre pastagens e 5% sobre vegetação nativa do cerrado. Fertilidade do solo, distância e infraestrutura de rodagem que dá acesso às usinas, topografia plana, expectativas de rendimento das glebas e sucesso em negociações com proprietários locais são os principais motivadores da escolha das glebas a serem arroteados. Os impactos locais no mosaico rural são claramente notórios pela competição da cana-de-açúcar com a soja, que é parcialmente deslocada para terras marginais ou migra para regiões da Amazônia Legal. Outra mudança no uso da terra provocada diretamente pela expansão da cana é o desmatamento de cerrados, especialmente quando contíguos a pastagens. A substituição de pastagens, por sua vez, reverberou-se na migração de cerca de 65 mil cabeças de gado para Amazônia Legal e Pantanal. Esses resultados refrutam a idéia de que a o etanol não compete com alimentos ou causa supressões nos ecossistemas frágeis, ao menos regionalmente.In the controversial debate about the impacts of biofuels, Brazil has been trying to sustain a supposed immunity. The argument rests on the extraordinary abundance of degraded grazing land, sufficiently capable of accommodating the expansion of sugarcane without threatening food security or compromising the integrity of ecosystems. Although the enormous advantages in domestic technologies, sugarcane energy balance, ethanol prices and markets, this Ph.D. theses showed, crossing information obtained by local interviews and satellite images, that in the last 1,5 years on southern-west Goiás, the cane activities expanded on grain crops (63%), pasturelands (33%) and (5%) savannas of total 62.420 hectares. Soil fertility, distance and roads conditions to access ethanol mills, favorable topography, expects outputs and contracts opportunities are the main attributes that explain local sugarcane expansion. The impacts on rural mosaics are describe as competition between energy and food, once a large part of the agriculture replaced by sugarcane consists of soybean, which expand itself to marginal lands or Legal Amazon. Other land use change is Local Cerrado deforestation, specifically when contiguous within pasturelands. Further, the impact of replacing grazing land by sugar cane for which the extent of degraded grazing we are unable to estimate reverberate in the Amazon region, thickening the agricultural frontier with 65 thousands cattle expelled by ethanol doesnt compromising food security or the integrity of ecosystems, at least in regional scale

The other side of agricultural frontier: a brief history on origin and decline of cerrado's ndian agriculture

A tese de frederic Jakson turner, para quem a conquista das fronteiras forjou o caráter americano, convergindo à ascensão da vida privada com o desenvolvimento da democracia e economia, não vingou na América latina porque aqui a realidade mostrou o outro lado da fronteira: um espaço para onde os conflitos sociais dos centros dinâmicos eram expurgados e exacerbados, como muito bem descreveu otávio velho. nesse processo recorrente os primeiros confrontos não ocorriam entre a população migrante e os trabalhadores contratados pelo latifundiário ausente, mas entre todos contra os indígenas. muito se tem escrito sobre esses conflitos, mas o enfoque é sempre o daquele mais drástico e urgente: o genocídio. Pouco, entretanto, se discorre sobre o declínio subsidiário, ou seja, o dos processos agrícolas. Isso é ainda mais verdadeiro quando se trata do Domínio do Cerrado. o presente artigo pretende oferecer uma brevíssima história da origem e declínio da agricultura dos índios no Cerrado.Turner's thesis that frontier had forged convergence between democracy and individual economic ascension did not inspire Latin American critical studies because here the reality showed the other side of the frontier: a space where the social conflicts of the dynamic centers were purged and exacerbated. In this process, the first conflicts did not occur among the migrant population and workers hired by the absent landowner, but among everyone else against the Indians. Much has been discussed about it but very few have focused on the other side of frontiers: the indigenous agriculture. This is clearer when one considers the Cerrado Region. In the past 10 years only 5 articles, including national and international journals, analyzed the Indian Agriculture History and Practices in Cerrado. The goal of this paper is to offer a brief history of Indians agrarian systems, from their origin to decline, in Brazilian Cerrados

Seed Networks for Upscaling Forest Landscape Restoration: Is It Possible to Expand Native Plant Sources in Brazil?

In this paper, we explore how diverse community networks in Brazil have locally advanced seed production and institutional systems to enhance a restoration economy. By focusing on the experiences of the six major native seed suppliers in Amazonia, the Cerrado, and the Atlantic Forest, we estimate the capacity to scale-up community-based systems to meet a large-scale restoration target as a rural development strategy. Over one decade, 1016 collectors traded 416.91 tonnes of native seeds representing, on average, 31.41 kilos yearly and USD 256.5 as household income. Based on this well documented empirical evidence, we estimate that Brazil’s restoration goal would require from 3.6 to 15.6 thousand tonnes of native seeds depending on the share of each restoration method adopted with potential work opportunities for 13.2 to 57.1 thousand collectors yearly and total income from USD 34 to 146 million. We argue that community networks represent feasible arrangements for increasing the availability of plant material sources which provide high socio-economic benefits. For scaling up native seed sources, we suggest the following key strategies: (i) government incentives and subsidies; (ii) enforcement of ecosystem restoration; (iii) community participation; (iv) adaptation of the seed regulations; (v) technological development; and (vi) seed market diversification

Economic Impacts of Payments for Environmental Services on Livelihoods of Agro-extractivist Communities in the Brazilian Amazon

Rural communities in the Brazilian Amazon rely on manioc, produced in a swidden-fallow system that uses land cleared from forest areas. Increased agricultural production could reduce fallow period length with implications for manioc flour (farinha) production. We hypothesize that payments for environmental services (PES) programs may exacerbate reduction of fallow periods, thereby reducing per stem farinha productivity. To understand the household scale economic impacts of avoided deforestation under PES programs, we conducted interviews in 158 households from 32 communities in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Using regression models, we assessed which variables most influenced farinha production, and calculated production costs and total revenues, with and without a PES program. Manioc yield increased by 22.83 kg per household per year for each additional year that the forest was left to recover before being cleared. Although production costs were higher for land cleared from older secondary forests, net profits on land cleared from primary forests were still higher. Total income from PES programs, when added to the secondary forest manioc profit, were higher than the foregone production in primary forest areas. However, when we considered only direct cash payments, we identified potential trade-offs. We conclude that PES programmes should consider possible long-term effects of payments on the livelihoods of participants

Hierarchical risk scale of agribusiness activities

This study aims to elaborate a hierarchical risk scale (HRS) of agricultural and cattle breeding activities and to classify the main agricultural crops and cattle breeding activities according to their risk levels. The research is characterized as exploratory and quantitative and was based on previous risk assessment (MARKOWITZ, 1952) and capital cost calculation (SHARPE, 1964) work for other business segments. The calculations on agricultural and cattle breeding data were processed for the period from 2000 to 2006. The used methods considers simplifications and adaptations needed to achieve the proposed objective. The final result, pioneering and embryonic, provides support to improve the management of these activities that are so essential to produce food for society

Achieving cost-effective landscape-scale forest restoration through targeted natural regeneration

High costs of tree planting are a barrier to meeting global forest restoration targets. Natural forest regeneration is more cost-effective than tree planting, but its potential to foster restoration at scale is poorly understood. We predict, map, and quantify natural regeneration potential within 75.5\ua0M ha of deforested lands in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Of 34.1\ua0M ha (26.4%) of current forest cover, 2.7\ua0M ha (8.0%) regenerated naturally from 1996 to 2015. We estimate that another 2.8\ua0M ha could naturally regenerate by 2035, and a further 18.8\ua0M ha could be restored using assisted regeneration methods, thereby reducing implementation costs by US$ 90.6 billion (77%) compared to tree planting. These restored forests could sequester 2.3 GtCO of carbon, reduce the mean number of expected species at risk of extinction by 63.4, and reduce fragmentation by 44% compared to current levels. Natural regeneration planning is key for achieving cost-effective large-scale restoration