Criteria for effective zero-deforestation commitments

Zero-deforestation commitments are a type of voluntary sustainability initiative that companies adopt to signal their intention to reduce or eliminate deforestation associated with commodities that they produce, trade, and/or sell. Because each company defines its own zero-deforestation commitment goals and implementation mechanisms, commitment content varies widely. This creates challenges for the assessment of commitment implementation or effectiveness. Here, we develop criteria to assess the potential effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments at reducing deforestation within a company supply chain, regionally, and globally. We apply these criteria to evaluate 52 zero-deforestation commitments made by companies identified by Forest 500 as having high deforestation risk. While our assessment indicates that existing commitments converge with several criteria for effectiveness, they fall short in a few key ways. First, they cover just a small share of the global market for deforestation-risk commodities, which means that their global impact is likely to be small. Second, biome-wide implementation is only achieved in the Brazilian Amazon. Outside this region, implementation occurs mainly through certification programs, which are not adopted by all producers and lack third-party near-real time deforestation monitoring. Additionally, around half of all commitments include zero-net deforestation targets and future implementation deadlines, both of which are design elements that may reduce effectiveness. Zero-net targets allow promises of future reforestation to compensate for current forest loss, while future implementation deadlines allow for preemptive clearing. To increase the likelihood that commitments will lead to reduced deforestation across all scales, more companies should adopt zero-gross deforestation targets with immediate implementation deadlines and clear sanction-based implementation mechanisms in biomes with high risk of forest to commodity conversion.ISSN:0959-3780ISSN:1872-949

Monitoring the world's agriculture

Agriculture must be transformed. Although global food production is increasing, today's farming systems undermine the well-being of communities in many ways. For instance, farming has destroyed huge regions of natural habitat and caused an untold loss of ecosystem services, and it is responsible for about 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions. Already, about 1 billion people are undernourished. Yet to feed the global population expected by 2050, more than 1 billion hectares of wild land will need to be converted to farmland if current approaches continue to be used

Transitioning to more sustainable, low-emissions agriculture in Brazil

KEY FINDINGS Cattle producers joined sustainability initiatives primarily to increase production, reduce production costs, learn new practices and access innovations, and because of their interest in sustainability. Farmers who shifted to sustainable intensification practices increased their productivity. Some also accessed new markets and a minority earned higher prices. Producers sought farming advice mostly from nearby farmers and technicians promoting sustainability initiatives. The cost of changing farm practices, insufficient technical assistance or capacity, and difficulty in complying with legal standards were the major barriers preventing other cattle producers from participating in sustainability initiatives. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per kg of beef of cattle farmers in sustainable intensification programs were 18% lower compared to neighboring farms not in the programs. Early life-cycle cattle ranching (e.g. calving, early rearing), commonly associated with deforestation, has been more engaged with NGO initiatives providing support and agronomic outreach rather than formal standards and reporting. Coffee Coffee farmers joined a certification program because of requests from buyers, potential for receiving price premiums on their coffee, and to access new markets with certified products. Coffee farmers producing certified coffee increased their economic efficiency, mainly due to higher productivity, compared to before they certified. Coffee producers' connections to technicians and access to information mostly revolved around their participation in cooperatives.POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Build on market development lessons from the coffee sector to enhance sustainability, quality, traceability, and branding in the cattle sector. Expand sustainability initiatives’ capacity to deliver market access, technical assistance, and finance services to more cattle farmers. Continue support to producers in sustainability initiatives over multiple years, as they are likely to increase the sustainability of their practices with time. Expand agronomic outreach and sustainability initiatives to calving and early rearing operations to reduce associated deforestation and GHG emissions

Effective monitoring of agriculture: a response

The development of effective agricultural monitoring networks is essential to track, anticipate and manage changes in the social, economic and environmental aspects of agriculture. We welcome the perspective of Lindenmayer and Likens (J. Environ. Monit., 2011, 13, 1559) as published in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring on our earlier paper, “Monitoring the World's Agriculture” (Sachs et al., Nature, 2010, 466, 558–560). In this response, we address their three main critiques labeled as ‘the passive approach’, ‘the problem with uniform metrics’ and ‘the problem with composite metrics’. We expand on specific research questions at the core of the network design, on the distinction between key universal and site-specific metrics to detect change over time and across scales, and on the need for composite metrics in decision-making. We believe that simultaneously measuring indicators of the three pillars of sustainability (environmentally sound, social responsible and economically viable) in an effectively integrated monitoring system will ultimately allow scientists and land managers alike to find solutions to the most pressing problems facing global food security

The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015

Trends and Future Potential of Payment for Ecosystem Services to Alleviate Rural Poverty in Developing Countries

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is a market-based approach to environmental management that compensates land stewards for ecosystem conservation and restoration. Because lowincome households and communities control much of the ecologically sensitive land in developing countries, they potentially stand to gain from PES, as environmentally responsible stewardship is assigned a value by various actors in society. To date, however, instances of PES benefiting the poor have been limited mainly to specific localities, small-scale projects, and a handful of broader government programs. We analyze the size, characteristics, and trends of PES to evaluate its future potential to benefit low-income land stewards in developing countries. We estimate that by the year 2030, markets for biodiversity conservation could benefit 10-15 million low-income households in developing countries, carbon markets could benefit 25-50 million, markets for watershed protection could benefit 80-100 million, and markets for landscape beauty and recreation could benefit 5-8 million. If payments and markets reach these potentials, they could provide a non-negligible contribution to poverty alleviation at the global level

How important will different types of compensation and reward mechanisms be in shaping poverty and ecosystem services across Africa, Asia and Latin America over the next two decades?

This paper is the 9th paper in a series of nine interlinked papers commissioned by the Rural Poverty and Environment Programme (RPE) of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) as part of a research project entitled ‘Scoping Study of Compensation for Ecosystem Services’. The purpose of this project is to provide the RPE with a broader and richer deliberation on the potential for economic instruments (including market, financial and incentive based instruments) which conserve ecosystem services and at the same time contribute to poverty reduction in the developing world. // The development of Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES) will have differential impact on poor resource managers and poor consumers depending upon the characteristics of the resource itself, the financial and other values for different beneficiaries, and the design of payment and market systems. In this early stage of CRES development, there are significant opportunities to shape that development in ways that will have greater benefits for the poor and for poverty reduction. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative importance of different types of CRES in shaping poverty and ecosystem services across the developing world, as they are likely to evolve over the next two decades

Measuring impacts of certification on biodiversity at multiple scales: experience from the SAN/Rainforest Alliance system and priorities for the future

Voluntary certification standards (VCS) in agriculture and forestry typically include the protection of biodiversity among their objectives or requirements. This outcome is advanced through a range of mechanisms, from prohibitions on destroying certain types of natural ecosystems to requirements to conserve native species co-occurring in production systems to controls on negative externalities that can harm biodiversity, such as polluted runoff. Conservation results may be achieved at a range of scales—from smallholder farms to large landscapes—and as either direct or indirect consequences of implementing VCS. These myriad considerations point to the need for nuanced evaluation frameworks to understand effects on biodiversity across large certification portfolios while also evaluating the causality of VCS interventions on changes in biodiversity attributes. Here, we synthesize experience and perspectives from the VCS community to present a generalized assessment framework for understanding effects of VCS on biodiversity. We then use the example of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN)/Rainforest Alliance certification system to illustrate the application of this framework to an agricultural standard covering about 3.5 million hectares and 1.2 million producers across 42 countries. The framework integrates evidence from multiple data sources, including basic attributes of certified operations, data on the adoption of biodiversityfriendly practices as revealed by annual audits, and research studies assessing biodiversity outcomes at farm and landscape level. Based on experience from evaluating biodiversity effects of the SAN/ Rainforest Alliance system from 2011-2014, we reflect critically on challenges, opportunities, and future priorities for evaluating and improving the biodiversity conservation benefits of VCS more broadly

Reducing tourism\u27s threats to biodiversity: effects of a voluntary sustainability standard and training program on 106 Latin American hotels, lodges and guesthouses

The tourism industry can negatively affect wildlife, plants and natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and visitor impacts to sensitive ecosystems. One approach to mitigate such threats is the application of voluntary sustainability standards, supported by training of tourism enterprises and verified by external audits. The Rainforest Alliance standard defines 78 criteria (requirements) for sustainable environmental, social and business practices, and has been adopted by over 600 tourism enterprises – including hotels, lodges and tour boats – in 12 countries. We examined the performance of 106 hotels in six Latin American countries against 29 of the sustainable tourism criteria most directly related to biodiversity conservation. Independent audits were used to assess hotel performance at baseline followed by a repeat assessment after training, about two years later. Mean conformance with the 29 biodiversity criteria increased significantly during this interval, from 44% to 58%. Improvements were greatest for businesses in the lowest third of performance at baseline (laggards) and smallest for hotels in the highest third (leaders). The results indicate that a voluntary sustainability standard and training program can serve both to recognize existing good actors and to drive incremental improvement in enterprises that were previously less sustainable