International Institute for Sustainability Australia

Protected area (PA) assessments rarely evaluate socio-economic and environmental impacts relative to competing land uses, limiting understanding of socio-environmental trade-offs from efforts to protect 30% of the globe by 2030. Here we assess deforestation and poverty outcomes (fiscal income, income inequality, sanitation and literacy) between 2000 and 2010 of strict PAs (SPAs), sustainable-use PAs (SUPAs) and Indigenous territories (ITs) compared with different land uses (agriculture and mining concessions) across ~5,500 census tracts in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. ITs reduced deforestation relative to all alternative land uses (48-83%) but had smaller socio-economic benefits compared with other protection types and land uses (18-36% depending on outcome), indicating that Indigenous communities experience socio-economic trade-offs. By contrast, SUPAs, and potentially SPAs, did not reduce deforestation relative to small-scale agriculture (landholdings <10 ha) but did so relative to larger agricultural landholdings (70-82%). Critically, these reductions in deforestation frequently occurred without negative socio-economic outcomes. By contrast, ITs and SUPAs protected against deforestation from mining, but at the cost of smaller improvements in income and inequality. Our results suggest that although PAs in the Brazilian Legal Amazon substantially reduced deforestation without compromising local socio-economic development, efforts to secure Indigenous rights need additional interventions to ensure these communities are not further disadvantaged.

RESUMO O Brasil tem uma longa história de políticas, pesquisa e prática de restauração de ecossistemas degradados. A Década da Restauração de Ecossistemas das Nações Unidas (2021-2030) foi lançada com o principal objetivo de prevenir, cessar e reverter a degradação de ecossistemas em todo o mundo. Neste artigo, descrevemos algumas experiências no Brasil e ilustramos como elas podem contribuir para o cumprimento desses objetivos. As ações de restauração florestal no Brasil são fortemente motivadas e lideradas por associações da sociedade civil descentralizadas, e coalizões e plataformas multissetoriais. Destacamos o papel crítico das inovações de governança nos níveis regional, estadual e municipal que fortalecem as ações de restauração, apesar da implementação deficiente das iniciativas do governo federal.

Restoring forest ecosystems to reverse soil degradation is critical to maintain environmental quality, forest and agricultural productivity, biodiversity conservation, and to provide valuable ecosystem services. Yet the impacts of forest restoration on soil quality remain under‐investigated. Here we aim to address a key knowledge gap: how does forest ecosystem restoration affect the recovery of soil quality in tropical and temperate regions? We conducted a global meta‐analysis to compare soil physical, chemical, and biological properties between restoring forests and reference old‐growth/less‐disturbed forests. We revealed for the first time that differences between restoring and reference forests are lower for physical (12–25%; based on median values of effect size) and chemical (10–74%) properties than for biological (32–90%) properties. More specifically, bulk density (12% of difference), pH (10%), and enzyme activity (32%) had mean values in restoring forests closer to those observed in reference forests. Overall, our results suggest that the restoration of soil properties was greater in tropical regions, after longer periods (&gt;30 years), through passive restoration, and over pasturelands. Our global meta‐analysis helps to fill the soil information gap in forest restoration and increase our understanding of how to improve soil quality through forest restoration and soil monitoring processes in tropical and temperate regions.

Abstract 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 M ha of deforested lands in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Of 34.1 M ha (26.4%) of current forest cover, 2.7 M ha (8.0%) regenerated naturally from 1996 to 2015. We estimate that another 2.8 M ha could naturally regenerate by 2035, and a further 18.8 M 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 2 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.