Received: 4 June 2017 | Accepted: 7 November 2017

DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14011

PRIMARY RESEARCH ARTICLE

Who owns the Brazilian carbon?

Flavio L. M. Freitas1 | Oskar Englund2 | Gerd Sparovek3 € ran Berndes2

| Go |
Vinicius Guidotti4 € rtberg1
| Luıs F. G. Pinto4 | Ulla Mo

1
Department of Sustainable Development,
Environmental Science and Engineering, Abstract
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Brazil is one of the major contributors to land-use change emissions, mostly driven
Stockholm, Sweden
2 by agricultural expansion for food, feed, and bioenergy feedstock. Policies to avoid
Department of Space, Earth and
Environment, Physical Resource Theory, deforestation related to private commitments, economic incentives, and other sup-
Chalmers University of Technology,
port schemes are expected to improve the effectiveness of current command and
Gothenburg, Sweden
3
Soil Science Department, University of S~ao control mechanisms increasingly. However, until recently, land tenure was unknown
Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil for much of the Brazilian territory, which has undermined the governance of native
4
Instituto de Manejo e Certificacß~ao
vegetation and challenged support and incentive mechanisms for avoiding defor-
Florestal e Agrıcola—IMAFLORA,
Piracicaba, Brazil estation. We assess the total extent of public governance mechanisms protecting
aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks. We constructed a land tenure dataset for the
Correspondence
Flavio L. M. Freitas, Department of entire nation and modeled the effects and uncertainties of major land-use acts on
Sustainable Development, Environmental
protecting AGC stocks. Roughly 70% of the AGC stock in Brazil is estimated to be
Science and Engineering, KTH Royal
Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. under legal protection, and an additional 20% is expected to be protected after
Email: flmdf@kth.se
areas in the Amazon with currently undesignated land undergo a tenure regulariza-
Funding information tion. About 30% of the AGC stock is on private land, of which roughly two-thirds
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
are protected. The Cerrado, Amazon, and Caatinga biomes hold about 40%, 30%,
gico, Grant/Award
Cientıfico e Tecnolo
Number: 249404/2013-3 and 20% of the unprotected AGC, respectively. Effective conservation of protected
and unprotected carbon will depend on successful implementation of the Forest
Act, and regularization of land tenure in the Amazon. Policy development that prior-
itizes unprotected AGC stocks is warranted to promote conservation of native vege-
tation beyond the legal requirements. However, different biomes and land tenure
structures may require different policy settings considering local and regional speci-
fics. Finally, the fate of current AGC stocks relies upon effective implementation of
command and control mechanisms, considering that unprotected AGC in native veg-
etation on private land only accounts for 6.5% of the total AGC stock.

KEYWORDS
aboveground carbon, Brazil, climate change, ecosystem services, forest Act, land tenure, land-
use governance

1 | INTRODUCTION use and land-use change (LUC)—tropical deforestation, in particular

The Paris Agreement creates a framework for nations to mitigate cli-
mate change, adapt to its effects, and ratchet up ambitions for
reductions of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (UN,
2015). Native vegetation stores vast quantities of carbon, and land
—account for roughly 10% of annual global GHG emissions (IPCC,
2014). Brazil was the top CO2-equivalent emitter from forest land
from 1990 to 2014 (FAO, 2014), due to land-use change mostly dri-
ven by agricultural expansion for food, feed, and bioenergy feed-
stock. As it remains the nation with the largest areas of preserved

Glob Change Biol. 2017;1–14. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/gcb © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd | 1
2 |
tropical forest in the world (Zarin et al., 2016), addressing land use
and associated GHG emissions in Brazil is crucial for global policies
and strategies to reduce emissions from tropical deforestation (Han-
sen et al., 2013; Lapola et al., 2014; Nogueira, Yanai, Fonseca, &
Fearnside, 2015; Zarin, 2012; Zarin et al., 2016).
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, where more than 80% of
the Brazilian AGC is stored, decreased by about 80% between 2005
and 2012 (INPE, 2017) as a result of the expansion of protected
areas, improved surveillance mechanisms, increased market-driven
initiatives to avoid deforestation, and decreased commodities prices
(Assuncß~ao, Gandour, & Rocha, 2015; Assuncß~ao, Gandour, & Rocha,
2017; Gibbs et al., 2015; Godar, Gardner, Tizado, & Pacheco, 2014;
Lapola et al., 2014; Nepstad et al., 2014). Recently, however, this
deforestation rate has increased—a 30% increase from 2012 to
2016 (INPE, 2017)—and Brazil remains the nation with the highest
annual losses of native tropical forest, and the largest carbon emitter
from gross deforestation (Zarin et al., 2016). The pattern of defor-
estation in the Brazilian Amazon has changed recently, now occur-
ring in small patches, often in remote parts of the Amazon, with
increased relative participation of small-scale landholders who have
not responded to the existing conservation policies (Assuncßa~o, Gan-
dour, Pessoa, & Rocha, 2017; Godar et al., 2014). To reduce defor-
estation, the scientific community has proposed that conservation
policies be based on support and incentive mechanisms and tailored
by the parties involved (Assuncß~ao, Gandour, Pessoa et al., 2017;
Azevedo et al., 2017; Godar et al., 2014).
A challenge in stopping deforestation is the constant need for
new areas of agricultural production. With an area of over 250 Mha
of farmland, Brazil is among the top producers and exporters of
major food, feed, and bioenergy crops, such as beef, maize, soybean,
rice, coffee, and sugarcane (FAO, 2014). In response to the growing
demand for these products, Brazil is expected to increase agricultural
outputs in the coming years (MAPA, 2016). The Brazilian govern-
ment projects a 30% growth in cereal production up to 2026, to be
achieved through higher yields as well as expansion (7.4 Mha) of
agricultural land (MAPA, 2016). The production of bioenergy prod-
ucts from, for example, sugarcane—currently occupying an area of
more than 10 Mha—is projected to increase at the same rate
(MAPA, 2016). This development will increase the pressure on land
and thus lead to further direct and indirect LUC.
The Native Vegetation Protection Law (Brasil, 2012), henceforth
referred to as the “Brazilian Forest Act”, is the main legal framework
to limit agricultural expansion into native vegetation on private land.
It regulates the two most important mechanisms for the protection
of native vegetation on private territory, the permanent preservation
areas (PPAs) and legal reserves (LRs). The PPAs consist of riparian
zones along rivers, streams, and lakes, steep slopes, hilltops, and
mangroves that must be protected from any disturbance. The LRs
are made up of variable shares of private rural properties (20%–80%
depending on the biome and vegetation type) to be set aside for
nature protection. LRs are essential for the protection of natural
habitats and biodiversity, and for the provision of ecosystem ser-
vices, for example, global climate regulation by carbon storage in
FREITAS ET AL.
vegetation, and freshwater supply (Banks-Leite et al., 2014, Harris
et al., 2012; Lapola et al., 2014; Nazareno & Laurance, 2015).
The revision of the Forest Act in 2012 entailed several changes
that resulted in less stringent requirements for restoration of native
vegetation on agricultural land (Metzger et al., 2010; Soares-Filho
et al., 2014; Sparovek, Berndes, Barretto, & Klug, 2012). Several stud-
ies of the 2012 Forest Act find negative impacts on the provision of
valuable ecosystem services (Alarcon et al., 2015; De Sousa, Fernan-
dez Piedade, & Candotti, 2011; Pinto et al., 2014; Soares-Filho et al.,
2014; Sparovek et al., 2012), although the 2012 revision introduced
elements intended to reduce illegal deforestation—land clearing
within protected areas—and make command and control regulations
more efficient (Silva Jaan et al., 2011; Soares-Filho et al., 2014; Spar-
ovek, Berndes, Klug, & Barretto, 2010; Stickler, Nepstad, Azevedo, &
Mcgrath, 2013). Special mention should be made of one such ele-
ment, the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR, Portuguese acronym), a
voluntary geo-referenced database of the boundaries, protected
areas, and native vegetation occurrence in private rural properties.
The CAR is a comprehensive nationwide geo-referenced information
source on private rural properties, a widely recognized tool for trans-
parency in the monitoring of legal compliance with environmental
legislation (Alarcon et al., 2015; Assuncß~ao, Gandour, Pessoa et al.,
2017; Gibbs et al., 2015; Soares-Filho et al., 2014). CAR and other
existing law enforcement tools—such as the DETER system, which
provides real-time deforestation detection, and the PRODES project,
which monitors deforestation of the Amazon rainforest at a fine reso-
lution—are expected to make public governance of native vegetation
on private land more effective (Sparovek et al., 2016).
In this new scenario of improved law enforcement and increased
accountability for illegal deforestation, spatially explicit assessment
of the extent of public governance protection is of particular impor-
tance to orient public intervention and furnish the formulation of
much needed policies aimed to preserve nature beyond the limits of
existing public mechanisms of protection (Assuncß~ao, Gandour, Pes-
soa et al., 2017; Azevedo et al., 2017; Barlow et al., 2016; Godar
et al., 2014).
Despite the intense scientific debate about the 2012 Brazilian
Forest Act, only a few studies have provided nationwide quantita-
tive analyses regarding the changes in protection for native vegeta-
tion on private land (Soares-Filho et al., 2014; Sparovek et al.,
2012), focusing primarily on changes in the amount of land required
to be protected. However, carbon storage in the diverse native veg-
etation varies greatly by location. Although previous studies provide
rough estimates of carbon stored in native vegetation and soil
(Soares-Filho et al., 2014), they do not capture the spatial variability
of carbon in native vegetation nor the relationship to the various
mechanisms of public governance. Using a geographically explicit
land-use model, Sparovek, Barretto, Matsumoto, and Berndes (2015)
demonstrated the need to assess the 2012 Forest Act in relation to
other regulatory frameworks for public (Brasil, 1973, 2000) and pri-
vate lands (Brasil, 2006), highlighting the importance of tenure regu-
larization for the implementation of public protection mechanisms in
the Amazon.
FREITAS ET AL.
A significant portion of Brazil consists of undesignated land,
vast areas—primarily in the Amazon—with unclear land-use rights,
where private ownership is not recognized and public conservation
is not institutionalized (Damasceno, Chiavar, & Lopes, 2017). These
areas are often subject to conflicts over land possession, and high
rates of illegal deforestation due to the lack of governance (Damas-
ceno, 2016; Lapola et al., 2014; Mueller, 2016; Reydon, Fernandes,
& Telles, 2015; Zarin et al., 2016). The scientific community and
civil society have been pushing for tenure regularization as a mean
to stop deforestation (Damasceno, 2016; Lapola et al., 2014; MMA,
2017, Sparovek et al., 2015). To accelerate this process, the Brazil-
ian government has institutionalized the Terra Legal Programme
(Brasil, 2009), an initiative aimed at providing tenure security in the
Amazon region by titling undesignated land legally appropriated by
farmers, especially small ones, in order to prevent illegal land appro-
priation and deforestation, ensuring the preservation of natural
ecosystems (L’roe, Rausch, Munger, & Gibbs, 2016). More recently,
the Brazilian government has enacted act 13.465/2017, which facil-
itates the tenure regularization of large untitled properties (Brasil,
2017). This act is heavily criticized by civil society and by the oppo-
sition in parliament, who argue that the new regulation will enable
regularization of public land that has been grabbed illegally and may
promote deforestation in the region. The future of undesignated
land in Brazil is uncertain, and studies providing a quantitative anal-
ysis of the potential impacts of land tenure developments on the
preservation of carbon stocks are lacking. The absence of an inte-
grated database of land tenure in Brazil presents a challenge. Exist-
ing datasets are scattered among different institutions and are
often inconsistent (Damasceno, 2016; Lapola et al., 2014; Reydon
et al., 2015).
This study aimed to quantify the scope of different mecha-
nisms of public governance on public and private land regarding
the protection of aboveground carbon (AGC) stocks. The main goal
is to assess whether regulatory mechanisms provide sufficient pro-
tection for carbon stocks in Brazilian native vegetation. For this
purpose, we construct a national land tenure dataset by integrating
existing tenure databases and performing complementary land
tenure simulations. An updated version of the geographically expli-
cit land-use model presented by Sparovek et al. (2015), here called
the land-use governance assessment (LUGA) model, was employed
to identify protected areas and evaluate the effects of regularizing
the tenure of undesignated land on the implementation of major
command and control mechanisms. Moreover, we combine the
geographically explicit information on land tenure and protected
areas with high-resolution maps of AGC stocks (Englund et al.,
2017). Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of policy measures and
related sustainability implications. The outcomes of this study can
elucidate the relationship between Brazilian land-use governance
mechanisms and the protection of carbon stocks as well as identify
the distribution of unprotected AGC stocks among different rural
property sizes. This is strategic information for developing policies
to provide incentives for the preservation of native vegetation with
high AGC.
| 3
2 | MATERIALS AND METHODS
The LUGA is a modeling framework developed to perform an inte-
grated assessment of land-use protection mechanisms in Brazil. The
model was initially presented by Sparovek et al. (2010) and later
applied and further developed in several other studies (Freitas, Sparo-
vek, & Matsumoto, 2016; Freitas, Sparovek et al., 2017; Sparovek,
Barretto, Klug, Papp, & Lino, 2011; Sparovek et al., 2012, 2015). Here,
we update the model version presented in Sparovek et al. (2015) to
include a new component for the construction of a nationwide tenure
dataset. The updated model is used to analyze the effects and uncer-
tainty of tenure regularization in relation to major mechanisms of pub-
lic protection on private and public land. The role of these mechanisms
in the protection of AGC stocks is quantified. The data processing and
modeling in this study use the Geographic Information System (GIS)
software ArcGIS (Esri, 2010) with Python scripting integrated with a
MySQL open source database.
2.1 | Integration of secondary tenure datasets
We constructed a Brazilian land tenure dataset with national cover-
age by integrating publicly available geo-referenced datasets, includ-
ing boundaries of indigenous reserves, conservation units, military
land, rural settlements, and private properties (See Table S1 for a
detailed list of datasets). Land tenure in the resulting dataset is cate-
gorized as public land, private land, or undesignated land.
Among databases of private properties, we highlight the CAR data-
sets on property boundaries. The CAR datasets are based on farmers’
self-declaration of their property boundaries and native vegetation
stocks. The declarations are made by either submitting existing maps
or manually drawing property boundaries on satellite images. This
approach enables a relatively rapid database construction, but sub-
stantial numbers of conflicting edges indicate discrepancies between
reported and actual property boundaries. Registries that overlap many
other properties were also found. We attempted to resolve these
issues by manually removing (i) polygons with boundary patterns that
are unlikely to represent real properties (such as triangles or circles)
and (ii) polygons overlapping many smaller ones. These measures
resulted in the removal of 1,404 polygons. Conflicting edges were
resolved by removing overlapping regions from the polygons intersect-
ing other polygons. In total, these procedures reduced the total area
included in CAR datasets by roughly 70 Mha, half of it due to the
removal of inconsistent polygons (See Figure S3). This approach is not
likely to influence the final results significantly, because possible errors
resulting from the removal of polygon intersections are mostly related
to shifting boundaries of rural properties but have little effect on the
extent of protected areas on private territory (model output). Even
though changing the boundaries of a given rural property may
decrease or increase the protected area, this change will be offset in
the neighboring rural property. Other datasets of private properties
from the databases of INCRA (see Table S1)—based on geospatial field
data collection using centimeter-precision GPS receivers, following
standard procedures to avoid overlapping with other rural properties
4 |
(INCRA, 2015)—are expected to have higher geographic precision,
and thus, datasets from INCRA took precedence over datasets from
the CAR database.
On public land, there is overlap between datasets of conserva-
tion units and those of indigenous reserves. This overlap can result
from a lack of coordination among government agencies responsible
for demarcation of indigenous reserves and conservation units in
cases of conflict between agencies over the administration of the
land (Ricardo, 2004). However, it is also possible that the involved
agencies share management of these overlapping zones. Although
overlapping areas are traceable in the final land tenure dataset, such
overlapping areas were here classified as indigenous reserves,
because Brazilian legislation recognizes the sovereignty of indige-
nous people within the national territory (Brasil, 1973). Therefore,
the total area of conservation units presented here will be smaller
(6.5 Mha) than in the reference dataset.
Other conflicting zones include intersections between public land
(indigenous reserves, conservation units, and military land) and pri-
vate property, due to disputes between farmers and indigenous peo-
ple or environmental agencies (Paixao et al., 2015). Such overlapping
areas were here classified as public land due to uncertainties regard-
ing the CAR registries, as described earlier, and existing legal barriers
to modifying public land boundaries. This assumption was evaluated
in the sensitivity analysis. Rivers and other water bodies, roads, rail-
ways, and urban areas were grouped to a single layer. The final data-
set of undesignated land was composed of untitled land from the
Terra Legal Programme and public land without any designation by
federal or state governments. The integration of all available datasets
related to land tenure resulted in the coverage of about 670 Mha or
79% of the Brazilian territory.
2.2 | Complementary land tenure simulation
For the remaining 21%—representing one-third of the private land—
the land tenure was simulated. We assumed that this land is made
up of private rural properties not yet registered in INCRA or CAR
databases. Using the land tenure dataset compilation and agricultural
census data (IBGE, 2006), we estimated the number and the size of
rural properties at a municipal level and used this information to cre-
ate simulated properties on land with unknown land tenure.
The agricultural census database does not cover all rural private
property; the surveyed private property corresponds to about
330 Mha of an estimated total area of about 510 Mha (i.e., the sum
of the already known and mapped area of private property and the
unknown territory used for the land tenure simulation). We assumed
that the unsurveyed territory had a similar distribution of rural prop-
erties per size range as the surveyed territory. Based on this assump-
tion, we estimated the universe of private properties per size range
in each municipality. We obtained the number of properties to be
simulated by subtracting, individually for each size range, the number
of private properties within municipalities that have known bound-
aries (based on the compilation of existing datasets), from the total
number of private properties. The geographic allocation of the
FREITAS ET AL.
simulated private properties considered information about common
boundaries of rural properties, that is, watercourses, roads, and
known boundaries to other properties. The algorithm used for the
geographic allocation was formulated to place properties in polygons
within the municipality that best fit the size of the rural property. If
the polygon was larger than the property-size range, we allocated
several rural properties to the same polygon by subdividing the poly-
gon using a Voronoi diagram. The algorithm ensured that the distri-
bution of properties per range size was as similar as possible to that
in the agricultural census database.
The allocation of small, medium, and large rural properties with
unknown boundaries within the municipalities enabled the identifica-
tion of the portion of the territory dominated by each farmer profile,
but it created some uncertainty regarding the total area under LR
protection. Farm-size categorization is based on the fiscal module
unit, the official land unit used by the Brazilian Government for taxa-
tion and land governance purposes. The fiscal module varies from 5
to 110 hectares, depending on the region (Figure S1) and the
expected economic return on the predominant agricultural activities
in the municipality.
The Forest Act of 2012 exempted small-scale farmers (area smaller
than four fiscal modules) from LR restoration but not medium- and
large-scale farmers. Therefore, if small private properties are allocated
to the part of the municipality territory most affected by humans
(where farmers often converted the native vegetation beyond the legal
limits), the extent of native vegetation protected under LR will be less
than if small properties are allocated to the part of the municipality
where most of the native vegetation is preserved. Attempting to control
this uncertainty, we randomized the spatial allocation of simulated pri-
vate properties so that small and medium-to-large properties were allo-
cated to different regions within the municipality in each repetition.
This procedure was repeated ten times, generating, therefore, ten dif-
ferent datasets of simulated boundaries of private properties. For each
municipality, we adopted the simulated dataset in which the final out-
put values for protected AGC stocks (the sum of all mechanisms of pub-
lic protection) were closest to the average value of the ten repetitions.
The land tenure dataset produced here was based on the compi-
lation of existing datasets and tabular data from the agricultural cen-
sus of 2006. For validation purposes, we compared the results of
this analysis with the tabular CAFIR database—the Rural Properties
Registry—which is a mandatory registry of rural properties managed
by the tax agency of Brazil. We compared the number of rural prop-
erties aggregated by size range and state as this aggregated informa-
tion was the only data from the CAFIR database publicly available
(Table S2). Additional methodological details can be found in Freitas,
Guidotti, and Sparovek (2017). The final tenure dataset is publicly
available for download (www.imaflora.org/atlasagropecuario).
2.3 | Simulation of tenure regularization of
undesignated land
The tenure regularization of undesignated land is an ongoing process
that is crucial to tackling deforestation (MMA, 2017). However, the
FREITAS ET AL.
extent and pace of the regularization processes for undesignated
land are very uncertain. For modeling purposes, we considered
undesignated land assignable to either public conservation—in the
form of indigenous reserves, conservation units, or military use—or
private use—through the creation of rural settlements or private
properties, as in the Terra Legal Programme.
We based our analysis on the assumption that the designation
correlates with the level of human influence on the native vegeta-
tion. The outcomes of the regularization process were therefore set
based on the native vegetation coverage. Polygons with undesig-
nated land were classified as private land if native vegetation cover-
age was less than 95% and as public conservation land if coverage
was above 95%, which is the same threshold value used by Sparovek
et al. (2015).
2.4 | Modeling the implementation of public
protection mechanism on private land
Implementation of the environmental legislation on private land was
modeled using the mapping of land tenure described above and a
land use/land cover (LULC) map with 50 m spatial resolution (Sparo-
vek et al., 2015). This land-use map best represents the LULC in
2008, the expiration date for amnesty for illegal deforestation. Land
was assigned so as to comply with the prevailing land-use legislation
by following the steps proposed by Sparovek et al. (2015) and
updated by Freitas et al. (2016). In short, the total PPA was esti-
mated employing datasets on watercourses and surface water from
the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2015) to
identify PPAs in riparian zones. On steep slopes, we employed a dig-
ital elevation model (Farr et al., 2007). The LRs were quantified
applying the rules described in Articles 12, 13, 15, and 67 of the
Forest Act (Freitas et al., 2016). The layers containing water sur-
faces, urban areas, areas of inconsistent data, and infrastructure
were masked out of the processing universe, leaving a total pro-
cessed area of 808 Mha. Conservation units, indigenous land, and
land reserved for military purposes were included in land for public
conservation (Figure S2).
2.5 | Allocation of legal reserves
The Forest Act determines that the allocation of a LR within a rural
private property should consider several aspects, such as ecosystem
services conservation, the formation of ecological corridors, and con-
nectivity to conservation units and PPAs (Brasil, 2012). While such
conservation factors are relevant, landholders, who ultimately sug-
gest where on their land the LR should be located, may prioritize
economic aspects and are likely to make decisions that ensure the
best financial returns. We based the LR allocation on the assumption
that LRs will be allocated to those areas that are the least suitable
for agricultural production. This land was identified using an agricul-
tural suitability map produced by Barretto (2013), using soil, slope,
and climate parameters. In areas where agricultural suitability is
homogenous throughout the landscape, we assumed that LR will be
| 5
located close to land that is already protected. Such areas were iden-
tified by determining neighborhood occurrence of legally protected
areas or preserved native vegetation, using a search window of
15 9 15 cells.
We opted to model the allocation of LRs on the rural private
properties despite the existence of geo-referenced data on LRs for
properties in the CAR database because the land-use map of native
vegetation does not necessarily match the LR shapefiles due to
imprecisions in both the CAR database and the land-use map. This
mismatch between LRs and native vegetation datasets could result
in an overestimation of LR deficits and unprotected native vegeta-
tion on private land. Additionally, other data sources of boundaries
of private properties (from INCRA databases in Table S1) do not
specify the LRs, which have to be simulated and allocated. For con-
sistency, we used a single methodological approach on all private
properties.
2.6 | Analyzing aboveground carbon stocks in
relation to mechanisms of public protection
To quantify the amount of carbon stored in vegetation depending
on land tenure, we used a newly produced aboveground carbon
compilation map for the entire Brazilian territory with a 50 m
pixel resolution (Englund et al., 2017), created based on data from
existing carbon maps (Baccini et al., 2012; MCTI, 2016, Nogueira
et al., 2015; Saatchi, Houghton, Dos Santos Alvala, Soares, & Yu,
2007; Saatchi et al., 2011) and an up-to-date LULC map (Sparovek
et al., 2015). This map represents the current LULC well and does
not generally overestimate carbon levels on land with low carbon
stocks, such as agricultural land, thus enabling farm-level
assessment. Other carbon pools than aboveground biomass, that
is, belowground biomass and soil organic matter, were not
considered.
2.7 | Sensitivity analysis
We performed a global sensitivity analysis considering three major
sources of uncertainty in regularizing tenure and implementing the
mechanisms of public protection for native vegetation:
1. Zone conflicts: Public conservation or private land? We assumed
that public conservation land always prevails if there is a zone
conflict with private land. While this might be the most likely
scenario, there are several ongoing legal disputes in which land-
holders claim the right to land inside public conservation areas.
Additionally, several bills currently under congressional assess-
ment aim to revoke or reduce indigenous reserves and conserva-
tion units. Furthermore, when rural properties overlap with
conservation units, the Forest Act allows landholders to credit
these overlapping zones as LRs, thereby reducing the total area
protected as LR. To capture these possible variations in the sen-
sitivity analysis, we let private land prevail when in conflict with
public conservation land.
6 | FREITAS ET AL.

T A B L E 1 Summary of LUGA model design, including input data, data processing, and model outputs

• Indigenous territory datasets
• Conservation units’ datasets
Input • Boundaries of private rural
data properties (CAR and INCRA
datasets)
• Public forests datasets
• Rural settlements
• Military land
• Water courses and surfaces
• 2008 land-use map
• Agricultural census data of
2006
• Federal and state roads and
railways datasets
• Urban areas dataset
• Digital elevation model
• Agricultural suitability dataset
Key parameters and assumptions
• Combination of secondary tenure data-
sets
Data • Complementary tenure simulation
processing • Simulation of tenure regularization of
undesignated land
• Combination of tenure dataset with
2008 land-use map of native vegetation
• Simulation of the implementation of the
revised Forest Act 2012
• Allocation of Legal Reserves
• Analysis of AGC map in relation to
mechanism of public protection and
tenure information
Sensitivity analysis
• Geoexplicit tenure dataset
• Area and AGC stock under each
Output mechanism of public protection
data (permanent protected areas,
legal reserves, conservation
units, indigenous land, military
land, Atlantic Forest Law)
• Geoexplicit information on
unprotected native vegetation
and associated AGC stocks
• Distribution of area and AGC
stocks among different profiles
of rural private owners

• When combining secondary tenure datasets, we • What if private land instead prevails over public conservation. When boundaries conflict?
assumed that public conservation land prevails over
private land if boundaries conflict.
• To simulate regularization of tenure on undesignated • What if we instead let the threshold range from 85% to 99%?
land, we assign such land to public conservation when
native vegetation covers more than 95% of the poly-
gon
• Of 10 sets of complementary simulated tenure data, • What if we instead select the sets of data with the highest, or the lowest, protected AGC
we selected the one with protected AGC stock values stocks for each municipality?
closest to the average value for the 10 sets.

2. Regularization process for undesignated land: We based the assign-
ment of undesignated land to public or private use on the share
of native vegetation within polygons, considering a 95%-thresh-
old value. This value is uncertain as other factors not addressed
in this study help decide the fate of the undesignated lands, for
example, political priorities at federal, state, and municipal levels.
We tested how sensitive the model is to variations in this thresh-
old value by varying it from 85% to 99% native vegetation.
3. Simulation of land tenure: As described earlier, we adopted a data-
set of simulated boundaries for private properties, namely that
dataset for which the final output value for protected AGC
stocks was close to the average value of 10 repetitions. To test
the robustness of results based on these simulated boundaries,
we reran the model using the repetitions that resulted in the
lowest and highest protection of AGC stocks. A summary of the
LUGA model design is presented in Table 1.
3 | RESULTS
3.1 | Public protection of AGC stocks
Figure 1 shows the aggregated land areas (a) and AGC stocks (b) in
relative terms, by land tenure and land use, for the different mecha-
nisms of public protection on private and public land. The modeled
land tenure is shown on the map in Figure 1c. The figure also pre-
sents the relative distribution of land and associated AGC among pri-
vate property sizes (small, medium, and large) and LULC type.
Protected land represents about half the Brazilian territory (418 Mha
in total), mostly located in the Amazon region (285 Mha)—home to
most of the public conservation land in Brazil (Figure 3, Figure 1c,
Table S4). Protected land holds about three-quarters (38 Gt) of the
AGC stock in Brazil. The regularization of undesignated land adds
80 Mha of protected land with nearly 10 Gt of AGC stored in native
vegetation. Public governance protection would thus cover about
60% of the total territory, on which more than 90% of the total
AGC stock would be stored.
About half of the AGC is on public conservation land, roughly
equally distributed on indigenous reserves and conservation units—
full protection + sustainable use—(Figure 1b). About one percent of
the AGC is found on military land. Expansion of public conservation
on undesignated land is expected to cover an additional 70 Mha of
land and 17% (8.9 Gt) of the total AGC stock. About 62% of Brazil-
ian land is privately owned, holding about 30% (15.8 Gt) of the total
AGC. Tenure regularization may expand private land to 65% of the
territory and increase the relative share of AGC stock to 32.5%.
Almost three-quarters of this carbon are protected in the form of
LRs (21.5%), permanent preservation areas (1.7%), or as native vege-
tation protected by the Atlantic Forest Law (1.2%).
3.2 | Unprotected AGC stocks
Private land with no legal obligations comprises ca. 324 Mha (40% of
the processed territory). This is mainly used for agriculture and holds
a relatively small share (8.5%) of the AGC stock. We estimate that the
FREITAS ET AL. | 7

(a) 13.0% Land tenure categories

34.9% Protected territory in public land
PC → Public conservation
IL
13.9% CUPI IL → Indigenous land
Large
20.0% 10.3% CUPI → Conservation unit of full protection
7.1%
CUSU CUSU → Conservation unit of sustainable use
2.0% M A → M ilitary land
MA UL to PC → Undesignated land assigned to public conservation
PRnoOB 0.4%
40.0% PC
5.5%
27% Protected territory in private land
Medium 808 UL to PC
7.9% 8.7% LR → Legal reserve
2.4%
PR Mha UL
PPA → Permanent protected areas
62% 11% UL to PR
2.6% AF → Atlantic Forest Law
PPA
Small AF 3.3%
12.1%
Private land
9.0% 1.0%
UL to PR → Undesignated land assigned to private use
LR PRnoOB→ Private land with no legal obligation
Small
20.3% 0.4% Small → Smallholder farmers (<4 fiscal modules)
7.1%
3.1% Medium 6.5% M edium → M edium farmers (4 – 15 fiscal modules)
Large
4.6% Large → Large farmers (>15 fiscal modules)
13.0%
3.7% 0.6%
1.4% 11.5%
0.9% Land use
0.4% 0.9% Agriculture land
(b) 1.1%
3.7% Native vegetation
0.7%
1.7%
0.1% Large 4.6%
Medium 1.5%
12.7% (c)
Small 2.4%
Large
12.8%
PRnoOB IL
8.5% 25.5%
LR
21.5% PR PC
3.5% Medium 50%
30%
3.5% 52
AF
1.2% Gt CUPI
UL 19.6%
Small
20%
8.0%
8.0%
CUSU
PPA 4.3%
1.7% MA
0.5%
UL to PR
2.5% UL to PC
17.1%

67.1%

F I G U R E 1 Distribution of area (a) and AGC stock (b), in relative terms, by land tenure and land use, and the geographic location (c) of
selected land tenure categories. The distribution of private land among small rural properties (0–4 fiscal modules), medium rural properties (4–
15 fiscal modules), and large rural properties (more than 15 fiscal modules) is also specified

biomass of about 223 Mha of crops stores approximately 2% (~1 Gt)
of the total AGC stock in Brazil. Native vegetation covers about
101 Mha of private land with no legal obligations; this is unprotected
land that can legally be converted to agriculture. This vegetation holds
about 6.5% (~3.4 Gt) of the Brazilian AGC stock (Figure 1b).
The Amazon biome, the largest in Brazil, sustains a relatively
small share of the unprotected native vegetation (~9 Mha). However,
this carbon-dense vegetation stores almost one-third of the unpro-
tected AGC (~1 Gt). The Cerrado biome, holding more than 40%
(~1.4 Gt) of total unprotected AGC, is the largest unprotected AGC
8 | FREITAS ET AL.

No of rural properties (% of 6.5 Million)

Area (% of 522 Mha)
AGC stock (% of 15.8 Gt)

78%
Small Medium Large

50%
50%
23%

20%

16%
16%

10%
9%

6%
6%

6%

5%
5%

2%
Farm-size range
<1 1–2 2-4 4 – 15 >15
(Fiscal modules)

No of properties
per data source

Area of private land

per data source

INCRA databases CAR database Simulated properties

F I G U R E 2 Number of private rural properties, associated area, and AGC stock by farm size. The figure also presents the relative
importance of each data source used to subdivide private land into different farm sizes

pool among the Brazilian biomes (Figure 3, Table S5). The unpro-
tected AGC stock in native Cerrado vegetation is slightly greater
than the unprotected AGC in the Amazon biome, but it is distributed
over a much larger area of unprotected native vegetation (44 Mha,
Figure 3). In Caatinga, about 35 Mha of native vegetation are unpro-
tected, corresponding to a third of the unprotected native vegeta-
tion, where an estimated 20% (~0.7 Gt) of AGC is stored (Figure 3,
Table S8). Together, the two smallest Brazilian biomes, Pantanal and
Pampa, represent less than 12% of the unprotected native vegeta-
tion and about 9% of the unprotected AGC stock (Figure 3,
Table S7, Table S9).
3.3 | Ownership of AGC stock on private land
Small rural properties are underrepresented in existing geographic
databases due to the difficulties and costs associated with
registration. For these, tenure simulation was especially important. In
contrast, existing datasets cover most of the medium and large-scale
properties (Figure 2). The final constructed dataset enabled spatially
explicit identification of land ownership for the entire territory of
Brazil. Aggregated numbers of individual private properties closely
match existing tabular databases, with a few exceptions such as in
Bahia state, one of the largest Brazilian states, where the number of
small rural properties is half that in the existing tabular databases
(see Table S2).
Two percent of the landholders own half of this territory and
half of the AGC stock on private land. At the other end, roughly
one-third of the private territory and AGC stock is owned by small-
holder farmers who represent 93% of the landholders in Brazil (Fig-
ure 2).
On the national level, the AGC stock in unprotected native
vegetation is roughly equally distributed between small-to-medium
FREITAS ET AL. | 9

4.5
AGC stocks in Unprotected NV (% of 3.4 Gt) Unprotected NV (% of 102 Mha) Landholders (% of 1.8 Million)
3.5
Large 0.4% 4.8% 14.5% 1.6% 26.0% 25.3% 0.1% 7.4% 7.3% 0.7% 15.9% 9.6% 0.3% 2.4% 0.5%
Private land

2.5
30% Medium 0.7% 1.6% 3.9% 3.1% 9.3% 8.7% 0.1% 0.6% 0.6% 1.8% 6.4% 3.7% 0.5% 1.0% 0.2%
1.5
Small 6.1% 2.9% 10.0% 29.9% 8.4% 8.6% 0.4% 0.2% 0.2% 50.5% 12.5% 6.7% 3.9% 0.8% 0.2%
20% 0.5

10%

0%
Amazon Cerrado Atlantic Forest Pantanal Caatinga Pampa

10%
6%
20%
Public conservation

4%
30%

2%
40%

0%
50%
Cerrado Atlantic Forest Pantanal Caatinga Pampa
–2%
60%
Protected NV (% 808 Mha)
70% AGC stock in protected NV (% of 52 Gt)
Unprotected NV (% of 808 Mha)
AGC stock in unprotected NV (% of 52 Gt)
80%

F I G U R E 3 Distribution of protected and unprotected land covered with native vegetation (NV) and the associated aboveground carbon
(AGC) stocks for each biome. The percentage of protected and unprotected NV represents the share of the total processed territory
(808 Mha) and associated AGC stocks (52 Gt). The red error bars represent the possible variation in our results considering the extreme values
from the sensitivity analysis. In the top of the figure, the colored circles represent the shares of landholders owning unprotected native
vegetation and the corresponding shares of the total area and of the AGC stock. As discussed earlier, all Atlantic Forest is protected by the
Atlantic Forest Law

rural properties and large ones (Figure 2). However, the distribu-
tion can vary considerably among different biomes (Figure 3,
Tables S4–S9). Here, we highlight the Amazon, Cerrado, and Caa-
tinga biomes, where most of the unprotected AGC stock is
stored.
In the Amazon biome, small-to-medium properties hold as
much unprotected AGC as the large ones. We estimate that the
7,000 large properties in the Amazon region hold almost 15%
(~0.5 Gt) of the national unprotected
110,000 small properties in the same biome hold about 10%
(~0.34 Gt).
Large private properties dominate the Cerrado biome, where
about 30,000 large properties hold a quarter of the national
unprotected AGC, while the 600,000 small-to-medium properties in
the Cerrado hold 17% (~0.6 Gt).
The Caatinga biome is largely dominated by very small rural
properties, compared with the other biomes. There are almost one
million small-scale landowners in Caatinga that hold unprotected
AGC on their land, constituting half of all landowners in Brazil hold-
ing unprotected AGC (Figure 3).
AGC, while the
3.4 | Sensitivity analysis
Figure 3 shows the possible variation in the extent of public pro-
tection of native vegetation and associated AGC stocks based on
the sensitivity analysis. The full results from the sensitivity analysis
10 | FREITAS
are presented aggregated at the national and biome level in
Table S3 thru Table S9. In general terms, the extent of public pro-
tection of AGC stocks—estimated to be over 90%—is robust and
not sensitive to uncertainties related to tenure simulation or tenure
regularization, as whether assigned to public conservation (fully
protected), or to private land (80% protected as LR in the Amazon
region, where undesignated land is mostly located), the majority of
the undesignated land will be protected after the tenure regulariza-
tion. However, the sensitivity tests reveal that the estimated
unprotected AGC in the Amazon biome (1 Gt) may vary by a factor
of two, depending on the outcomes of tenure regularization. The
unprotected AGC stocks in the other biomes were not sensitive to
tenure simulation or tenure regularization. At the national level, in
a worst-case scenario—considering the boundaries of our sensitiv-
ity tests—instead of 101 Mha storing 3.4 Gt, the unprotected
native vegetation could be 110 Mha, storing roughly 4.5 Gt of
AGC.
4 | DISCUSSION
The LUGA model presented in this paper enables spatially explicit
information on land tenure and the effects of the current public pro-
tection mechanisms (Table 1), allowing a pixel-level analysis of the
ownership of AGC stocks in Brazil. The outcomes provide a detailed
view of the impacts of public governance on AGC stocks.
4.1 | Tenure simulation and undesignated land
The area classified as undesignated land was considerably smaller
than in previous estimates (Freitas et al., 2016; Sparovek et al.,
2015), mainly due to the inclusion of the CAR dataset. However,
there are uncertainties associated with the use of a dataset based
on farmers’ self-declarations. In addition to what has already been
mentioned, there are concerns that the CAR registry may have been
used for illegal appropriation of public land or other lands under dis-
pute among farmers and indigenous or traditional communities (Ciro
Barros, 2016; L’roe et al., 2016). Therefore, there could be cases of
forged, or otherwise incorrect, CAR registries that have been used
to determine land tenure for previously undesignated territory. Sup-
porting this hypothesis, a relevant share (8.5 Mha, about 6% of the
private land in the Amazon biome) of the CAR registries in the Ama-
zon biome have more than 95% of the territory covered by native
vegetation, indicating a very low level of human disturbance in these
properties. Public authorities are expected to verify and validate the
CAR registry, but the pace of this validation process is highly uncer-
tain and may take several years.
Despite the progress on designating undesignated land, this terri-
tory stores over 20% of the Brazilian AGC stock. The tenure regular-
ization of this territory is a crucial step for the enforcement of public
protection mechanisms and the means for further reductions in
emissions from deforestation in Brazil (Damasceno, 2016; Mueller,
2016; Zarin et al., 2016).
ET AL.
4.2 | Conservation policies for unprotected AGC
Greater compliance with the Forest Act can be expected among
farmers, after tenure consolidation and full implementation of CAR
registration accompanied by improved satellite-based monitoring of
deforestation in all Brazilian biomes (Sparovek et al., 2016). Full
compliance may still depend on further economic incentives and
market barriers (Azevedo et al., 2017). Also by considering a scenario
of perfect compliance with the Forest Act, GHG emissions from LUC
may remain high as a relevant share of the total AGC is stored in
unprotected vegetation on private land. Much of this vegetation is in
remote areas or on land that is not suitable for agricultural explo-
ration, but this may change in the long run with infrastructure and
technological development. Policy mechanisms that have the poten-
tial to conserve the unprotected native vegetation on private land,
such as the Environmental Reserve Quotas—a mechanism that
enables the offsetting of legal deficits of native vegetation among
landholders (Bernasconi, Blumentrath, Barton, Rusch, & Romeiro,
2016; Freitas, Sparovek et al., 2017)—or Payment for Environmental
Services (PES) schemes, are struggling to be legally regulated, and
their scale and effectiveness are still uncertain (Bernasconi et al.,
2016; Freitas, Sparovek et al., 2017).
Our analysis indicates that the largest portion of unprotected
AGC is stored in the Cerrado vegetation, where the mechanisms
accountable for the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Amazon
(Assuncß~ao et al., 2015; Gibbs et al., 2015; Nepstad et al., 2014) are
not yet in place. This is a biodiversity hotspot where most of the
recent agricultural expansion into native vegetation has taken place,
supported by infrastructure development and government incentives
(Gibbs et al., 2015; Strassburg, Latawiec, & Balmford, 2016). Civil
society and the scientific community have been pushing for an
expansion of market barriers to the Cerrado biome, referring to the
positive outcome in the Amazon biome (Azevedo et al., 2017; Gibbs
et al., 2015; Nepstad et al., 2014). Such an intervention may be
effective in reducing land-use-related emissions as ownership of
AGC stock in this biome is dominated by large-scale landholders,
who are particularly sensitive to trade restrictions and strongly influ-
enced by international markets (Assuncß~ao, Gandour, Pessoa et al.,
2017; Godar et al., 2014). On the other hand, a third of the Brazilian
AGC and a quarter of the unprotected AGC on private land are
owned by smallholder farmers. These actors are less responsive to
the existing mechanisms for preventing deforestation and are
responsible for an increasing share of deforestation in the Amazon
(Assuncß~ao, Gandour, Pessoa et al., 2017; Godar et al., 2014;
Richards & Vanwey, 2015). Small-scale landholders dominate the
Caatinga biome. Although the carbon density of Caatinga vegetation
is lower than in, for example, the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, AGC
stored in unprotected native vegetation is not negligible. Moreover,
the Caatinga biome hosts a large number of endemic and endan-
gered species (Lewinsohn, 2006). Recent infrastructure development
within the Caatinga—especially the inter-basin water transfer of the
S~ao Francisco River—may bring changes, boost rural development,
and enable, for example, irrigated agriculture. While this could
FREITAS ET AL.
contribute positively to local and regional economies, it may result in
the displacement of native vegetation, with associated impacts on
important ecosystem services and biodiversity (Santos, Leal,
Almeida-Cortez, Fernandes, & Tabarelli, 2011). Given the large share
of unprotected native vegetation in this biome (Figure 3, Table S8),
such impacts could be severe and therefore deserve further investi-
gation. To date, land-use-related impacts of this infrastructure devel-
opment have received little attention from the scientific community.
4.3 | AGC under public conservation
The demarcation of indigenous land and conservation units that has
occurred in the last decades is one of the most important elements
of the Brazilian climate agenda, considering the associated carbon
stocks and the high effectiveness of this type of protection mecha-
nism (Barber, Cochrane, Souza, & Laurance, 2014; Nepstad et al.,
2006, 2014; Sparovek et al., 2010).
Concerns regarding low environmental and social priorities have
been raised in recent years (Fearnside, 2016; Ferreira et al., 2014)
and have intensified because of the recent political turbulence in
Brazil. Several bills have been formulated and moved forward to
weaken environmental protection and slow the demarcation of
indigenous land, or even reduce or repeal existing conservation units
and indigenous reserves (Fearnside, 2016). The purpose of initiatives
to weaken protection is to enable large infrastructure investments
and appropriation of land for agriculture production, mining, and
hydroelectric dams (Ferreira et al., 2014). Such political decisions can
result in a reduction of protected native vegetation and associated
carbon stocks, especially in the Amazon.
Conservation units and undesignated land host thousands of
communities, which—despite improvements over the last decades—
are often subject to poverty and related social issues (Guedes et al.,
2012; Ioris, 2016). These socioeconomic challenges undermine the
capacity of these communities to sustain their livelihoods based on
sustainable land-use practices.
There are reports of remunerations offered to communities in pro-
tected areas in exchange for illegal selective logging (Rist et al., 2012).
This can degrade the forest and lead to significant impacts on carbon
stocks and biodiversity (Asner et al., 2005; Barlow et al., 2016), a
social dynamic that may escalate in a national scenario of economic
crisis and political instability, expected to endure for several years.
Economic and social development in poor communities is a pre-
requisite for the preservation of carbon stocks in the Amazon region
(Aguiar et al., 2016). The role of these communities in protecting the
forest should be better acknowledged in public and private gover-
nance. Schemes of payment for ecosystem services may be an
important mechanism for financing traditional communities in the
short term. Unfortunately, the proliferation of such schemes has
been very slow. Nobre et al. (2016) argued that new ways of think-
ing about sustainable development of the Amazon are needed,
focusing on developing and scaling up innovative high-value prod-
ucts and services based on a sustainable use of the Amazon rainfor-
est. Achieving this may require public-private partnerships for the
| 11
development of solutions that are specific to the Amazon region.
This development, however, is challenged by the lack of local human
capacities, incentives, and enabling regulatory frameworks (Nobre
et al., 2016). The avoid and mitigation strategy depend on a novel
set of actions, as described here, because it is not likely that the cur-
rent and follow-up government and parliament representatives will
repeat the strategies that reduced deforestation and increased envi-
ronmental protection from the past, by creating conservation units
and increasing surveillance. These measures depended on high public
investments and intervention strategy that in recent times are being
undermined by weakening environmental regulations on farmland
and reducing public investments in the social and environmental are-
nas.
In this study, we focused on the Brazilian case; however,
strengthening land-use governance in Brazil can result in negative
LUC dynamics elsewhere (Aguiar et al., 2016), including other coun-
tries in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, where emissions from defor-
estation are still increasing and public governance of native
vegetation is weaker, thus offsetting the efforts made in Brazil to
prevent land-use-related emission (Zarin et al., 2016).
Our analysis did not include all carbon pools, such as below-
ground biomass, and soil carbon. This results in a lower relative “im-
portance” of regions with high carbon concentrations in the soil, for
example, areas in the Pantanal biome, where native aboveground
vegetation stores small amounts of carbon (Table S7), but large areas
of wetland and peatland store large amounts of belowground carbon
for which our analysis does not account. Drainage of these areas
could trigger substantial carbon dioxide emissions (Joosten, 2009).
Furthermore, while results at the national level are robust to the
major sources of uncertainty related to data and modeling assump-
tions, several other sources of uncertainty were not considered in
the sensitivity analysis, for example, uncertainties associated with
the LULC dataset and the AGC dataset. Moreover, ongoing negotia-
tions in the parliament may affect the outcomes presented here. Bills
and provisional measures may revoke conservation units and indige-
nous land, while facilitating the titling of illegally appropriated land.
Finally, if we detach the carbon agenda from other agendas
related to the protection of native vegetation, for example, biodiver-
sity, water safety, and the scenic beauty of landscapes, the total
amount of AGC is of higher importance than its location. Given the
relatively small amounts of AGC stored in native vegetation on
unprotected private land (6.5% of total), conversion of such land to
agricultural land can be considered of minor importance from a car-
bon perspective, but it may bring severe impacts to other important
ecosystem services and biodiversity.
Depending on the degree of impacts on biodiversity and other
ecosystem services, agricultural expansion on highly productive sites
covered by native vegetation may be considered acceptable if this
development brings positive economic and social returns. Unpro-
tected native vegetation on farmland under surveillance, or of major
concern, could be reduced if only considering land with high conser-
vation value. This would also allow efforts to be focused where they
are most needed. At the same time, high priority areas might shift in
12 | FREITAS
the future due to climate change, which could motivate the protec-
tion of additional areas as a safety net for adaptive management.
Regarding carbon, major immediate efforts should be focused on
legal protection, more specifically on (i) ensuring full regularization of
undesignated land and strong enforcement of the Forest Act; (ii)
reverting the current increase in illegal deforestation on conservation
units and undesignated land; and, most importantly, (iii) keeping or
expanding the current area of conservation units and indigenous
reserves, which have both recently been challenged by government
actions. All these are related to the government and the parliament
in Brazil, which are both affected by political and economic chal-
lenges.
Because of the earlier effectiveness of parliament—and govern-
ment—driven reduction of deforestation in the Amazon (Nepstad
et al., 2014), revision of the Forest Act, and establishment of vast
areas of conservation units, the environmental agenda shifted to the
private agricultural sector (e.g., the soy moratorium, sectorial commit-
ments on Zero Deforestation). As our analysis shows, the focus should
immediately return to the political landscape. This article can hopefully
contribute to the development of new policies that aim at maximizing
the effects of land preservation on AGC stocks—such as targeted pro-
tection—and guide PES investments to where they provide the best
outcomes. The modeling framework presented here can be further
developed to consider additional carbon pools, as well as other ecosys-
tem services, such as freshwater supply and maintenance of soil fertil-
ity, and biodiversity conservation. In this way, a sustainable balance
between producing food, fiber and bioenergy feedstock, and other
ecosystem services, as well as biodiversity, can be achieved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to express our appreciation to the anonymous
reviewers whose suggestions and comments were very valuable and
helped us improving the article. We are also grateful to the Brazilian
National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
(249404/2013-3) for financing this research. The authors of this
manuscript have no conflict of interest to declare.
ORCID
Flavio L. M. Freitas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8313-5845
Oskar Englund http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1662-6951
Gerd Sparovek http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8301-8529
€ran Berndes
Go http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1126-6835
Vinicius Guidotti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3639-2101
€rtberg
Ulla Mo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1640-8946
REFERENCES
Aguiar, A. P. D., Vieira, I. C. G., Assis, T. O., Dalla-Nora, E. L., Toledo, P.
M., Oliveira Santos-Junior, R. A., . . . Nobre, C. A. (2016). Land use
change emission scenarios: Anticipating a forest transition process in
ET AL.
the Brazilian Amazon. Global Change Biology, 22, 1821–1840.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13134
Alarcon, G. G., Ayanu, Y., Fantini, A. C., Farley, J., Filho, A. S., & Koellner,
T. (2015). Weakening the Brazilian legislation for forest conservation
has severe impacts for ecosystem services in the Atlantic Southern
Forest. Land Use Policy, 47, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landuse
pol.2015.03.011
Asner, G. P., Knapp, D. E., Broadbent, E. N., Oliveira, P. J. C., Keller, M.,
& Silva, J. N. (2005). Selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon.
Science, 310, 480–482. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1118051
Assuncß~ao, J., Gandour, C., Pessoa, P., & Rocha, R. (2017). Property-level
assessment of change in forest clearing patterns: The need for tailor-
ing policy in the Amazon. Land Use Policy, 66, 18–27. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.04.022
Assuncß~ao, J., Gandour, C., & Rocha, R. (2015). Deforestation slowdown
in the Brazilian Amazon: Prices or policies? Environment and Develop-
ment Economics, 20, 697–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355770X
15000078
Assuncß~ao, J., Gandour, C., & Rocha, R. (2017). DETERring deforestation
in the Amazon: environmental monitoring and law enforcement. In:
Nucleo de Avaliacß~ ao de Polıticas Climaticas. (ed Initiative CP),
PUC-RIO.
Azevedo, A. A., Raj~ao, R., Costa, M. A., Stabile, M. C., Macedo, M. N., dos
Reis, T. N., . . . Pacheco, R. (2017). Limits of Brazil’s forest code as a
means to end illegal deforestation. Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences, 114, 7653–7658. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
1604768114
Baccini, A. G. S. J., Goetz, S. J., Walker, W. S., Laporte, N. T., Sun, M.,
Sulla-Menashe, D., . . . Samanta, S. (2012). Estimated carbon dioxide
emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density
maps. Nature Climate Change, 2, 182–185. https://doi.org/10.1038/
nclimate1354
Banks-Leite, C., Pardini, R., Tambosi, L. R., Pearse, W. D., Bueno, A. A.,
Bruscagin, R. T., . . . Metzger, J. P. (2014). Using ecological thresholds
to evaluate the costs and benefits of set-asides in a biodiversity hot-
spot. Science, 345, 1041–1045.
Barber, C. P., Cochrane, M. A., Souza, C. M. Jr, & Laurance, W. F. (2014).
Roads, deforestation, and the mitigating effect of protected areas in
the Amazon. Biological Conservation, 177, 203–209. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.biocon.2014.07.004
Barlow, J., Lennox, G. D., Ferreira, J., Berenguer, E., Lees, A. C., Mac
Nally, R., . . . Parry, L. (2016). Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical
forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation. Nature, 535,
144–147. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18326
Barretto, A. G. D. O. P. (2013). Agricultural land-use expansion dynamics in
Brazil. Piracicaba, Brazil: Unpublished PhD University of S~ao Paulo.
https://doi.org/10.11606/T.11.2013.tde-28032013-110939
Bernasconi, P., Blumentrath, S., Barton, D. N., Rusch, G. M., & Romeiro, A.
R. (2016). Constraining forest certificate’s market to improve cost-
effectiveness of biodiversity conservation in S~ao Paulo State, Brazil. PLoS
ONE, 11, e0164850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164850
Brasil(1973). Indigenous People Statute “Estatuto do Indio”. In: Law no
6001, 1973-12-19. Brasilia, Brazil.
Brasil (2000). National System of Conservation Units “Sistema Nacional de
Unidades de Conservacßa ~o da Natureza”. In: Law n° 9.985, 2000-07-18.
Brasilia, Brazil.
Brasil (2006). Atlantic Forest Law “Lei de Mata Atla ^ntica”. In: Law N°
11.428, 2006-12-22. Brasil.
Brasil (2009). Terra Legal Programme “Programa Terra Legal”. In: Law N°
11.952. Brasilia, Brazil.
Brasil (2012). Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law. In: Law N°
12.651, 25-May-2012. Brasilia, Brazil.
Brasil (2017). Act for tenure regularization of rural and urban land. In: Law
N° 13.465, 2017-07-11.
FREITAS ET AL.
Ciro Barros, L. B. (2016). Crime e grilagem com uso do CAR. In T. Dome-
nici (Ed.), Ag^encia De Reportagem E Jornalismo Investigativo. Sao Paulo,
Brazil: Age ^ncia Publica.
Damasceno, R. (2016). Insecure land rights in Brazil: Consequences for rural
areas and challenges for improvement. In: Nu cleo de Avaliacß~ao de
Polıticas Climaticas. PUC-Rio, Climate Policy Initiative.
Damasceno, R., Chiavar, J., & Lopes, C. L.. (2017). Evolution of land rights
in Brazil. In: Nu cleo de Avaliacß~ao de Polıticas Climaticas. PUC-Rio, Cli-
mate Policy Initiative.
De Sousa, P. T., Fernandez Piedade, M. T., & Candotti, E. (2011). Ecologi-
cal oversight: Brazil’s forest code puts wetlands at risk. Nature, 478,
458. https://doi.org/10.1038/478458b
Englund, O., Sparovek, G., Berndes, G., Freitas, F., Ometto, J. P., Oliveira,
P. V. D. C. E., . . . Lapola, D. (2017). A new high-resolution nationwide
aboveground carbon map for Brazil. Geo: Geography and Environment,
4, e00045.
Esri. (2010). ArcGIS Version 10.3.1 [GIS Application]. Redlands, CA: Envi-
ronmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.
FAO. (2014). FAOSTAT statistics database. Rome, Italy: Food Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations.
Farr, T. G., Rosen, P. A., Caro, E., Crippen, R., Duren, R., Hensley, S., . . .
Seal, D. (2007). The shuttle radar topography mission. Reviews of
Geophysics, 45, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005RG000183.
Fearnside, P. M. (2016). Brazilian politics threaten environmental policies.
Science, 353, 746–748. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag0254
Ferreira, J., Arag~ao, L. E. O. C., Barlow, J., Barreto, P., Berenguer, E., Busta-
mante, M., . . . Pardini, R. (2014). Brazil’s environmental leadership at
risk. Science, 346, 706–707. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1260194
Freitas, F. L. M., Guidotti, V., & Sparovek, G. (2017). Technical note: Land
tenure map of Brazil, v.170321. In: Atlas - A Geografia da Agrope-
cuaria Brasileira, 2017. Piracicaba.
Freitas, F. L. M., Sparovek, G., & Matsumoto, M. (2016). A adicionalidade
do mecanismo de compensacß~ao de Reserva Legal da Lei 12.651/2012:
Uma ana lise da oferta e demanda de Cotas de Reserva Ambiental. In:
As Mudancßas no Co  digo Florestal Brasileiro: desafios para a imple-
mentacß~ ao da nova lei. (ed Ipea). Brasılia, IPEA.
Freitas, F. L. M. D., Sparovek, G., Mo € rtberg, U., Silveira, S., Klug, I., &
Berndes, G. (2017). Offsetting legal deficits of native vegetation
among Brazilian landholders: Effects on nature protection and socioe-
conomic development. Land Use Policy, 68, 189–199. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.07.014
Gibbs, H. K., Rausch, L., Munger, J., Schelly, I., Morton, D. C., Noojipady,
P., . . . Walker, N. F. (2015). Brazil’s Soy Moratorium. Science, 347,
377–378. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa0181
Godar, J., Gardner, T. A., Tizado, E. J., & Pacheco, P. (2014). Actor-speci-
fic contributions to the deforestation slowdown in the Brazilian Ama-
zon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 15591–
15596. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1322825111
Guedes, G. R., Brondızio, E. S., Barbieri, A. F., Anne, R., Penna-Firme, R.,
& D’antona A.  O. (2012). Poverty and inequality in the Rural Brazilian
Amazon: A multidimensional approach. Human Ecology: An Interdisci-
plinary Journal, 40, 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-011-
9444-5
Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Moore, R., Hancher, M., Turubanova, S.,
Tyukavina, A., . . . Kommareddy, A. (2013). High-resolution global
maps of 21st-century forest cover change. Science, 342, 850–853.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1244693
Harris, N. L., Brown, S., Hagen, S. C., Saatchi, S. S., Petrova, S., Salas, W.,
. . . Lotsch, A. (2012). Baseline map of carbon emissions from defor-
estation in tropical regions. Science, 336, 1573–1576.
IBGE (2006). Agricultural census.
IBGE (2015). Digital Cartographic Database.
INCRA (2015). Land tenure database. National Institute of Colonization
and Agrarian Reform “Instituto Nacional de Colonizacß~ao e Reforma
Agraria”
| 13
INPE (2017). Satellite-based monitoring of deforestation of the Amazon for-
est/PRODES “Monitoramento da floresta amaz^ onica brasileira por
satelite”.
Ioris, A. A. R. (2016). The paradox of poverty in rich ecosystems: Impov-
erishment and development in the Amazon of Brazil and Bolivia. The
Geographical Journal, 182, 178–189. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.
12124
IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: Synthesis report. Contribution of Work-
ing Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change [Code Writing, R. K. Pachauri
and L. A. Meyer (Eds.)]Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC.
Joosten, H. (2009). The Global Peatland CO2 Picture: Peatland status and
drainage related emissions in all countries of the world. Wageningen,
The Netherlands: Wetlands International.
Lapola, D. M., Martinelli, L. A., Peres, C. A., Ometto, J. P., Ferreira, M. E.,
Nobre, C. A., . . . Joly, C. A. (2014). Pervasive transition of the Brazil-
ian land-use system. Nature Climate Change, 4, 27–35.
Lewinsohn, T. M. O. (2006). Avaliacßa ~o do estado do conhecimento da bio-
diversidade brasileira - Volume I e II, Brasılia, Brazil: MMA.
L’roe, J., Rausch, L., Munger, J., & Gibbs, H. K. (2016). Mapping proper-
ties to monitor forests: Landholder response to a large environmental
registration program in the Brazilian Amazon. Land Use Policy, 57,
193–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.05.029
MAPA (2016). Brasil Projecß~ oes do agronegocio 2015/2016 a 2025/2026.
Brasılia-DF, Brazil: Ministe rio da Agricultura, Pecu aria e Abasteci-
mento.
MCTI (2016). Third national communication of Brazil to the United Nations
framework convention on climate change (ed Ministry of Science TaI).
Brasilia, Brazil.
Metzger, J. P., Lewinsohn, T. M., Joly, C. A., Verdade, L. M., Martinelli, L. A.,
& Rodrigues, R. R. (2010). Brazilian law: Full speed in reverse? Science,
329, 276–277. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.329.5989.276-b
MMA (2017). Brazil’s forest reference emission level for reducing emissions
from deforestation in the cerrado biome for results-based payments for
REDD+ under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. (ed Environment MOT). Brasilia.
Mueller, B. (2016). Key issues for property rights in Brazil: Implications for
the forest code. In: Nu cleo de Avaliacß~ao de Polıticas Clim aticas. (ed
Initiative CP). PUC-Rio.
Nazareno, A. G., & Laurance, W. F. (2015). Brazil’s drought: Beware
deforestation. Science, 347, 1427–1427.
Nepstad, D., McGrath, D., Stickler, C., Alencar, A., Azevedo, A., Swette,
B., . . . Armijo, E. (2014). Slowing Amazon deforestation through pub-
lic policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains. Science,
344, 1118–1123. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248525
Nepstad, D., Schwartzman, S., Bamberger, B., Santilli, M., Ray, D., Sch-
lesinger, P., . . . Rolla, A. (2006). Inhibition of Amazon deforestation
and fire by parks and indigenous lands. Conservation Biology, 20(1),
65–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00351.x
Nobre, C. A., Sampaio, G., Borma, L. S., Castilla-Rubio, J. C., Silva, J. S., &
Cardoso, M. (2016). Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon
and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm. Proceed-
ings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 10759–10768.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605516113
Nogueira, E. M., Yanai, A. M., Fonseca, F. O. R., & Fearnside, P. M.
(2015). Carbon stock loss from deforestation through 2013 in Brazil-
ian Amazonia. Global Change Biology, 21, 1271–1292. https://doi.org/
10.1111/gcb.12798
Paixao, S., Hespanha, J. P., Ghawana, T., Carneiro, A. F. T., Zevenbergen,
J., & Frederico, L. N. (2015). Modeling indigenous tribes’ land rights
with ISO 19152 LADM: A case from Brazil. Land Use Policy, 49, 587–
597. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.12.001
Pinto, S., Melo, F., Tabarelli, M., Padovesi, A., Mesquita, C. A., de Mattos
Scaramuzza, C. A., . . . Ce sar, R. G. (2014). Governing and delivering a
biome-wide restoration initiative: The case of Atlantic Forest
14 | FREITAS
restoration pact in Brazil. Forests, 5, 2212–2229. https://doi.org/10.
3390/f5092212
Reydon, B. P., Fernandes, V. B., & Telles, T. S. (2015). Land tenure in Bra-
zil: The question of regulation and governance. Land Use Policy, 42,
509–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.09.007
Ricardo, F. (2004). Terras Indıgenas & Unidades de Conservacßa ~o da natur-
eza : o desafio das sobreposicßo ~es. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Instituto Socioam-
biental.
Richards, P. D., & Vanwey, L. (2015). Farm-scale distribution of defor-
estation and remaining forest cover in Mato Grosso. Nature Climate
Change, 6, 418.
Rist, L., Shanley, P., Sunderland, T., Sheil, D., Ndoye, O., Liswanti, N., &
Tieguhong, J. (2012). The impacts of selective logging on non-timber
forest products of livelihood importance. Forest Ecology and Manage-
ment, 268, 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.04.037
Saatchi, S. S., Harris, N. L., Brown, S., Lefsky, M., Mitchard, E. T., Salas,
W., . . . Petrova, S. (2011). Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in
tropical regions across three continents. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 108, 9899–9904. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
1019576108
Saatchi, S. S., Houghton, R. A., Dos Santos Alvala, R. C., Soares, J. V., &
Yu, Y. (2007). Distribution of aboveground live biomass in the Ama-
zon basin. Global Change Biology, 13, 816–837. https://doi.org/10.
1111/j.1365-2486.2007.01323.x
Santos, J. C., Leal, I. R., Almeida-Cortez, J. S., Fernandes, G. W., & Tabar-
elli, M. (2011). Caatinga: The scientific negligence experienced by a
dry tropical forest. Tropical Conservation Science, 4, 276–286.
https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291100400306
Silva Jaan, A. D., Manzatto, C. V., Joly, C. A., Rodrigues, R. R., Skorupa, L.
A., Nobre, C. A., . . . Rech Filho, E. L. (2011). O Co digo Florestal e a
Ci^encia. S~ao Paulo, Brazil: SBPC/ABC.
Soares-Filho, B., Raj~ ao, R., Macedo, M., Carneiro, A., Costa, W., Coe, M.,
. . . Alencar, A. (2014). Cracking Brazil’s forest code. Science, 344,
363–364. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1246663
Sparovek, G., Antoniazzi, L. B., Barretto, A., Barros, A. C., Benevides, M.,
Berndes, G., . . . Nogueira, M. P. (2016). Sustainable bioproducts in
Brazil: Disputes and agreements on a common ground agenda for
agriculture and nature protection. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining,
10, 204–221. https://doi.org/10.1002/bbb.1636
Sparovek, G., Barretto, A., Klug, I., Papp, L., & Lino, J. (2011). A revis~ ao
do Co  digo Florestal brasileiro. Novos Estudos - CEBRAP, 89, 111–135.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-33002011000100007
Sparovek, G., Barretto, A. G. D. O. P., Matsumoto, M., & Berndes, G.
(2015). Effects of governance on availability of land for agriculture
ET AL.
and conservation in Brazil. Environmental Science & Technology, 49,
10285–10293. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01300
Sparovek, G., Berndes, G., Barretto, A. G. D. O. P., & Klug, I. L. F. (2012).
The revision of the Brazilian Forest Act: Increased deforestation or a
historic step towards balancing agricultural development and nature
conservation? Environmental Science & Policy, 16, 65–72. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.envsci.2011.10.008
Sparovek, G., Berndes, G., Klug, I. L. F., & Barretto, A. G. O. P. (2010).
Brazilian agriculture and environmental legislation: Status and future
challenges. Environmental Science & Technology, 44, 6046–6053.
https://doi.org/10.1021/es1007824
Stickler, C. M., Nepstad, D. C., Azevedo, A. A., & Mcgrath, D. G. (2013).
Defending public interests in private lands: Compliance, costs and poten-
tial environmental consequences of the Brazilian Forest Code in Mato
Grosso (p. 368). Biological Sciences: Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B.
Strassburg, B. B. N., Latawiec, A., & Balmford, A. (2016). Brazil: Urgent
action on Cerrado extinctions. Nature, 540, 199. https://doi.org/10.
1038/540199a
UN (2015). Paris agreement. United Nations.
Zarin, D. J. (2012). Carbon from tropical deforestation. Science, 336,
1518–1519. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1223251
Zarin, D. J., Harris, N. L., Baccini, A., Aksenov, D., Hansen, M. C., Aze-
vedo-Ramos, C., . . . Allegretti, A. (2016). Can carbon emissions from
tropical deforestation drop by 50% in 5 years? Global Change Biology,
22, 1336–1347. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13153
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional Supporting Information may be found online in the sup-
porting information tab for this article.
How to cite this article: Freitas FLM, Englund O, Sparovek G,
et al. Who owns the Brazilian carbon? Glob Change Biol.
2017;00:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14011