Land Use and human-enviroment interactions in Amazonia

Gilberto CâmaraNational Institute for Space Research (INPE)

FAPESP 50 Years Symposium, 2011

Agriculture

Energy

Ecosystems

Climate change

Weather and natural disasters

Space technology adds value to Brazil´s natural knowledge economy

Megacities

Source: Cybermetrics Lab, Spain

INPE: only Brazilian institute in top 40

World Research Centers: Impact and Visibility

Nature, 29 July 2010

ICSU “Grand challenges”

Develop, enhance and integrate the observation systems needed to manage global and regional environmental change.

Improve the usefulness of forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people.

Determine what institutional, economic and behavioural changes can enable effective steps toward global sustainability.

ICSU “Grand challenges”: a bit of ancient wisdom

Be careful what you wish for….

The challenge: reducing deforestation

Impact of land change in Brazil’s emissions

Medium-resolution (5-50 m) earth observation satellites data are global public goods

Earth observation satellites are essential for measuring land change

T2 – Loss of smaller trees

How does deforestation happen?T1 – Selective logging

T3 – Loss >50% of forest T4 – Loss >90% of forest

Floresta

time

dialy deforestation alerts

Yearly rates of clear cuts

INPE’s Monitoring Systems

Daily warnings of newly deforested large areas

Real-time Deforestation Monitoring

Result: major reduction in deforestation

Markets? Credit crunch? Coercion? Institutional arrangments?

Markets? Credit crunch? Coercion? Institutional arrangments?

Markets have a positive rôle

Policing actions: illegal wood seizure

50% of operations in 2% of the area

Transparency builds governance!CBERS image

Science (27 April 2007): “Brazil´s monitoring system is the envy of the world”.

DeforestationDegradation

Jan-April/2011: 126% increase

Keep watching!

Deforestation hotspots: March-May 2011

Deforestation hotspots: June-August 2011

“By 2020, Brazil will reduce deforestation by 80% relative to 2005.” (pres. Lula in Copenhagen COP-15)

Market impact of deforestation reduction in Brazil

EU-15 reduction 2005-202020% of 1990 levels

Avoided def Brazil 2005-2020

From 2005 to 2020, avoided deforestation by Brazil would be 2/3 of the total proposed EU-15 cuts

7,7 Gt CO2eq4,9 Gt CO2eq

What happened with 720.000 km2 deforested?

First map of land use and land cover of Amazonia

Agriculture (grains)

Cleared pasture

Degraded land

Class TOTAL (km2)

Clean Pasture 335.714,94 46,7%Secundary Vegetation 150.815,31 21,0%Dirty pasture 62.823,75 8,7%Regeneration with pasture 48.027,37 6,7%Non-observed areas 45.406,27 6,3%Agriculture (large-scale) 34.927,24 4,9%Small farms and settlers 24.416,57 3,4%Urban areas 3.818,14 0,5%Mining 730,68 0,1%Degraded areas 594,19 0,1%Others 477,88 0,1%Desflorestation 2008 11.458,64 1,6%TOTAL 719.210,99

The Brazilian Amazon has different institutional arrangements that influence the spatial and temporal patterns of deforestation.

Prediction?

Governing the commons:institutional arrangments

[Ostrom, Science, 2005]

Institutional analysis in Amazonia

Identify different agents and try to model their actions

Field work Land change patterns

Land change modelsUrban networks

Current situation in Amazonia

Araújo e Aguiar (forthcoming)

Tension between different ways of access to market and natural resources, land tenure regimes (private and public/collective) and political forces.

Landscape model: different rules of behavior at different partitions which also change in time

FRENTE

MEIO

RETAGUARDA

Forest

Not ForestDeforest

River

FRONT

MIDDLE

BACK

SÃO FÉLIX DO XINGU - 2006

Full and open access to space-based information is indispensable for global

sustainable development

“A few satellites can cover the entire globe, but there needs to be a system in place to ensure their images are readily available to everyone who needs them. Brazil has set an important precedent by making its Earth-observation data available, and the rest of the world should follow suit.”

Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all citizens.

Each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the

environment.

RIO-92 Declaration – principle #10

RIO + 20: bulding on principles from RIO-92

We need a new convention on the public availability of environmental information

Thanks to INPE’s team

Deforestation and land cover monitoring: Dalton Valeriano, Claudio Almeida, Luiz Maurano, Isabel

Escada, Silvana Amaral, Mauricio Silva

Land change modelling and institutional analysis:Ana Paula Aguiar, Roberto Araújo, Pedro Andrade,

Luciana Soler, Talita Assis, Sérgio Costa, Patrícia Pinho