Role of Brazilian Amazon protected areas in climate change mitigation
Open accessAbstract
Protected areas (PAs) now shelter 54% of the remaining forests of the Brazilian Amazon and contain 56% of its forest carbon. However, the role of these PAs in reducing carbon fluxes to the atmosphere from deforestation and their associated costs are still uncertain. To fill this gap, we analyzed the effect of each of 595 Brazilian Amazon PAs on deforestation using a metric that accounts for differences in probability of deforestation in areas of pairwise comparison. We found that the three major categories of PA (indigenous land, strictly protected, and sustainable use) showed an inhibitory effect, on average, between 1997 and 2008. Of 206 PAs created after the year 1999, 115 showed increased effectiveness after their designation as protected. The recent expansion of PAs in the Brazilian Amazon was responsible for 37% of the region's total reduction in deforestation between 2004 and 2006 without provoking leakage. All PAs, if fully implemented, have the potential to avoid 8.0 ± 2.8 Pg of carbon emissions by 2050. Effectively implementing PAs in zones under high current or future anthropogenic threat offers high payoffs for reducing carbon emissions, and as a result should receive special attention in planning investments for regional conservation. Nevertheless, this strategy demands prompt and predictable resource streams. The Amazon PA network represents a cost of US$147 ± 53 billion (net present value) for Brazil in terms of forgone profits and investments needed for their consolidation. These costs could be partially compensated by an international climate accord that includes economic incentives for tropical countries that reduce their carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
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As protected areas technically do not allow for any deforestation and received more regulatory attention, they were deemed most effective, followed by indigenous areas and sustainable use areas.
“they were deemed most effective, followed by indigenous areas and sustainable use areas [126-129].”
From A systematic comparison of deforestation drivers and policy effectiveness across the Amazon biome (2023) · cites this paper as [129]
The Results and Discussion explicitly identify indigenous lands as the most effective category at inhibiting deforestation, contrary to the claimed ranking of strictly protected areas first. The paper does not support the stated order. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe paper's results confirm the results found in Soares-Filho et al., Blackman et al., and Nolte et al. on the effectiveness of indigenous territories at curbing deforestation.
“while we are able to confirm the results found in Soares-Filho et al. (22), Blackman et al. (25), and Nolte et al. (5) on the effectiveness of indigenous territories at curbing deforestation”
From Collective property rights reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (2020) · cites this paper as [22]
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Cites
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Research works printed but not linked: 6
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- [7]International Union for Conservation of Nature (1998) 1997 United Nations List of Protected Areas (World Conservation Monitoring Centre/International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Cambridge, U.K.).
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Soares-Filho, B., Moutinho, P., Nepstad, D., Anderson, A., Rodrigues, H., Garcia, R., Dietzsch, L., Merry, F., Bowman, M., Hissa, L., Silvestrini, R., & Maretti, C.
- Affiliations
- Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (BR)
- Woodwell Climate Research Center (US)
- WWF-Brasil (BR)
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (BR)
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-05-26
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 10821-10826
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2890753
- OpenAlex
- W2013680310
- Cited by
- 785
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 68 · 2018: 70 · 2017: 58 · 2016: 45 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 34 · 2013: 48 · 2012: 39
- FWCI
- 31.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- United States Agency for International Development
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- World Wildlife Fund
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Oil Palm Production and Sustainability
- Keywords
- protected areas, climate change mitigation, deforestation, Brazilian Amazon, forest carbon, CO2 emissions, indigenous territories, protected area effectiveness, leakage, international climate finance, forest degradation
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