From deforestation to restoration: Policy plots path to Amazon recovery

Subject: Environment

Context:

At his inauguration on Jan. 1 as Brazil’s new president, Inácio Lula da Silva reiterated a promise to reach zero deforestation and to recover degraded land. He’d already made the same commitment in a speech at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Amazon deforestation:

Approximately 17% of the Amazon has already been deforested.
Another 17% is in various stages of degradation from selective logging, fire, forest fragmentation, bad land use, and other disturbances.
Some attempts to provide greater detail emerged from the Science Panel for the Amazon (SPA) at COP27, which presented the policy brief “Transforming the Amazon through ‘Arcs of Restoration.’”
- The report provides the scientific basis to guide debates and decisions around the large-scale recovery of deforested and degraded areas of the Amazon Rainforest.

Arc of Deforestation:

The worst of the degradation is concentrated in the region known as the Arc of Deforestation, along the eastern and southern edges of the Brazilian Amazon, where rates of forest loss have been the highest in recent decades.
This part of the rainforest suffers from land grabs, illegal logging, mining in protected areas, and other crimes that drive a boom-and-bust economy.

Afforestation process in amazon:

The first step to fixing the problem is to restore the rule of law in the Brazilian Amazon, by strengthening environmental protection and rooting out criminal elements.
Other steps include:
- Allocating staff and funding to implement laws and policies on restoration plans.
- A new Forest Code and the National Plan for Native Vegetation Recovery.
Agroforestry in Amazon:
- Agroforestry is growing increasingly popular as one of the main models for restoring forests while allowing income generation.
- The Alliance for the Restoration in the Amazon, a coalition of Brazilian and international institutions working to promote forest recovery, identified 1,643 such projects in 2022, almost all small-scale.
- Although agroforestry doesn’t result in the complete recovery of the forest, these initiatives offer environmental benefits, especially with the restoration of vegetation cover and the sustainable use of soil and water.
- The main advantage of agroforestry is the focus on human welfare, by ensuring food security, employment, and income for families who live in degraded and poor areas of the Amazon.
- Low-impact timber extraction, açaí berries, medicinal plants, corn, coffee, cocoa, pumpkins, and beans are just some examples already being produced in various parts of the Amazon.

One potential risk with agroforestry systems is when income gets so attractive that the project loses its restoration focus.