Publicações

Deforestation in Amazonia has decreased significantly in the last five years, from around 27,772 km2 in 2004 to around 6,000 km2 in 2010. This decrease has been attributed to a net of governmental/civil society actions, and commodities markets related factors. In spite of this, there is an enormous uncertainty about the fate of the forest. In the next decades, we can expect an increase in food and biofuel demands associated to global population growth and consumption patterns, which can induce both direct and indirect deforestation. Ambitious infra-structure plans also may induce occupation of unprotected areas. Possible climate change can affect the region through intensification of droughts and vulnerability to forest fires. In order to explore future scenarios for the region, there is a need to understand which institutional, political and economical conditions at multiple levels, from national to local, will be able to act as a counterforce to the commodities market pressure, reducing emissions while bringing social development. We present the preliminary results of a project aiming at discussing sustainability scenarios for the Amazonia, combining a qualitative scenario methodology and two spatially-explicit quantitative modeling frameworks: one for land use change (LuccME) and another for deforestation emission estimates (INPE-EM), both representing the heterogeneity of land change processes in the region. A panel of expert constructed storylines quantified in terms of pasture, annual/perennial crops, and secondary vegetation trajectories. INPE-EM is coupled to LuccME to estimate emission reductions resulting from spatial projections of land use trajectories under three different scenarios: (a) emission reductions without social development; (b) sustainability and social development; (c) return to uncontrolled deforestation. Initial modeling results showed that emission reduction in (a) and (b) can be of the order of 6 GtCO2 or more, depending on socioeconomic incentives to the expansion and permanence of secondary vegetation as sinks of carbon.