Abstract
Forest conservation on privately owned lands is a cornerstone of the Brazilian environmental policy framework. Brazilian legislation requires that all farms in the country maintain and protect forest areas known as Legal Reserves. Since Legal Reserves have major implications for forest conservation and agricultural production, it is key that we understand landholders' perceptions towards Legal Reserves. We applied Q methodology to identify different perspectives of medium and large landholders on Legal Reserves and their relation to agricultural intensification in the municipality of Paragominas, eastern Amazon. We conducted 31 interviews in which landholders sorted 36 statements in a quasi-normal distribution array. Three groups of landholders were identified: 1) Land use planning enthusiasts (n = 16) were interested in zoning initiatives to explore alternative landscape designs and legislation that may deliver better conservation and production outcomes; 2) Agrochemical-based agriculture supporters (n = 7) held the most critical views against Legal Reserves and perceived their costs as higher than the potential environmental and life quality benefits; 3) Policy complacent-market responders (n = 4) showed no interest in Legal Reserves reforms and were the most market driven group.. While Paragominas has achieved notable successes in halting large-scale deforestation through a social “Green Municipality” pact, addressing persisting forest degradation and fragmentation in the region remains a key priority. Local governance initiatives that account for multi-stakeholder perceptions on forest conservation can foster dialogue and mutual understanding to effectively conserve and restore Legal Reserves. Insights on large landholders' perceptions on Legal Reserves can inform such governance processes to reconcile forest conservation and sustainable agricultural intensification in Paragominas.
Highlights
Reconciling agricultural production and forest conservation is a major challenge in many parts of the world
In this study we revealed different perceptions among landholders regarding agricultural intensification and Legal Reserves in the eastern Amazon region
Some respondents acknowledged the potential compatibility between Legal Reserves and agricultural intensification but would like to see a more flexible policy framework to relocate Legal Reserves to facilitate agricultural intensification
Summary
Reconciling agricultural production and forest conservation is a major challenge in many parts of the world. Deforestation is often linked to the expansion of croplands and pastures as global demand for agricultural commodities keeps increasing (Angelsen and DeFries, 2010; Henders et al, 2018). In the Amazon re gion of Brazil, the development of agriculture has been linked to deforestation since its colonization in the 1960s. In the last forty years, the Brazilian Amazon forest has lost 20% of its area (da Cruz et al, 2021). Stricter policy measures were put in place since the beginning of the 2000s such as the expansion of pro tected areas and the enforcement of command-and-control measures on rural landholdings leading to an 80% drop-in deforestation rates be tween 2004 and 2014 (Soares-Filho et al, 2010; Borner et al, 2015; PRODES, 2017)
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