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Is Brazil’s biodiversity offset policy effective in conserving the Cerrado?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2025

Gustavo Bediaga de Oliveira Open the ORCID record for Gustavo Bediaga de Oliveira [Opens in a new window] ,
Ricardo Bomfim Machado ,
Marinez Ferreira Siqueira ,
Renata Dias Françoso ,
Pablo Viany Prieto  and
John Du Vall Hay
Gustavo Bediaga de Oliveira*
Affiliation:
Instituto Brasileiro de Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis – IBAMA, Brasília, DF, Brazil Universidade de Brasília, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia, Brasília, DF, Brazil
Ricardo Bomfim Machado
Affiliation:
Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Zoologia, Brasília, DF, Brazil
Marinez Ferreira Siqueira
Affiliation:
Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil Departamento de Biologia, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
Renata Dias Françoso
Affiliation:
Universidade de Brasília, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia, Brasília, DF, Brazil Departamento de Ciências Florestais, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, MG, Brazil
Pablo Viany Prieto
Affiliation:
Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora (IUCN SSC Brazil Plant Red List Authority), Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
John Du Vall Hay
Affiliation:
Universidade de Brasília, Departamento de Ecologia, Brasília, DF, Brazil
*
Corresponding author: Gustavo Bediaga de Oliveira; Email: gbediaga@gmail.com
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Summary

Brazilian landowners are obligated to conserve a minimum percentage of native vegetation within their properties (termed a ‘legal reserve’), but non-compliance can be compensated elsewhere through a biodiversity offset. Recent changes in rules for legal reserve compensation (LRC) have increased the allowed spatial scale and softened the ecological criteria required to select properties for compensation, potentially leading to considerable biodiversity losses. In this paper, we analyse whether these rules promote the conservation of tree species on private lands through LRC in the Cerrado biome, the most biodiverse savannah in the world. We modelled the potential distribution of 126 Cerrado tree species and simulated several potential biodiversity offsets to calculate expected species losses under former and current LRC rules. Our results show that biodiversity offsets established under current and former LRC rules can lead to up to 100% tree species losses. In contrast, setting a minimum similarity threshold between watersheds can reduce median tree species loss in biodiversity offsets to as low as 3% and prevents LRC with no common species between sites. Therefore, the current rule is expected to strongly impact biodiversity in the Cerrado. Similarity in species composition between watersheds must be considered in order to implement LRC offsets that effectively conserve Cerrado biodiversity on private lands.

Keywords

Biodiversity offsetBrazilian Cerradoecological niche modellingenvironmental policyNew Forest Code
Type
Research Paper
Information
Environmental Conservation , First View , pp. 1 - 8
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Foundation for Environmental Conservation

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