{"title":"Do forest conservation policies undermine the soybean sector in the Brazilian Amazon? Evidence from the priority listing of municipalities","authors":"Léa Crepin","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108212","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Minimizing the trade-offs between agricultural production, development and forest conservation is key to ensure that conservation policies can achieve long-term positive impacts. Taking the case of the Brazilian Amazon in the context of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon, I estimate the impact of the prioritizing of municipalities with high deforestation risk from soybean production (a major driver of deforestation), exports and land-use changes relying on a difference-in-differences and generalized synthetic control approach. I find that, although effective in reducing deforestation, the policy is unlikely to have undermined the soybean production and exports. On the contrary, the results suggest that the soybean sector benefited from the changes in land use following the implementation of the priority list. However, I do not find evidence that land restriction triggered the intensification of soybean production, which suggests that the soybean sector benefited from intra-crops reallocation and pasture conversion.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ecological Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800924001095","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Minimizing the trade-offs between agricultural production, development and forest conservation is key to ensure that conservation policies can achieve long-term positive impacts. Taking the case of the Brazilian Amazon in the context of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon, I estimate the impact of the prioritizing of municipalities with high deforestation risk from soybean production (a major driver of deforestation), exports and land-use changes relying on a difference-in-differences and generalized synthetic control approach. I find that, although effective in reducing deforestation, the policy is unlikely to have undermined the soybean production and exports. On the contrary, the results suggest that the soybean sector benefited from the changes in land use following the implementation of the priority list. However, I do not find evidence that land restriction triggered the intensification of soybean production, which suggests that the soybean sector benefited from intra-crops reallocation and pasture conversion.
期刊介绍:
Ecological Economics is concerned with extending and integrating the understanding of the interfaces and interplay between "nature''s household" (ecosystems) and "humanity''s household" (the economy). Ecological economics is an interdisciplinary field defined by a set of concrete problems or challenges related to governing economic activity in a way that promotes human well-being, sustainability, and justice. The journal thus emphasizes critical work that draws on and integrates elements of ecological science, economics, and the analysis of values, behaviors, cultural practices, institutional structures, and societal dynamics. The journal is transdisciplinary in spirit and methodologically open, drawing on the insights offered by a variety of intellectual traditions, and appealing to a diverse readership.
Specific research areas covered include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, ecologically integrated technology, integrated ecologic-economic modelling at scales from local to regional to global, implications of thermodynamics for economics and ecology, renewable resource management and conservation, critical assessments of the basic assumptions underlying current economic and ecological paradigms and the implications of alternative assumptions, economic and ecological consequences of genetically engineered organisms, and gene pool inventory and management, alternative principles for valuing natural wealth, integrating natural resources and environmental services into national income and wealth accounts, methods of implementing efficient environmental policies, case studies of economic-ecologic conflict or harmony, etc. New issues in this area are rapidly emerging and will find a ready forum in Ecological Economics.