Bigger is better: Improved nature conservation and economic returns from landscape-level mitigation.

ABSTRACT: Impact mitigation is a primary mechanism on which countries rely to reduce environmental externalities and balance development with conservation. Mitigation policies are transitioning from traditional project-by-project planning to landscape-level planning. Although this larger-scale approach is expected to provide greater conservation benefits at the lowest cost, empirical justification is still scarce. Using commercial sugarcane expansion in the Brazilian Cerrado as a case study, we apply economic and biophysical steady-state models to quantify the benefits of the Brazilian Forest Code (FC) under landscape- and property-level planning. We find that FC compliance imposes small costs to business but can generate significant long-term benefits to nature: supporting 32 (±37) additional speci

SUBMITTER: Kennedy CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4942327 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature