Mapping properties to monitor forests; essons from the Rural Environmental Cadast in Pará, Brazil

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1 Mapping properties to monitor forests; essons from the Rural Environmental Cadast in Pará, Brazil Jessica L Roe Co-authors: Lisa Rausch, Jacob Munger, and Holly Gibbs University of Wisconsin-Madison Photo: Andre Penner

This fact certainly leads to a sensible increase in the governance capability of

2 Environmental Monitoring in Pará [with GIS], deforestation in these areas is going to have a name and a surname. This fact certainly leads to a sensible increase in the governance capability of the environmental agencies in the Amazon states senior Brazilian gov t official quoted in Rajão et al Baron et al PRODES

3 TNC 2013 Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) : Rural Environmental Cadastre

4 Goals: 1. Evaluate how property registration affects deforestation behavior 2. Evaluate how much environmental mapping is kept separate from land claiming and tenure concerns

5 Statistical Methods for Evaluation Impact of Registration on Deforestation Panel models Property level fixed effects Year fixed effects Std. Errors clustered at the municipality level Continuous, binary, and proportional measures of deforestation outcome Different model specifications: 1. Average effect of being registered 2. Effect of being the year before, year of, or year after registration relative to reference of over a year beforehand

6 Impact of CAR registration on clearing Small effect, not very significant Overall Effect on ln*-transformed defor p-val (0.13) Avg. overall value of ln*-transformed defor 0.25 Effect on probability of defor -0.4% p-val (0.56) Avg. overall chance of defor 12.4% Effect on percent of forest cleared -0.23% p-val (0.09) Avg. overall percent of forest cleared 1.99% n 45,942

7 Effect of registration by size category Small Semi-small Medium Large Effect on ln-transformed defor p-val Avg. value of ln-transformed defor Effect on probability of defor -0.30% -1.30% -0.50% 0.50% p-val Avg. chance of defor 12.05% 12.92% 11.94% 13.90% n 26,479 10,457 5,765 3,241 For one size class, there is a distinct reduction in deforestation

8 Property size thresholds More feasible environmental rules Title potentially contingent on env. compliance S M A L L 100 ha 4 MF (300 ha) S E M I - S M A L L M E D I U M [Not contingent] [Contingent +attainable] [Contingent but difficult] 15 MF (1125 ha) L A R G E [more difficult]

10 Stronger effects Overall Small Semi-small Medium Large Effect on ln*-transformed defor p-val (0.13) (0.42) (0.001) (0.60) (0.66) Avg. overall value of ln*-transformed defor ON TERRA LEGAL PROPERTIES Effect on ln*-transformed defor N/A p-val (0.16) (0.60) (0.02) (0.81) n 2,328 1,

11 Area of CAR registration (axis is on log-scale) 2500

12 Conclusions Mapping by itself not much effect because not much enforcement Defor behavior can change if incentives are strong and requirements are feasible But be careful strong incentives can also lead to unreliable data Land title is strong incentive here not possible to disentangle from env. registry

13 Thank you! Comments and suggestions very welcome: This project benefitted from the generous help of Lisa Naughton, Fanny Moffette, Jennifer Alix-Garcia, members of the Gibbs Land Use Lab and Biodiversity Interest Group, and two anonymous reviewers.

14 EXTRA SLIDES JUST IN CASE

15 Stacking beneath cut-offs MF 2MF 3MF 4MF 5MF 6MF 7MF 8MF 9MF 10MF 11MF 12MF 13MF 14MF 15MF 16MF Just under Just over

16 1500 ha 1125 ha 500 ha 300 ha 200 ha 100 ha 50 ha 25 ha 01jan jan jan jan jan2014 registration day

17 threshold (modules) Prop. Under Prop. Over Ratio (Un:Ov) Count a 4,818 1, P-val b threshold (hectares) Prop. Under Prop. Over Ratio Count 9,919 1, P-val b

18 Sample Definition Take the entire registry as it stands in Nov and remove: Geographic Cleaning Urban Areas Areas without coverage in the PRODES 2014 map Double-counting Cleaning Duplicate properties Settlement boundaries Properties with less than 95% unique spatial footprint Relevance Cleaning Properties with no primary forest remaining as of July 2008 Properties smaller than 5 hectares N = 45,942 registrations

19 Background Deforestation Trends < 100 ha 100 ha - 4 MF MF - 15 MF > 15 MF

20 Table 2. Relative importance [1] of different size-classes in the area registered by Nov Percent of registrations Percent of registered land Percent of remaining primary forest Percent of Defor in 2007 Percent of Defor in 2014 Small 63.5% 10.6% 6.1% 13.2% 29.1% Semi-small 21.1% 11.0% 7.5% 15.4% 25.1% Medium 10.2% 20.0% 18.2% 24.9% 20.6% Large 5.2% 58.4% 68.1% 46.4% 25.2% [1] Percentages are based on the larger set of 98,058 properties, after duplicates were removed but before restricting sample to properties that still contain forest. However, trends are identical when calculated for the restricted model sample and all values differ by less than 5 percentage points.

21 Large effect in early years due to early adopters Average Marginal Effects of Being Registered Aug July 2008 Aug July 2009 Aug July 2010 Aug July 2011 Aug July 2012 Aug July 2013 Year

22 Effect year by year for large smallholders Average Marginal Effects of being registered, with 95% CIs Year

23 <= 100 ha 100 ha - 4 MF 4 MF - 15 MF > 15 MF Year by year effects for each size class <= 100 ha 100 ha - 4 MF 4 MF - 15 MF > 15 MF

24 Size distribution of registered properties by Year

25 Rural syndicateas lobbying for env. regs to be based on size of individual properties and not size of total landholdings

26 Scatter-plot of size vs. registration date

27 Not measuring effect on total defor does not address questions of leakage to unregistered areas property is the unit of analysissmall properties and large properties have same weight in model but small properties hold <20% of registered land and make up > 80% of registered properties

28 Small property Smallholder

29 Not clear that people declare total holdings

30 CAR across micro-regions

31 Statistical Evaluation Strategy Panel regression with property-level fixed effects: On average (for a given property, for a given year), is the chance of deforestation different after a property registers? Defor measure it = property fixed effect i + year fixed effect t + ifregisteredbythatyear it + clustered error Defor measure it = property fixed effect i + year fixed effect t + interactionbetweenyearandifregisteredbythatyear it + clustered error Event Study with property-level fixed effects: On average (for a given property, for a given year), relative to the background rates when it is more than a year before a property registers, how does the chance of deforestation change when it is the year right before registration, the year of registration, the year following registration, or more than a year after registration? Defor measure it = property fixed effect i + year fixed effect t + ifyearpriortoregistration it + ifyearofregistration it + ifafterregistrationyear it + clustered error Defor is lower after registration; the policy did what we wanted it to do. Over a Year Before Reg. R-1 Reg. Year R+1 Over a Year After Reg. Defor is still lower after registration, but the policy did not do what we wanted it to do.

32 Number of registrations by year and size class Prodes Year Small Semi-small Medium Large Total ,716 1,275 1, , ,684 1,975 1, , ,895 2,646 1, , ,420 2,988 1, , ,638 1, ,129 Total 26,479 10,457 5,765 3,241 45,942

33 Effect on ln(defor) by size category (event study framework) Small Semi-Small Medium Large If year before registration 0.01 (0.52) 0.00 (0.96) (0.38) 0.00 (0.94) If year of registration (0.70) (0.05) (0.84) (0.50) If after registration year 0.03 (0.40) (0.04) (0.78) 0.01 (0.93) Reference: Over a Year Before Reg. R-1 Reg. Year After Reg. Year

34 Table 6. Summary of legal thresholds Threshold Basic summary of policies relevant to property size thresholds Relevant law 1 fiscal module (50-75 ha) below this amount, federal lands are donated to claimants Federal Land Regularization Law (11,952/2009) 100 ha below this amount, state lands are donated to claimants Pará Land Regularization Law (7,289/ 2009) 4 fiscal modules ( ha) below this amount, forest cleared prior to 2008 is forgiven and claims for federal lands aren t subject to onsite inspection if the property remains free of additional violations 300 ha in 2010 the state made it easier for properties below this size to obtain a CAR license by lowering the amount of required info and increasing the number of places authorized register boundaries 500 ha above this amount, property claims require an economic use plan and are subject to verification by an outside agency 15 fiscal modules ( ha) below this amount, land claims can be regularized through Terra Legal program and purchased at discounted rates; above this amount federal land must be purchased at public auction 1500 ha above this amount, approval from the state assembly is required for purchase of state lands 2500 ha above this amount, congressional approval is required for purchase of both federal land and state lands Federal Forest Code (12,651/2012); Federal Decree on Land Regularization (6,992/2009) Normative Instruction Amending Pará CAR Law (37 /2010) Pará Decree on Land Regularization (2,135/2010) Federal Land Regularization Law (11,952/2009) Pará Decree on Land Regularization (2,135/2010) Federal Land Regularization Law (11,952/2009); Pará Decree on Land Regularization (2,135/2010)

35 Property size thresholds Forest Code Revision (2012): Small properties (up to 4 MF) now exempt from restoring forest in areas that are already deforested and in production prior to July Pará CAR policy (~2010): Small properties (up to four fiscal modules) only need one GPS point, registration and technical help is free S M A L L 100 ha 4 MF (300 ha) S E M I - S M A L L M E D I U M [Not contingent] [Contingent +attainable] [Contingent but difficult] 15 MF (1125 ha) L A R G E [more difficult] Land Regularization Law (2009): Small properties (< 100 ha) can acquire title independent of environmental performance but larger properties must show they ve been following env. law for at least a year.

Amazon Fund - information from the internet-

Amazon Fund - information from the internet- AMAZON FUND http://www.amazonfund.gov.br/fundoamazonia/fam/site_en/ AMAZON FUND - Annual Report http://www.amazonfund.gov.br/fundoamazonia/export/sites/default/site_en/galeri