Project

Leverage Points for a Sustainable Land-Use Transition for the Amazon

This project applies transitions theory and leverage points research to the problem of persistent forest loss in the tropics. It will analyse the causes of deforestation lock-in and how innovative sustainable arrangements can replace the present land-use regime.

Active project

2021–2024

Project contact

Mairon G. Bastos Lima / mairon.bastoslima@sei.org

Why does tropical deforestation remain high despite zero-deforestation commitments?

Tropical deforestation remains an urgent environmental issue. Much of it is caused by the production of a few agricultural commodities (e.g., beef, soy), whose demand also provides entry points for change. However, growing zero-deforestation commitments from governments and companies are yet to spur effective action. Supply chain transparency and monitoring capabilities have seen major advances, but policy and governance have not kept pace. Tropical deforestation remains high, and there is a pressing need to understand what institutional innovations can help realize pledges.

This project will help understand why so little progress has been achieved and identify the innovations needed to drive change. Focusing on the Amazon – the largest expanse of tropical forest left on the planet – as a flagship case, it will: (1) identify leverage points in the Amazon’s current land-use regime; (2) analyze promising institutional innovations that can help provide seeds for sustainability transitions; and (3) examine barriers and opportunities for scaling up such innovations.

The results will inform on concrete pathways to help avert a tipping point of irreversible ecosystem change in the Amazon and provide lessons for promoting sustainable land-use transitions elsewhere.

Funders

This project is funded by Formas

Objectives for this project:

Identify leverage points in the Amazon’s current land-use regime, explaining its stability and examining tensions or “cracks” where it could be destabilized.
Analyse promising institutional innovations and sustainable production-and-consumption arrangements that can help provide seeds for change.
Examine barriers and opportunities for scaling up such innovations, breaking the “deforestation lock-in”, and achieving a sustainable land-use transition.

The framework for analysing lock-ins

Illustration of how positive feedback loops creates a deforestation lock-in from expansion of agriculture. — Figure 1. Illustrative schema of positive feedback loops creating a deforestation lock-in from the unsustainable expansion of an agricultural commodity. Adapted from Russo Lopes & Bastos Lima (2022).

Aerial photography of forest. Vitoria regia. Manaus Botanical Gardens MUSA, Brazil

Connected Conservation: rethinking conservation for a telecoupled world

Journal article / The paper offers a new conservation model and highlights the need to tackle distant wealth-related drivers of biodiversity loss, while empowering local stewards

24 May 2023 / About Forests and Supply Chains

Eudaimonia in the Amazon: relational values as a deep leverage point to curb tropical deforestation

Journal article / The study draws on over 70 in-depth interviews in two states of Brazil to understand what has motivated people not to join deforestation activities.

29 March 2023 / About Forests and Land use

Deforested rainforest near river Jurua, Kulina Indios, Brazil.

Understanding deforestation lock-in: Insights from Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon

Journal article / This article draws from scholarship on sustainability transitions to propose a more comprehensive systems view of unsustainable land-use patterns.

21 October 2022 / About Forests and Land use