Sustainable landscapes in

São Félix do Xingu

Photographs by Rodrigo Calvet

In the 2000s, São Félix do Xingu, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Pará, recorded some of the worst deforestation in the Amazon – leading to a series of local, national

and global efforts to tackle the problem.

Burning the forest to clear land for cattle ranching and agriculture caused so much deforestation, São Félix do Xingu was one of 42 municipalities on the Brazilian

government’s ‘blacklist’, blocking farmers from accessing credit.

In 2009, the The Nature Conservancy (TNC) began a project that is now called the Sustainable Landscape Pilot Program, aiming to involve local actors across the

municipality to provide alternatives to deforestation.

Scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), including Maria Fernanda Gebara, shown here, have been analysing the TNC initiative, as part of a

global study examining programs that aim to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

Some early findings: TNC prioritised clarifying land tenure – a persistent issue in these kinds of initiatives. It helped property owners register their land under the

government system known as CAR.

This had an unintended consequence. Although deforestation in SFX has fallen, it actually went up in the areas that had been registered, as property owners were then

able to access government cattle subsidies they’d previously been denied.

This is an important lesson, Maria Fernanda Gebara says – proponents in Brazil need to combine CAR registration with incentives, like access to other kinds of government

low-carbon agriculture credits.

Another finding from the CIFOR study was that delays matter. The uncertainty around REDD+ - and the lack of a global agreement on climate change that includes

deforestation and allows for carbon funding - has had an impact on the ground.

Smallholder farmers have reduced deforestation, but due to the delays and uncertainty around funding, they haven’t yet received much in return, Gebara says. In

some cases this is increasing food insecurity and social inequality.

“Smallholders need to see the alternatives that REDD+ is supposed to create,” Gebarasays. Whether the scheme works, she says, depends on how quickly initiatives manage

to move ahead to “phase 2” – implementation of measures on the ground.

For more information about São Félix do Xingu and CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+, visit:

http://www.cifor.org/redd-case-book/

CIFOR's Global Comparative Study on REDD+ is supported in part by the CGIAR Research Program on

Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

and by NORAD, AusAID, DFID and the European Commission.