Land use planning helps advance conservation in Brazil

Regulating land tenure is not the only power available to the state for influencing how people use land. Land-use planning and land-use zoning are two closely related mechanisms that Pan Amazonian nations wield to foster sustainable development on their forest and agricultural frontiers. Like policies governing infrastructure, agriculture and land tenure, these technical programmes have evolved in response to the shifting economic and social forces within countries, as well as to the prescriptions from multilateral agencies and civil society groups seeking to protect the biodiversity of the Amazon Forest.

In the 1970s and 1980s, most land-use planning programmes used a methodology developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that identifies optimum land use based on climate and soil and stratifies regions and landscapes into categories ranging from full protection to intensive agriculture. Known in the United States as Land Capability Classification, in Latin America it has been promoted by USAID as Capacidad de Uso Mayor de la Tierra (CUMAT).

A similar system developed by the Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA) and sponsored the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was known as a Zonificación Agro Ecológica (ZAE). The technical details and output from these studies were of very high quality, but they suffered from one fundamental defect: they did not include a participatory process, which caused them to overlook economic trends already underway and customary uses that might not coincide with the best technological option for land use.

These limitations quickly became apparent, and the ZAE framework was modified and renamed as Zonificación Ecológica Económica (ZEE), which uses technical analysis as a baseline but incorporates additional social and economic criteria. Most importantly, it included a participatory process to ensure the aspirations of different stakeholder groups are considered, including indigenous and traditional communities, but also small farmers and agroindustry. All the Pan Amazonian countries have embraced some variant of the ZEE methodology and have enacted it into their regulatory processes to govern land-use planning (recommendations) and regulatory frameworks (zoning).

The effectiveness of these studies is decidedly mixed. Settlers and corporate farmers have used the technical components to inform their investments, but most deforestation is driven by infrastructure development, demand for commodities and land speculation. Nonetheless, the ZEE process coincided with programmes to create protected area systems and has supported territorial claims by Indigenous communities. Governments, NGOs and multilateral institutions continue to invest in these studies, arguing they are essential for discovering a path towards truly sustainable development.

The ZEE in the Brazilian Amazon

The history of the ZEE in Brazil began in 1981 when Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act, which recognized ‘environmental zoning’ as a regulatory tool for promoting the rational use of soil and the protection of ecosystems. This was followed in 1990 by the formation of a working group to review the different methodologies and establish a standard approach for the Legal Amazon. The responsibility was transferred to the states in 1994 and incorporated as a key component of the Programa Piloto para Proteção das Florestas Tropicais (PPG7).

The methodology was formalized as a regulatory procedure via presidential decree in 2002, at which time the government established a federal commission to coordinate the process (Comissão Coordenadora do Zoneamento Ecológico-Econômico do Território Nacional – CCZEE) and convened a working group to accelerate its implementation (Consórcio ZEE Brasil). In 2000, the ZEE was incorporated into the constitutionally mandated four-year, state-level, strategic planning process (Plano Plurianual – PPA).

In 2010, the Ministry of the Environment published a Macro ZEE (1:1,000,000) of the Legal Amazon derived from preliminary state-level studies that provided the first official vision of the future of the Legal Amazon. The Forest Code of 2012 reinforced the importance of the ZEE by stipulating its use for the implementation of key provisions and obligated the state to produce a more detailed version.

As of October 2021, Acre, Pará and Rondônia had completed final versions that have been approved by federal authorities, while Maranhão, Tocantins and Roraima had draft versions under review. Amazonas and Amapá have completed studies for selected sub-regions that are most exposed to land-use change and land grabbing. The classification criteria generally fall into one of three categories: (1) consolidation of existing production landscapes; (2) sustainable use of natural resources; and (3) protected areas and indigenous land.

The first category always includes landscapes where large-scale agriculture and ranching predominate, but can include small-scale farms (Maranhão, Rondônia and Pará) or forest-based livelihoods near major highways (Acre and Amazonas). The second category typically contains landscapes that support forest-based livelihoods, including those within PAAD-type INCRA settlements, but also privately held forest estates (Amazonas and Roraima) and smallholding communities (Mato Grosso). The last category includes conservation units in all jurisdictions, including those that support forest-based livelihoods and, in some cases, cattle ranching. Several versions also recognize fragile areas requiring special management (Mato Grosso, Amazonas) and provide for an accelerated process to review and resolve issues related to land tenure (Acre, Roraima). The differences reflect the idiosyncrasies of individual states and the social and economic heterogeneity of the Brazilian Amazon.

The ZEE process is viewed favorably in Brazil, where it impacts both federal and state planning, such as the PPA investment process and environmental review overseen by the environmental protection agency. The first iteration of the ZEE coincided with a parallel effort to protect large swathes of the Amazon and provided technical criteria and legal support for the creation of dozens of conservation units and indigenous territories. For example, fourteen conservation units and indigenous territories were created in Acre after the completion of its preliminary ZEE, while a total of 44 such entities were set aside in Pará. Conservation initiatives would have occurred independently but, by integrating them in a multi-sector analysis with explicit considerations for alternative land uses, the Brazilian state has avoided many future conflicts.

The ZEE documents support efforts to halt or slow deforestation by providing geographic clarity as to which landscapes are off-limits for agricultural development while acting as a legal benchmark that reduces opportunities for land grabbing. Public sector financial entities, such as the Banco do Brasil, are obligated to review investment projects and ensure they comply with the provisions of the regional ZEE. These plans have widespread public support because – except in the state of Mato Grosso – the public consultation incorporated stakeholder aspirations.

The environmental secretariat of Mato Gross completed a detailed ZEE in 2008, but its provisions were vehemently opposed by agribusiness. The release of the ZEE coincided with international boycotts that targeted the state for its deforestation-linked production systems. The zoning plan would have further complicated the sector’s image by labelling the farms established in the previous decade as unsustainable, particularly those on the upper watershed of the Xingu River. It also would have curtailed the future expansion of the soy-maize production model onto previously deforested pastures on the northern tier of municipalities and in the valley of the Araguaia near the border with Pará.

The state legislature commissioned an alternate study and approved a radically different version in 2011. The revised study did not adhere to federal guidelines, however. It was challenged in court by the public prosecutor and was rejected by the CCZEE in 2012. The state government, which is obligated by law to promulgate a ZEE, initiated another study that produced a third version in 2018 that essentially split the difference between the two previous iterations.

The third version has been rejected by institutions representing farmers, ranchers, lumber companies and manufacturers. Critics contend that the zoning provisions would threaten the livelihoods of thousands of rural families because they would: (1) label ~20% of the existing farmland as non sustainable; (2) limit the potential of ~ 69% of existing pastureland to be converted to intensive agriculture; and (3) create environmental obstacles for ~78% of the proposed bulk transport systems. The state legislature created a special commission in June of 2021 to review the proposal.

“A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” is a book by Timothy Killeen and contains the author’s viewpoints and analysis. The second edition was published by The White Horse in 2021, under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0 license).

Read the other excerpted portions of chapter 4 here:

To read earlier chapters of the book, find Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, and Three is here.