mapbiomas_lu_historical_data

Land use data from 1985 to 2017 for Brazil is aggregated from Project MapBiomas - Collection 3.1 of Brazilian Land Cover & Use Map Series, accessed on 27/04/2019 through the link: http://mapbiomas.org/pages/estatisticas". File mapbiomas_other_no_croppast.mz aggregates data from MapBiomas as follows: Resources|Land Cover|Forest|+|Managed Forest = Forest Plantation Resources|Land Cover|+|Forest = Forest Resources|Land Cover|+|Urban Area = Urban Infrastructure Resources|Land Cover|+|Cropland = Agriculture Resources|Land Cover|+|Pastures and Rangelands = Pasture Resources|Land Cover|+|Other Land = Non-Forest Natural Formation + Non-Vegeted Area except Urban Infrastructure + Water Bodies + Non Observed File mapbiomas_other_plus_croppast.mz aggregates data from MapBiomas as follows: Resources|Land Cover|Forest|+|Managed Forest = Forest Plantation Resources|Land Cover|+|Forest = Forest Resources|Land Cover|+|Urban Area = Urban Infrastructure Resources|Land Cover|+|Cropland = Agriculture Resources|Land Cover|+|Pastures and Rangelands = Pasture Resources|Land Cover|+|Other Land = Non-Forest Natural Formation + Non-Vegeted Area except Urban Infrastructure + Water Bodies + Non Observed + Mosaic of Agriculture and Pasture</p

Fire, deforestation, and livestock: when the smoke clears

Recent Amazon fires fuelled a media narrative combining politics with an already emotive story linking deforestation to extensive cattle ranching and global meat consumption. Scrutiny of the reasons for the 2019 fires suggests that the perceived link between deforestation and extensive land use for beef production is not as clear as commonly supposed. Indeed, land sparing through sustainable intensification of predominant livestock pastures may be acting as a significant buffer between meat demand and livestock production and consequent land use change and deforestation. Well-intentioned beef boycotts potentially weaken the incentive to invest in pasture restoration and may lead to a counterfactual of extensive land use, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. The possibility suggests the need for more nuanced debate about the regional-specificity of land use for sustainable livestock production, and the role of dietary change

Reassessing the role of cattle and pasture in Brazil's deforestation: A response to “Fire, deforestation, and livestock: When the smoke clears”

Silva et al. (Land Use Policy, 21 July 2020) offer an assessment of the links between deforestation, livestock production and exports in Brazil. Their analysis, based on relative changes in beef production and pasture area across the whole of Brazil, showed an “apparent decoupling of the link between beef production and deforestation in Brazil”. In reanalysing these links, we find that Silva et al. underestimate the strong, positive and significant associations between Brazilian livestock production and deforestation. Moreover, despite focusing the title, abstract and the beginning of their manuscript on the Amazon, their analyses are conducted at the national level, and fail to recognise marked differences in the development trajectories of Brazilian biomes, and that most of the recent pasture expansion in Brazil has replaced Amazonian forests. To progress any debate and aid decision-making regarding land-use changes in the Amazon, a region often in the spotlight and subjected to many debates that lack evidence, scientists must be open and scrupulous with their data sources and analyses