Land use policy as a driver for climate change adaptation: A case in the domain of the Brazilian Atlantic forest

Brazil has a great potential for ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change and to disaster risk reduction, leveraged by the commitment of restoring 12 million hectares until 2030. This commitment is legally backed by the Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL), which defines the situations in which landowners must recover native vegetation in their land. In this paper, we discuss the role of land use compliance as a driver for adaptation in the Brazilian Atlantic forest domain based on the case of the State of Rio de Janeiro. We used high resolution satellite imagery (5 m pixel) to map the state's land use and land cover, delineate Areas of Permanent Preservation and calculate the environmental debt, i.e. the areas required for restoration in order to comply to the NVPL. We also related the distribution of the environmental debt to the socioeconomic conditions of the municipalities and examined potential funding sources for economic incentives to enhance feasibility of restoration in private lands. The state has 31% of native vegetation cover, and an environmental debt of 412,876 ha, correlated to Human Development Index (R = −0.2952, p = 0.0043) and vulnerability to poverty (R = 0.3711, p = 0.0003). The north-northwestern region hosts the hotspots both for environmental debt and vulnerability to poverty, therefore it should constitute a priority target for environmental and social policies. Compliance to this large environmental debt to abide to the regulatory policy NVPL will demand incentive mechanisms. Oil royalties are a potential funding source for programs of payment for ecosystem services, as 3% of those annual revenues could pay the restoration of 39% of the state's environmental debt per year over 20 years. Thus, policy mixes that combine existing regulatory and incentive mechanisms should ensure low-cost landscape restoration in tandem with new job opportunities in a restoration chain, and might represent a significant opportunity for the State of Rio de Janeiro.