SEA making inroads in land-use planning in Brazil: The case of the Extreme South of Bahia with forestry and biofuels

In Brazil, incorporating the environmental dimension to the planning process is a challenging process. Planning has historically been carried without considering environmental protection concerns. The country's large development projects have engendered a discussion on the feasibility of these works given the conflicts with environmental policies. The strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a tool that has the potential to integrate the sectoral, territorial and environmental perspectives to promote sustainable development, as shown by international experience. Its use has not yet been regulated in Brazil, only been voluntary initiatives, both public and private, have been implemented. This paper presents the structure and results of the SEA of the plans to expand silviculture of eucalyptus and biofuels in the Extreme South Region of Bahia state, in the Brazilian Northeast, in a context of sectoral planning dissociated from government guidelines for land use policy and environmental protection. It portrays a practical case of methodological proposal for the use of socio-environmental criteria to establish limits for land occupation by monocultures, for each of the municipalities of the study region, according to their specific climate, soil, relief and environmental preservation characteristics. Various alternatives were identified to ensure areas with greater productivity for small family farming and areas with potential for preservation. SEA helped to a better understanding of the effects of the expansion of the planting areas in each alternative, which was essential to help all stakeholders visualize the consequences of their strategies. Consequently, as results the SEA outlined a series of guidelines and restrictions for the various levels of government and the production sector. For instance, SEA suggested for Federal, State and Municipality governments that areas with better soil and climate conditions could be reserved for public policies to incentive the diversification of the uses of the territory, such as food production. SEA also suggests the adoption of incentive programs to establish multiple-use forests. The SEA recommended that the state government integrate its program for strengthening family agriculture with land-use planning criteria, based on cooperative systems The methodology employed has evidences to be replicable in other regions of Brazil and in developing countries.     

Management flexibility,price uncertainty and the adoption of carbon forestry

A price on carbon has the potential to drive significant land use change through reforestation. Understanding the likely locations and extent of these changes is therefore a key focus for researchers and policy makers. Models of reforestation based on net present values (NPV) typically compare the economic returns of carbon forestry to alternative land uses. However, these models often neglect the impact of uncertainty. Two sources of uncertainty highly relevant to carbon forestry are the opportunity cost of the land on which the trees are established (i.e. future returns from alternative land uses) and carbon prices. In addition to foregoing the current land use, a landowner making a permanent land use change such as carbon forestry is also giving up the opportunity to change management in the future, for example by changing crop mix in response to commodity price changes. We develop a Monte Carlo model to demonstrate the value of management flexibility, based on a case study property in Australia. While in the absence of management flexibility carbon forestry is more profitable than the current land use, under uncertain future commodity prices it is less attractive to a landowner. We go on to show that, even if the returns from carbon exceed those from more flexible agricultural land use, uncertainty over future carbon prices is likely to delay the adoption of carbon forestry. Overall the models presented in this paper demonstrate that the adoption of carbon forestry is likely to be substantially lower, and slower, than models based on static values would suggest.     

广义立体土地资源资产价值研究

研究目的：通过对土地概念演进分析，指出土地资源资产不仅有广义和狭义之分，而且有平面与立体之别，其土地资源资产价值必然表现出广义立体价值形态。研究方法基于对土地资源资产概念在理论与实践中认识的深化，应用资源经济学和生态经济学方法，对广义立体土地资源资产价值进行理论分析。研究结论广义立体土地资源资产价值的提出和应用有利于合理增加供给，抑制过度需求，调节供需矛盾：有利于提高土地资源资产利用的效率和集约度；有利于农地的保护：有利于将资源资产纳入国民经济核算体系，有利于对土地资源资产实施系统管理。     

Exploring farmers’ orientation towards multifunctional agriculture: Insights from northern Iran

The multifunctional agriculture (MFA) concept, namely, the fact that agricultural activity may also have several other functions beyond its role of producing food and fiber, has emerged as a key notion in scientific and policy debates regarding the future of agriculture and rural development. However, the relationship between undertaking multifunctional activities and farmers’ perceptions of farming is to a great extent unknown. A survey of 209 randomly selected farmers was conducted in Masal County of Guilan province, Iran to describe farmers’ perceptions of MFA and provide a better understanding of factors shaping these perceptions. Several factors were considered in the study, including traditional farming practices of small-scale farmers in the area (e.g. manual soil tillage, use of livestock manure and by-products for soil improvement, multiple cropping, family livestock), good agricultural practices at farm level related to environmental protection (e.g. low use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides), and also local traditions and heritage. Exploratory factor analysis was used to categorize agricultural functions based on the collected data and cluster analysis was used for sorting out farmers regarding six extracted factors. These factors were: multiple cropping, social acceptability, environmental health, stability and continuity, food security, and local traditions and heritage. About half of the respondents (48.3%) showed highly positive perceptions of MFA, putting emphasis on social acceptability and environmental health for food security, including also preservation of local traditions (named: guardians of culture and traditions). Almost a third (31.1%) showed moderately positive perceptions of MFA, with mainly a socio-environmental orientation, whereas a sizeable proportion (20.6%) was indifferent to MFA. Data offer useful insights to decision makers regarding the design and implementation of territorial planning strategies. Food production remains a key element in farming systems, but besides mainstream agriculture, the positive perceptions of MFA support that alternative farming systems could be implemented. However, the most successful farming systems adapted to specific contexts and needs should be promoted, taking into account existing facilities and sufficiency for appropriate rural management.     

土地利用战略研究再认识

从土地利用战略研究的涵义、理念与我国现行土地利用战略研究的范式出发,分析了当前我国土地利用战略研究的不足与存在的问题,并在此基础上提出了一些完善我国土地利用战略研究的建议。     

浅析土地发展权与土地利用规划

我国正处于工业化和城市化的加速时期，土地需求急剧增加。为了进一步控制土地利用，国家采取一系列的有力措施，但在土地管理中存在土地配置效率低下、大量农用地非法转为建设用地等的问题。在市场经济条件下，土地的经济价值日益显化，农民围绕土地权益而发生大量纷争，为了解决其中的一些尖锐矛盾，我国应积极地创设土地发展权制度，显化土地发展极，建立基于国有土地发展权的土地利用规划思路。     

Global food demand,productivity growth,and the scarcity of land and water resources: a spatially explicit mathematical programming approach

In the coming decades, an increasing competition for global land and water resources can be expected, due to rising demand for food and bio‐energy production, biodiversity conservation, and changing production conditions due to climate change. The potential of technological change in agriculture to adapt to these trends is subject to considerable uncertainty. In order to simulate these combined effects in a spatially explicit way, we present a model of agricultural production and its impact on the environment (MAgPIE). MAgPIE is a mathematical programming model covering the most important agricultural crop and livestock production types in 10 economic regions worldwide at a spatial resolution of three by three degrees, i.e., approximately 300 by 300 km at the equator. It takes regional economic conditions as well as spatially explicit data on potential crop yields and land and water constraints into account and derives specific land‐use patterns for each grid cell. Shadow prices for binding constraints can be used to valuate resources for which in many places no markets exist, especially irrigation water. In this article, we describe the model structure and validation. We apply the model to possible future scenarios up to 2055 and derive required rates of technological change (i.e., yield increase) in agricultural production in order to meet future food demand.     

Modeling linkages between climate policy and land use: an overview

Agriculture and forestry play an important role in emitting and storing greenhouse gases. For an efficient and cost-effective climate policy, it is therefore important to include land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) explicitly in economy-climate models. This article gives an overview and assessment of existing approaches to include LULUCF into partial and general equilibrium economy-climate models. For each class of models, we describe different examples, their treatment of land, and their potential for and applicability to policy analysis, as well as their shortcomings. We identify data requirements and conceptual problems, and provide suggestions for future research.