Governing agriculture-driven land cover change in the tropics
Conference session, American Association of Geographers Conference, Denver, CO, USA
Talks and presentations
See a map of all the places I've given a talk!
The role of Indigenous land tenure formalization for conservation in Indonesia
Conference proceedings talk, American Association of Geographers Conference, Denver, CO, USA
The livelihood and environmental impacts of incomplete supply chain policy implementation in the Brazilian cattle sector
Conference proceedings talk, FLARE Conference, Rome, Italy
Abstract: Spillovers of deforestation activities to untargeted actors and regions have the potential to greatly reduce the effectiveness of zero-deforestation supply chain commitments (ZDCs). Likewise, such spillovers create the potential of augmenting livelihood outcomes for marginalized groups. While understanding of the direct impacts of supply chain policies has increased, the degree to which FLARE FLARE 2022 ROMEdeforestation “leakage” occurs remains unclear due to methodological challenges and limited data availability. Focusing on the beef cattle sector, the largest driver of tropical deforestation globally, we use newly assembled temporally and spatially explicit property-level data on cattle sales and deforestation for the Brazilian state of Pará to better understand the processes leading to low ZDC effectiveness and local leakage, as well as the potential livelihood affects this might have. We find that incomplete adoption of ZDCs among cattle buyers allows producers to avoid ZDC policies and continue deforesting, accounting for 74% (450,273 ha) of the deforestation detected in our study. Yet laundering, whereby indirect suppliers to ZDC companies to whom ZDCs are not yet implemented continue to deforest and sell through “clean” direct suppliers is also linked to 96,311 ha of deforestation. This laundering appears to drive policy leakage, as direct suppliers of ZDC companies are significantly more likely to switch to an indirect ZDC supplier role after deforesting than direct ZDC suppliers who do not deforest. We find that these indirect suppliers linked to leakage processes are more likely to be small, more marginal producers, far from urban centers. These results suggest that enforcing ZDC requirements among indirect suppliers is critical to meet the direct goals of supply chain policies, yet will likely have negative livelihood impacts. Therefore, measures that seek to close leakage pathways and increase ZDC effectiveness should also include inclusive measures for the more marginal producers that would be disproportionately affected by these policies.
The Role of Market Share on the Effectiveness of ZDCs for Cattle
Talk, Stockholm Environment Institute - Trase Research Dialogue no.6, Stockholm, Sweden
A melhoria da sustentabilidade das cadeias de valor globais (Improving the Sustainability of Global Value Chains)
Talk, 59th Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Economia, Administração e Sociologia Rural (SOBER) & 6th Econtro Brasileiro de Pesquisadores em Cooperativismo (EBPC), São Paulo, Brazil
Invited presentation to joint congress of the Brazilian Economics, Administration and Rural Sociology Society and 6th Meeting of Brazilian Researchers in Cooperativism. Presentation was delivered in Portuguese.
The role of market share on the effectiveness of zero deforestation commitments
Talk, Swiss Knowledge Exchange on Research on Agriculture, Conservation & Development Issues in Forest-Risk Supply Chains, Zürich, Switzerland
Discussing evidence on company policies for reducing commodity-driven forest loss
Talk, Fourth Global Land Programme Telecoupling Webinar on Governing Telecoupling, Zürich, Switzerland
Livelihood outcomes in smallholder schemes in Indonesian palm oil: An examination of recent policy reforms” & “Quantifying the impact of indirect suppliers on the effectiveness of cattle zero deforestation commitments in Brazil
Conference proceedings talk, Earth System Governance Conference, Bratislava, Slovakia
Abstract presentation 1: Oil palm is a globally important, yet highly controversial commodity. Palm oil accounts for 38% of world vegetable oil production, is linked to rural and national development in the countries that grow it, but also to increased greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, land grabbing and land conflict. In Indonesia, where 55% of world production occurs, palm oil is a major tool for advancing rural development goals by promoting the participation of smallholders in its production. A key vehicle for implementing palm oil as a development tool in Indonesia is the smallholder scheme – whereby smallholders are tied by contract to a central mill/plantation company, in theory ensuring guaranteed supply for the company and agricultural extension and inputs for smallholders. This project examines the livelihood impacts of the “One-Roof Management” or Kemitraan Manajemen Satu Atap (KMSA) smallholder scheme system whereby the plantation company is able to manage both its landholding and that of the smallholder scheme with smallholders receiving only the dividends of production. This is a major change in the smallholder-company relationship resulting from a 2006 legislative change that sought to reduce corporate risk from smallholder schemes. We examine the impacts of these new contractual arrangements via an ethnographic analysis of three divergent villages linked to one plantation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Our approach gives explicit attention to differences in livelihood outcomes at both village and sub-village levels. We find differences in the benefits obtained by smallholders and identifies smallholders’ pre-existing wealth and status, as well as village-level land holdings and leadership as critical reasons for these differences. We do not find extreme negative impacts others have found to result from KMSA systems. Instead, reductions in potential benefits (e.g. size of smallholding) appear to be offset by improved security of land tenure. However, we conclude by arguing that these relative benefits may change over the course of the scheme as the benefits of secure tenure may not outweigh reduced monetary returns. This case has relevance to wider debates on the role of private companies in development, because it presents a case of corporate-driven policy reform having some potentially beneficial livelihood outcomes relative to previous government-led schemes.
The role of market share on the effectiveness of zero deforestation commitments in the Brazilian Amazon
Workshop, 6th Annual Duck Family Graduate Workshop on Environmental Politics and Governance, University of Washington, WA, USA
Abstract: Sustainable supply chain policies aim to decouple food production from environmentally destructive practices, including via commitments to eliminate deforestation. Despite mixed evidence regarding their effectiveness, the adoption of these “zero-deforestation commitments” (ZDCs) has grown steadily, particularly in high deforestation-risk sectors like the Brazilian cattle industry. We provide the first spatially explicit estimates of the market share of ZDC cattle companies, using the three Brazilian states that collectively constitute 75% of the cattle herd and 80% of deforestation in the Legal Amazon region. We then evaluate the relationship between increases in market share and municipal-level deforestation to assess whether commitments are more effective where committed companies have higher market penetration. Our analysis shows that an increase in the market shares of companies with ZDCs is associated with lower municipal-level deforestation. These results indicate that the effectiveness of supply chain commitments in reducing deforestation is contingent on high participation rates, otherwise opportunities for producers to avoid or evade committed companies remain high
How machine learning can help prevent commodity-driven deforestation
Conference proceedings talk, International Conference on Learning Representations, Zürich, Switzerland
Uma abordagem sistemática pantropical para estudar compromissos de desmatamento zero (A systematic approach to study zero-deforestation commitments across the tropics)
Talk, Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (Imazon), Belem, Brazil
Invited presentation to staff at NGO/think tank Imazon
The Impacts of Zero-Deforestation Commitments on Deforestation & Slaughterhouse Siting Behaviours
Conference proceeding talk, Global Land Programme 4th Open Science Meeting, Bern, Switzerland
Abstract: Cattle are the leading driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, as well as one of the key commodities driving tropical deforestation globally. Despite inconclusive evidence, supply chain initiatives have been heralded as a critical way to decouple economic production from environmentally destructive practices both in the Amazon and elsewhere. In the Brazilian cattle sector, this primarily has taken the form of collective zero-deforestation commitments such as (e.g., the G4 Cattle Agreement). We use a novel methodological approach to determine whether these commitments have changed company behaviours location decisions or reduced deforestation in three Brazilian states, Rondônia, Mato Grosso and Pará, which collectively constituted 75% of the cattle herd of the Legal Amazon region. We quantified market exposure to zero deforestation commitments and associated reductions in deforestation by calculating the market share of committed slaughterhouses represent at the municipal level. This was paired with an analysis of the locations of new slaughterhouses by committed companies to identify if companies were avoiding expansion into regions with high deforestation risk. Our results show that companies who make zero-deforestation commitments are not avoiding deforestation hotspots, however a high municipal exposure to zero deforestation commitments is associated with reduced deforestation. We conclude that while commitments are not altering company decisions on where to expand, they are likely changing business practices and in turn resulting in reduced deforestation. However, for commitments to be impactful it requires a large percentage of the local market to be composed of committed companies, otherwise there continue to be ample opportunities for deforestation-intensive actors to avoid or otherwise evade the highly regulated supply chains is too greatcommitmentsted companies have made
Community-company partnerships for smallholders: An examination of recent policy reforms, Indonesia
Talk, Land Use & Livelihoods Initiative Student Conference, Boston University, Boston, USA
Abstract: Oil palm is a globally important commodity, accounting for 38% of total vegetable oil production, yet it is highly controversial. It is linked to rural and national development in the countries that grow it, but also with increased greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, land grabbing and land conflict. In Indonesia, where 55% of world production occurs, palm oil is a major tool for advancing national development goals due to the high participation of smallholders in its production. A key vehicle for implementing palm oil as a development tool in Indonesia is the smallholder scheme – whereby smallholders are tied by contract to a central mill/plantation company, in theory ensuring guaranteed supply for the company and agricultural extension and inputs for smallholders. This project investigates the impacts of a major change in the smallholder-company relationship resulting from a 2006 legislative amendment that sought to reduce corporate risk from smallholder schemes by reducing smallholder interaction with the core plantation. I examine the impacts of this policy via an ethnographic analysis of three villages linked to one plantation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. I find differences in the benefits obtained by smallholders as well as by village and identify smallholders’ pre-existing wealth and status as well as pre-existing village landholding as major factors for these differences. I conclude that although benefits vary across households and villages, they appear better than those suggested in other papers but that benefits may change over the course of the scheme as the benefits of secure tenure may not outweigh reduced monetary returns.
Livelihood outcomes in smallholder schemes in Indonesian palm oil: An examination of recent policy reforms
Conference proceeding talk, Sustainability & Development Conference, Anne Arbor, MI, USA