Workshop to support the development of priority areas for recovery of native vegetation in the Amazon.

November 29 to December 1, 2017, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS: Researchers and scholars of the Biodiversity Research Program (PPBio); Ministry of the Environment - MMA; Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication (MCTIC), Rio Center for Conservation and Sustainability (CSRio), guest speakers in tropical forest restoration.

LOCATION: Emilio Goeldi Museum, Belém / PA - Brazil

OBJECTIVE: To discuss and define the criteria for the identification of priority areas for restoration of native vegetation and to define future scenarios to be modeled in order to subsidize public policies.

Faced with land-use change and environmental degradation in large areas, ecological restoration has become critical for maintaining biodiversity and essencial ecosystem services.

Under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), one of the goals of Aichi is the recovery of not less than 15% of degraded ecosystems around the world by 2020. In Brazil, the National Plan for the Recovery of Native Vegetation (PLANAVEG) was proposed in 2015. This has as a target, the restoration of at least 12.5 million hectares by 2035, including the restoration of degraded areas within national conservation areas and reserves, and indigenous territories.

To achieve this goal and optimize the success of relating this to public requirements and policies, planning large-scale spatial-based restoration is essential. The definition of priority areas for ecological restoration should be based on multicriteria approaches, including environmental, social and economic aspects. The complexity and diversity of Brazilian natural ecosystems and the distinct dynamics resulting from combinations of biophysical and socioeconomic factors, impose a challenge on restoration planning, and requires that each biome should be analysed independantly. Restoration planning should also take into account the optimization of different ecosystem services such as the potential for carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and the creation of prioritization scenarios linked to the Legal Reserve allocation rules, trends in the change of land use and the specific requirements of each biome.

The objective of this project is therefore to define, for each Brazilian biome, priority areas for ecological restoration that will be fed into a multicriteria spatial prioritization modelling program that optimizes the potential environmental and socioeconomic benefits of restoration. The data used will be the species occurance data obtained by the Research Program on Biodiversity (PPBio) along with data already available (eg, land use maps, drainage networks, cost of land, etc.).

Day 1 (29.Nov.2017) General overview of the work to be carried out by the project.

1. Short presentation of the project by the general coordinator of the MMA.
2. Presentation of the participants.
3. Presentation of the methodology emphasizing the cost variables of the restoration. (The cost of restoration is an important criterion and can be described in different ways for different biomes.)
4. CSRio's brief presentation of the concept of restoration cost and how this has already been analysed in previous studies followed by questions and discussion.
5. Definition of which strategy to use and how to identify data sources.
6. Presentation on the criteria for the allocation and modeling of prioritization scenarios to be included in the modelling program (CSRio).
7. Definition of the biophysical variables that will define the priority areas for restoration. These variables are the benefits of restoration such improved ecosystem services and biodiversity.
8. Definition of the criteria to included in the model that do not result in a benefit. These are the costs and can include the total area to be restored and the existing characteristics of the land or flora.