Cattle Raising In Latin America Colombia

Author : Clare Conway Sullivan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (144 download)

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Download or read book Greener Pastures written by Clare Conway Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conversion of forests to pastures drives deforestation globally, but it is especially important in Latin America. Zero Deforestation Agreements (ZDAs) are a promising forest conservation policy designed to address this driver of deforestation, where companies commit to reducing deforestation in their supply chains. The forest conservation potential of these policies is still being debated. Additionally, implementing ZDAs requires monitoring of suppliers, but the mobility of cattle, the complexity of cattle supply chains, and data gaps pose challenges for monitoring. Here, my research focuses on Colombia, which has 59 million hectares (Mha) of tropical forests, rapid rates of pasture expansion, and is recently encouraging companies in the beef and dairy sectors to sign onto ZDAs. First, I created a high spatial resolution dataset of millions of cattle transactions to map the cattle supply chain. With this new dataset, I found evidence of high informality, that 32% of animals are moved via fairs, and that indirect animal transactions account for the majority of transactions, not only in deforestation hotspots, but across all of Colombia. Second, I mapped company supplysheds, or catchment areas of supplying properties, and developed spatially explicit policy scenarios showing the potential reach of the ZDAs for forest conservation, depending on which companies and components of the beef and dairy sector sign on to the ZDAs. With increased participation, these policies have the potential to reach 24.8 Mha of currently unprotected forests and can include regions with high deforestation rates, but participation in ZDAs needs to be scaled. Lastly, in the deforestation hotspot of the Andean-Amazon transition zone, I quantify forest area and carbon stocks by land tenure class and use this information on available land to assess the importance of ZDAs and other sustainable land management strategies in terms of climate mitigation potential if scaled. Overall, my research shows that implementing ZDAs will not be simple but existing datasets have great potential as a basis for monitoring the sector, and that on-farm forest conservation can complement other conservation policies and make an important contribution to Colombia's forest conservation and climate goals. It highlights ways in which more sustainable cattle ranching practices can reduce pressure on Colombia's tropical forests and landscapes.