What Role Should Government Regulation Play in Ecological Restoration? Ongoing Debate in São Paulo State, Brazil

background

This article addresses the degree of detail that should be present in legislation dealing with reforestation and restoration, and if there is a relationship between technical content/scope of regulation and success of projects. The relationship between law and reforestation is also discussed. In São Paulo state, legislation establishes precise reforestation requirements, such as the use of a minimum of 80 species of native trees and the presence of specific proportions of functional groups. This is the only existing legislation known by the authors with this degree of technical detail.

Conclusions & Takeaways

Supporters of this legislation attest that such rules improve the outcome of reforestation projects, while opponents claim that legislation cannot impose norms based on insufficient scientific information—current understandings of reforestation processes are inadequate to enact standardized methodologies. Opponents of the legislation point out that many reforestation projects that “follow the rules” fail and that high minimum species requirements may prohibitively increase the cost of reforestation, while supporters stress that the legislation has correlated with higher levels of native species production in nurseries Both supporters and critics of current legislation agree that general goals that should be attained during the reforestation process need to be included in legislation.