Unravelling Brazil's approach: Policy and governance gaps for social innovation in forest and landscape restoration

Aurelio Padovezi; Alice Ludvig; Gerhard Weiss; Robin L. Chazdon; Todora Rogelja; Cristina Adams; Laura Secco

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107583

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Unravelling Brazil's approach: Policy and governance gaps for social innovation in forest and landscape restoration

Journal article

Open access

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Unravelling Brazil's approach: Policy and governance gaps for social innovation in forest and landscape restoration

Aurelio Padovezi, Alice Ludvig, Gerhard Weiss, Robin L. Chazdon, Todora Rogelja, Cristina Adams and Laura Secco

Land Use Policy, Vol.155, pp.1-12

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107583

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Abstract

Environmental governance

Forest and landscape restoration

Land use policy

Policy gap analyses

Social-ecological innovation

Social Innovative - Forest and Landscape Restoration (SI-FLR) describes a process in which social innovation (SI) drives forest and landscape restoration (FLR), improving local livelihoods and delivering nature's contributions to people. This paper reveals policy gaps hindering SI-FLR approach in Brazil and offers recommendations to leverage its advancement, incorporating insights from the Brazilian context and international best practices and experiences. Brazilian policy documents in force in 2022 were analysed through the lens of five conceptual bridges of the SI-FLR framework. Applying a deductive approach and text-mining techniques, 91 SI-FLR-enabling policy instruments were identified, and the governance structures ruling them were mapped. Four major gaps emerged: (1) a lack of political will for the environmental agenda; (2) poor political coordination, resulting from the fragmentation of the mapped governance structures; (3) a missing landscape governance approach, reflecting the disconnection between these structures, restoration activities and value chains associated; and (4) a citizen science gap in innovation policy, highlighting the insufficiency of instruments promoting collaboration between public research and innovation institutions and local communities to address local social challenges. We conclude with two strategic recommendations: (1) structuring a National Landscape Restoration Governance System dedicated to improving policy coordination and landscape governance and (2) developing a regulatory instrument bringing citizen science to the research and innovation policy, increasing collaborative partnerships, innovation policy instruments and encouraging socioecological innovators. These recommendations represent a first step towards leveraging SI in the Brazilian FLR effort and may inspire other countries to expand the role of social innovators in developing nature-based solutions.

Details

Title: Unravelling Brazil's approach: Policy and governance gaps for social innovation in forest and landscape restoration
Authors: Aurelio Padovezi (Corresponding Author) - University of Padua
Alice Ludvig - BOKU University
Gerhard Weiss - BOKU University
Robin L. Chazdon - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Forest Research Institute
Todora Rogelja - University of Padua
Cristina Adams - BOKU University
Laura Secco - University of Padua
Publication details: Land Use Policy, Vol.155, pp.1-12
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2025.107583
ISSN: 1873-5754; 0264-8377
Copyright note: © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/4.0/).
Data Availability: No data was used for the research described in the article.
Grant note: This work was supported by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova and Rovigo, Italy.
Organisation Unit: Tropical Forests and People Research Centre
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991129987802621
Output Type: Journal article