Due to its controversies, oil palm cultivation has been targeted by regulatory innovations. Among these, transnational efforts—such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and corporate commitments to zero deforestation have been highly influential but often tend to overvalue environmental over socio-economic outcomes. This article discusses to what extent domestic governance models of palm oil producing countries can be better equipped to reconcile domestic demands such as economic development and poverty alleviation, and transnational concerns about forest conservation. We do so by looking into the Brazilian case, where the government intended to drive oil palm expansion in the Amazon through a program launched in 2010 that simultaneously only allowed expansion into already deforested areas and offered companies incentives to engage smallholder farmers in their supply chains. Our findings, drawn from primary research activities and existing literature, indicate that Brazil has managed to avoid deforestation typically associated with oil palm expansion elsewhere. Oil palm establishment involved the conversion of 0.8% and 1.3% of primary forests for corporate and smallholder plantations, respectively. However, the Brazilian government did not manage to optimally enhance smallholder participation in the sector, as significant differences in performance were observed between farmers, ranging from very successful (17%) to highly unsuccessful (12%); and failed to achieve sectoral development and competitiveness targets. While some failings can be attributed to external factors such as context, broader domestic governance frameworks and alignments, and private supply chain initiatives, the program itself did not manage to reconcile social, environmental and economic objectives into a single coherent sectoral governance model. Yet, this case study suggests that domestic governance strategies can enable commodity production in a way that is more coherent with national priorities, at the same time as preventing deforestation and minimizing social risks more effectively

Due to the construction of the Itaparica Hydroelectric Plant in 1988, the Tuxás were displaced from their lands and resettled, generating internal conflicts and various socio-environmental impacts. Historically dedicated to agriculture and fishing, the resettlement of Tuxás changed their livelihoods, affecting nutrition and their relationship with their livelihoods. For those who still have access to fishing on the São Francisco River, the availability of fish has been reduced as a result of water polluting eutrophication, due to the disposal of sewage and fertilizers. The results include new elements, often disregarded, to reexplore the socio-environmental trade-offs of the installation of hydroelectric plants in Brazil. He concludes by proposing alternative perspectives (mainly from the bottom up), to rethink the delicate balance between economic progress driven by energy generation in Brazil and also the negative impact on the livelihood of the country’s most vulnerable communities.

As mudanças climáticas são consideradas globalmente um dos principais vetores de transformações socioambientais, sobretudo em biomas, ecossistemas e populações mais vulneráveis. Nesse contexto, o conceito de resiliência tem sido frequentemente empregado, sendo utilizado na ecologia para entender os limiares de transição ecossistêmicos pelo qual florestas e outros habitats conseguem se estruturar diante das diversas perturbações externas. No entanto, o conceito de resiliência ante os impactos e riscos das mudanças climáticas pelas lentes de riscos socioambientais no Brasil ainda é pouco desenvolvido, sobretudo na escala de biomas. Neste artigo, utilizamos a teoria das transições críticas à modelagem de distribuição de nicho ecológico em cenários futuros de aquecimento global até o final do século, a fim de evidenciar a alteração da resiliência ecológica dos biomas da Amazônia, Caatinga, Cerrado, Mata Atlântica e Pampa, e de que forma as alterações na resiliência podem levar a um aumento da exposição, vulnerabilidades e riscos à segurança socioambiental. O artigo mostra como a abordagem interdisciplinar na modelagem de resiliência dos biomas pode ser um instrumento auxiliar para tomada de decisões no âmbito das políticas públicas de mitigação e adaptação às mudanças climáticas e redução de riscos à segurança socioambiental.