Planning by the rules: A fair chance for the environment in a land-use conflict area

The establishment of protected areas is one of the most common environmental policy tools which can effectively contribute to landscape protection, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem services provision. In this sense, the Brazilian Law on Native Vegetation Protection establishes the legal reserves, mandatory protected spaces within private rural lands, which seek to maintain and restore ecological functions and promote biodiversity conservation. This paper aims to present an approach that attempted to locate potential protected spaces, in the form of legal reserves, in the East Zone of Ribeirao Preto - a recharge zone of the Guarani Aquifer System. We made use of seven criteria to create five possible scenarios with varying priorities for native vegetation protection or restoration. Then, we used eight landscape metrics, as well as the level of compliance with the law, to discuss the viability of each scenario in terms of ecological thresholds and landscape indicators. We found only one scenario (the broader perspective on recovering the natural vegetation corridors) capable of meeting the ecological and legal requirements. We conclude that using less data-demanding methods, such as the one applied in this research, could be useful in assisting decision-making regarding the selection of areas for conservation or restoration.