Weakening the Brazilian legislation for forest conservation has severe impacts for ecosystem services in the Atlantic Southern Forest

The Atlantic Forest is a global hotspot of biodiversity that may be on the verge of ecological collapse. Current changes in forest legislation have increased the debate concerning policy impacts on land-use and the consequences for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision. This paper evaluates the impact of three environmental policy options (National Forest Act from 1965-NFA65, Business as Usual-BAU, National Forest Act from 2012-NFA12) on land-use patterns and ecosystem services in the southern Atlantic Forest. InVEST (the Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs tool) was used to model ecosystem services. Synergies and tradeoffs between commodities, erosion regulation, carbon storage and habitat for biodiversity were assessed with the Spearman Correlation Test. The NFA65 produced the largest gains for forest ecosystem services, while BAU favored commodities expansion. The NFA12 approaches the baseline, contributing less to the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.