Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol Land use policy as a driver for climate change adaptation: A case in the domain of the Brazilian Atlantic forest Camila Linhares Rezende a,b,c, ⁎ , Joana Stingel Fraga a,d , Juliana Cabral Sessa a , Gustavo Vinagre Pinto de Souza a , Eduardo Delgado Assad e , Fabio Rubio Scarano a,b a Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Rua Engenheiro Álvaro Niemeyer 76, São Conrado, CEP 22610-180, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil b Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Ecologia, Caixa Postal 68020, CEP 21941-970, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil c Instituto Estadual do Ambiente, Diretoria de Biodiversidade e Áreas Protegidas, Av. Venezuela 110, 2° andar, Saúde, CEP 20081-312, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil d Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Geografia, Rua Marquês de São Vicente 225, sala 411-F, Gávea. CEP 22451-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil e Embrapa Informática Agropecuária (CNPTIA), Av. Andre Tosello 209, Barão Geraldo, CEP 13083-886, Campinas, SP, Brazil ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Ecosystem-based adaptation Environmental policy Large scale restoration Nationally determined contributions State of Rio de Janeiro ABSTRACT Brazil has a great potential for ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change and to disaster risk reduction, leveraged by the commitment of restoring 12 million hectares until 2030. This commitment is legally backed by the Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL), which defines the situations in which landowners must recover native vegetation in their land. In this paper, we discuss the role of land use compliance as a driver for adap- tation in the Brazilian Atlantic forest domain based on the case of the State of Rio de Janeiro. We used high resolution satellite imagery (5 m pixel) to map the state’s land use and land cover, delineate Areas of Permanent Preservation and calculate the environmental debt, i.e. the areas required for restoration in order to comply to the NVPL. We also related the distribution of the environmental debt to the socioeconomic conditions of the municipalities and examined potential funding sources for economic incentives to enhance feasibility of re- storation in private lands. The state has 31% of native vegetation cover, and an environmental debt of 412,876 ha, correlated to Human Development Index (R = -0.2952, p = 0.0043) and vulnerability to poverty (R = 0.3711, p = 0.0003). The north-northwestern region hosts the hotspots both for environmental debt and vulnerability to poverty, therefore it should constitute a priority target for environmental and social policies. Compliance to this large environmental debt to abide to the regulatory policy NVPL will demand incentive mechanisms. Oil royalties are a potential funding source for programs of payment for ecosystem services, as 3% of those annual revenues could pay the restoration of 39% of the state’s environmental debt per year over 20 years. Thus, policy mixes that combine existing regulatory and incentive mechanisms should ensure low-cost landscape restoration in tandem with new job opportunities in a restoration chain, and might represent a sig- nificant opportunity for the State of Rio de Janeiro. 1. Introduction Recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history, with severe impacts in human and natural systems all across the globe. Climate change will amplify existing risks and create new ones, unevenly distributed, and generally greater for disadvantaged people (IPCC, 2014). Despite national commitments of reducing emis- sions, temperature will continue to rise, leading to the depletion of ecosystem services such as food and water provision (Rogelj et al., 2016). In this scenario, carbon mitigation will continue to be relevant, but alone will not suffice to halt or circumvent ongoing climate trends. Adaptation strategies are needed to increase resilience of vulnerable socio-ecological systems (Scarano, 2017). Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change (EbA) is the set of adaptation measures which take into account the role of ecosystem services (ES) in reducing the vulnerability of society to climate change (Magrin et al., 2014; Vignola et al., 2009). Within this approach, adapting requires a combination of policy instruments related to nature conservation and restoration with socioeconomic policies that foster livelihood diversification and, consequently, income generation and poverty reduction (Jones et al., 2012; Magrin et al., 2014; Scarano, 2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.01.027 Received 30 May 2017; Received in revised form 15 January 2018; Accepted 15 January 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Rua Engenheiro Álvaro Niemeyer, 76, São Conrado, CEP 22610-180, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. E-mail address: clrezende@fbds.org.br (C.L. Rezende). Land Use Policy 72 (2018) 563–569 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T