Legal reserve area is a tool of mandatory practice on Brazilian private lands with recognized importance for biodiversity conservation. Its implementation has not been effective and economic aspects have been pointed out as a reason to not maintain it. As an alternative, the law allows the landowners to have legal reserves outside the boundaries of their properties, which is called compensation. This paper analyzes the main economic and environmental implications of applying the mechanism of compensation, taking into account the criteria currently used to guide its application and the functional aspects of legal reserves. It was concluded that compensation is able to bring real benefits to environment by encouraging the maintenance of natural areas on private lands with lower opportunity and implementation costs. On the other hand, the breadth of the territorial unit chosen to apply this mechanism is essential to prevent that economic interests prevail over environmental benefits.
Biodiversity conservation; Legal reserve area; Compensation
