Indigenous Lands Turned into Soy Farms Pose Threats to Sustainability in Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study by Kamaroski and Morimoto, entitled “Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil” examined the growing conflict between indigenous lands (ILs) and agribusiness in Brazilian states. The study is performed and analyzed well however there are some concerns that should be addressed before formal acceptance in the journal.

Authors are advised to make the paper according to the journal format as some format errors are there. Proof read and edit the paper with care as some sentences seems very complex and loses its ability in conveying the message.

The abstract should be revised intensely as the introductory sentences should be simple and clearer to highlight the problem. State the objectives in a sentence. Add the methodology in brief. Future prospects should be incorporated.

The paper discusses that how indigenous lands (ILs) and agribusiness interact in certain Brazilian regions, and what effects this interaction has on sustainability…….I think these information should be added to the title. Revision of the title is suggested.

The background information about soy coverage is missing…………add it properly.

Clearly state the objectives/hypothesis of the study at the end of paragraph in a concise and clear statements.

Materials and methods section should be supplemented with proper citation and convert into sub heading for better understanding. Please refer to the previous papers and supplement this section with recent citation.

The results are written well, however, make the sentences short for better understanding. Proofreading is required. This section can be extended with separate data analysis that could help in understanding the detailed figure 2.

The discussion looks shallow……….re-arrange the paragraphs, take care of the continuity of the story.

The conclusion is attractive however, remove the citation from this section and arrange the whole summary of the paper in continuous manner.

Good Luck!

Author Response

Reviewer 1

The study by Kamaroski and Morimoto, entitled “Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil” examined the growing conflict between indigenous lands (ILs) and agribusiness in Brazilian states. The study is performed and analyzed well however there are some concerns that should be addressed before formal acceptance in the journal.

Reply:  Thank you for the appraisal to our work. We have addressed the comments in detail, as highlighted below.

Authors are advised to make the paper according to the journal format as some format errors are there. Proof read and edit the paper with care as some sentences seems very complex and loses its ability in conveying the message.

Reply: We have now placed the manuscript in the format of the journal, including journal template. We have also shortened sentences for clarity, this was done throughout the manuscript.

The abstract should be revised intensely as the introductory sentences should be simple and clearer to highlight the problem. State the objectives in a sentence. Add the methodology in brief. Future prospects should be incorporated.

Reply: Done. The abstract now reads:

“Urban areas are growing often at the expense of native ecosystems. As a result, indigenous lands (ILs) have become critical refuges for biodiversity and essential for sustainability and sit at the intersection of cultural, economic, and environmental interests. ILs play a double role in this context: they protect native biodiversity but are often framed as barriers to economic growth. In Brazil, nearly 14% of the territory is demarcated as ILs. This has led to conflicts with Brazil’s agricultural sector, particularly in the southernmost states where the agribusiness drives the economy. We hypothesized that this conflict leads to agricultural encroachment of ILs, which might become extension of farms, compromising their sustainability purpose. We analyzed two decades of public data on soy coverage within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul) and found that soy cultivation in ILs increased by over 116% in the last two decades, peaking in 2019 at 176% above the 2001 baseline. Many ILs are effectively becoming soy farms, which poses a threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. We argue that ILs urgently need a framework that enables the communities therein to benefit from income originating from land lease, while ensuring that encroachment is limited and does not pose threats to native biodiversity. This can be challenging due to growing political pressure to weaken socioenvironmental protection and ILs demarcation, but is nevertheless essential for the sustainable coexistence of urban areas, farms, and ILs.”

 

The paper discusses that how indigenous lands (ILs) and agribusiness interact in certain Brazilian regions, and what effects this interaction has on sustainability…….I think these information should be added to the title. Revision of the title is suggested.

Reply:  We would like to retain our original title. With the revision of the abstract, we feel that our manuscript is more accessible to readers and better articulate the points above.

 

The background information about soy coverage is missing…………add it properly.

Reply: Done. We have added this as our second paragraph of the introduction. The section now reads:

Brazil is the world’s largest soybean exporter and a central player in the global soy supply chain, producing over one-third of global exports in recent years (IBGE, 2023). National soybean area has more than doubled since 2000, expanding from 26.4 million hectares to over 55 million hectares by 2019, largely at the expense of natural vegetation in the Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Pantanal biomes (Song et al., 2021). While the Amazon Soy Moratorium has slowed direct forest-to-soy conversion in parts of the Amazon, expansion continues through indirect land-use change and in biomes with weaker protections (Lucas et al., 2021; Fearnside, 2001). Moreover, other biomes have not benefited from the Amazon Soy Moratorium, especially areas with highly fragmented biomes. This includes the southernmost states of Brazil which are home to Atlantic Forest (including Araucaria Forests), Cerrado and Pampa. Soy is primarily destined for animal feed, with smaller shares for vegetable oil and human consumption (Boerema et al., 2016). Its cultivation is closely tied to infrastructure expansion, land speculation, and biodiversity loss, with measurable impacts on species richness and ecosystem services even where forest loss is minimal (Molotoks et al., 2023).

Clearly state the objectives/hypothesis of the study at the end of paragraph in a concise and clear statements.

Reply: Done: “Our hypothesis was that agribusiness expansion would lead to encroachment of ILs areas, converting parts of ILs into soy plantations. We expected this encroachment to have increased over the years due to the growing contribution of the agribusiness to Brazil’s GDP and socioeconomic wealth.”

Materials and methods section should be supplemented with proper citation and convert into sub heading for better understanding. Please refer to the previous papers and supplement this section with recent citation.

Reply: We were unsure about the specific actions the reviewer suggested. We have provided the citations for all materials and methods we used.

The results are written well, however, make the sentences short for better understanding. Proofreading is required. This section can be extended with separate data analysis that could help in understanding the detailed figure 2.

Reply: Done. The revisions now read:

Soy cultivation intensified across ILs over the last two decades

We found that soy cultivation in ILs has expanded markedly over the past two decades. In 2001 (baseline), the average soy coverage across ILs was approximately 4.3%. However, by 2022 it had nearly tripled, reaching 11.9%, an increase of ~177% (Figure 2). In 2023, soy coverage decreased slightly to 9.3%, an increase of ~116% from the baseline. The increase appears to be non-linear with a steady upward trend in recent years. The last decade (2012–2022) of monitoring data appears to show a more pronounced rise in average soy coverage compared to the 2001–2010 period. Public policies and leadership attitude towards ILs and agribusiness certainly contributed to this trend.

Some ILs have had most of their land coverage in soy

Our data also revealed that ILs are more vulnerable to encroachment than others. While some ILs experienced minimal or no soy cultivation during the monitoring period, others had over 60% of their territory converted to soy, with the highest recorded value peaking at 68.3% in 2016. This shows that nearly three-quarters of the IL was covered with soy. Together, our results suggest that southern ILs are increasingly vulnerable to agricultural encroachment, highlighting a tension between traditional land uses and the surrounding agribusiness economy.

The discussion looks shallow……….re-arrange the paragraphs, take care of the continuity of the story.

Reply: Done. The revised Discussion, now with more detailed information, reads:

Our findings reveal an alarming trajectory of agricultural encroachment within Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil’s southernmost states. The increase of soy cultivation by over 116% since 2001 reflects not only growing economic pressures from agribusiness but also the vulnerability of ILs in regions where biomes like the Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Cerrado are already under intense anthropogenic stress (e.g., Marque & Grelle, 2021; Ribeiro, Moreira et al., 2021). This expansion aligns with broader national patterns of soybean-driven land-use change, which disproportionately affects biodiversity hotspots such as the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). In these biomes, soy cultivation is among the top drivers of habitat loss, with measurable impacts on multiple taxa including plants, birds, and amphibians at both regional and global scales (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021).

The impacts of soy expansion are not necessarily unidimensional and uniform. Recent work on biodiversity-specific footprinting shows that forest loss is not always a good proxy for sociobiodiversity decline across landscapes (Molotoks et al., 2023). This is relevant for ILs that are more well integrated into urban landscapes, where agricultural encroachment may degrade the land and forest mosaics without necessarily triggering large-scale deforestation metrics. Additionally, sociobiodiversity impacts of soy cultivation expansion are often compounded by indirect effects, such as infrastructure development land speculation – both which accelerate secondary deforestation and habitat fragmentation (Fearnside, 2001; Boerema et al., 2016) – and direct ethnic conflicts (Mondardo, 2022).

Our data highlights that southern ILs are at increasing risk and urgently require targeted policy interventions. The expansion of commodity crops –– particularly soy –– within ILs will continue to compromise sociobiodiversity, disrupt cultural practices, and undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples. These concerns are supported by findings from recent analyses showing that while the economic benefits of soybean production are often localized, the environmental costs, especially sociobiodiversity loss, are spatially widespread, affecting both focal and adjacent areas (da Silva et al., 2021).

Recent political activities have added further uncertainty to ILs and sociobiodiversity conservation in Brazil (see Introduction). Proposals such as the bill from Senator Esperidião Amin (Amin, 2024) and the recent uproar against environmental conservation –– such as the PL 2159/2021 (PL of Devastation, Zica, 2021), which was vetoed by the President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva with amendments –– threaten sustainability in two ways: first, by halting IL demarcation in Santa Catarina, and second, by dismantling policy frameworks designed to safeguard Indigenous rights and ecological health. These developments resemble broader governance failures to enforce zero-deforestation commitments in commodity supply chains (Molotoks et al., 2023) and risk intensifying the policy–agribusiness alignment that prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term socioenvironmental resilience.

It is in our view futile to try and fully reverse the impacts of encroachment, as this has multidimensional and complex socioeconomic interactions that, at times, can benefit Indigenous people and overcome shortcomings from the State. However, we must mitigate these challenges. To achieve this, we argue Brazil need structured frameworks that enable Indigenous communities to regain control of agricultural practices, and the wealth they generate, within their lands. This includes moving away from illegal leasing arrangements that benefit external actors, and instead adopting regulated, Indigenous-led agricultural models. Similar to recommendations by Boerema et al. (2016) and Lucas et al. (2021), such models should integrate sustainable cropping practices (e.g., crop rotation, reduced agrochemical use) with cooperative organization, technical assistance, and access to credit other than those from agribusiness. Moreover, policies should account for biodiversity-intactness metrics (Mahlich et al., 2022) rather than relying solely on deforestation rates as performance indicators, thereby ensuring that agricultural development aligns with both cultural values and environmental thresholds.

Finally, the future of ILs in Brazil’s southern states will depend on integrating Indigenous rights with sustainable development strategies that respond to the realities of a rapidly expanding agricultural sector. Holistic monitoring approaches—combining remote sensing, biodiversity risk assessment, and socio-economic evaluation—are essential to avoid repeating the pattern seen elsewhere in Brazil, where soybean expansion has often preceded irreversible ecological degradation (Lourençoni et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). Our results underline the urgency of designing economic alternatives that reconcile cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation with the demands of agribusiness-driven landscapes. In the absence of these actions, we foresee an escalation of ongoing conflicts, which threatens sociobiodiversity and agricultural growth, compromising both ecological integrity and the sustainable futures of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

 

The conclusion is attractive however, remove the citation from this section and arrange the whole summary of the paper in continuous manner.

Reply: We kindly ask the reviewer to retain the citation, but we agree that the conclusion should be better structured. Our revised conclusion now reads:

In conclusion, our study highlights the rapid expansion of soy cultivation within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states, stressing the growing tension between agribusiness and sociobiodiversity. By quantifying over two decades of land-use change, we demonstrate that ILs – though constitutionally protected – are increasingly vulnerable to economic pressures and political decisions that favor agricultural expansion. We argue that a solution to this challenge will require policies that regulate ILs use and empower indigenous communities to liaise with agribusiness for sustainable ways to produce commodities within ILs without threatening ILs role of safeguarding cultural heritage and the sociobiodiversity. This is crucial because ILs have multiple roles including that of safeguarding sociobiodiversity (e.g., Garnett et al., 2018; O'Bryan et al., 2021). Our proposed solution could be used in other regions of Brazil which also face similar conflicts (e.g., Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) (Kastens et al., 2017) as well as serve as model for conflicts within ILs globally (e.g., Correia, 2019; Kepkiewicz and Dale, 2019).

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

MS: Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil

 

 

I have carefully read the entire manuscript and provide the following comments for your consideration:

 

The topic of this manuscript is of practical relevance, but the article reads more like an analytical policy commentary or environmental opinion piece rather than a standard scientific research paper.

 

-The authors must revise the manuscript format in accordance with the journal’s official template.

 

-The introduction of research background and key knowledge gaps in the abstract should be more concise; currently, it occupies an excessive portion of the abstract.

 

-The abstract lacks presentation of key findings. It only mentions changes in soy cultivation area without adequately explaining how these changes affect the socio-ecological environment.

 

-The title and abstract do not reflect keywords such as land leasing, illegal farming, or constitution, which the authors claim are central to the study.

 

-The manuscript includes excessive references to political events and media reports, which deviates from the scientific scope.

 

-The content of the MS essentially only describes changes in soy cultivation area. Other analyses are largely speculative and do not clearly demonstrate how these changes pose a threat to sustainability in Brazil.

 

-Conducting a mechanical analysis of a single publicly available indicator (soy cultivation area) is of limited value. The study would only be meaningful if the authors could relate the changes in soy cultivation to ecological or socio-cultural variables.

 

 

-References. It would be best to consult the specific guidelines provided by the journal for instructions on formatting and referencing.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

MS: Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil. I have carefully read the entire manuscript and provide the following comments for your consideration. The topic of this manuscript is of practical relevance, but the article reads more like an analytical policy commentary or environmental opinion piece rather than a standard scientific research paper.

 Reply: Thank you for comments and appraisal of our work.

-The authors must revise the manuscript format in accordance with the journal’s official template.

 Reply: Done.

-The introduction of research background and key knowledge gaps in the abstract should be more concise; currently, it occupies an excessive portion of the abstract.

Reply: Abstract now reads:

 Urban areas are growing often at the expense of native ecosystems. As a result, indigenous lands (ILs) have become critical refuges for biodiversity and essential for sustainability and sit at the intersection of cultural, economic, and environmental interests. ILs play a double role in this context: they protect native biodiversity but are often framed as barriers to economic growth. In Brazil, nearly 14% of the territory is demarcated as ILs. This has led to conflicts with Brazil’s agricultural sector, particularly in the southernmost states where the agribusiness drives the economy. We hypothesized that this conflict leads to agricultural encroachment of ILs, which might become extension of farms, compromising their sustainability purpose. We analyzed two decades of public data on soy coverage within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul) and found that soy cultivation in ILs increased by over 116% in the last two decades, peaking in 2019 at 176% above the 2001 baseline. Many ILs are effectively becoming soy farms, which poses a threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. We argue that ILs urgently need a framework that enables the communities therein to benefit from income originating from land lease, while ensuring that encroachment is limited and does not pose threats to native biodiversity. This can be challenging due to growing political pressure to weaken socioenvironmental protection and ILs demarcation, but is nevertheless essential for the sustainable coexistence of urban areas, farms, and ILs.

-The abstract lacks presentation of key findings. It only mentions changes in soy cultivation area without adequately explaining how these changes affect the socio-ecological environment.

 Reply: This has been rectified (see revised abstract above). We prefer to discuss socioecological changes in the Discussion, as this is done with the support from the literature. To ensure this was done, we have completely overhauled our discussion section, following suggestions from Reviewer 2 and the other reviewers.

-The title and abstract do not reflect keywords such as land leasing, illegal farming, or constitution, which the authors claim are central to the study.

 Reply: The keywords are additional to the text in the abstract and title and are used to expand the search/finding tools of our manuscript. It is best practice to have keywords different than those already appearing in the title and abstract (Deng et al., 2014).

Reference cited

Deng, K., Li, X., Lu, J., & Zhou, X. (2014). Best keyword cover search. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 27(1), 61-73.

-The manuscript includes excessive references to political events and media reports, which deviates from the scientific scope.

 Reply: Thank you, but we see this as a benefit, rather than a limitation of our work. Science should inform policy and vice-versa. Given our topic and the socio-political environment in Brazil at the moment, we strongly believe our choice of references in relation to political events, policies, and news are fully justified.

-The content of the MS essentially only describes changes in soy cultivation area. Other analyses are largely speculative and do not clearly demonstrate how these changes pose a threat to sustainability in Brazil.

 Reply: We have added references that provide such discussion, and have reformulated our discussion to answer this concern. Our revised discussion now reads:

Our findings reveal an alarming trajectory of agricultural encroachment within Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil’s southernmost states. The increase of soy cultivation by over 116% since 2001 reflects not only growing economic pressures from agribusiness but also the vulnerability of ILs in regions where biomes like the Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Cerrado are already under intense anthropogenic stress (e.g., Marque & Grelle, 2021; Ribeiro, Moreira et al., 2021). This expansion aligns with broader national patterns of soybean-driven land-use change, which disproportionately affects biodiversity hotspots such as the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). In these biomes, soy cultivation is among the top drivers of habitat loss, with measurable impacts on multiple taxa including plants, birds, and amphibians at both regional and global scales (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021).

The impacts of soy expansion are not necessarily unidimensional and uniform. Recent work on biodiversity-specific footprinting shows that forest loss is not always a good proxy for sociobiodiversity decline across landscapes (Molotoks et al., 2023). This is relevant for ILs that are more well integrated into urban landscapes, where agricultural encroachment may degrade the land and forest mosaics without necessarily triggering large-scale deforestation metrics. Additionally, sociobiodiversity impacts of soy cultivation expansion are often compounded by indirect effects, such as infrastructure development land speculation – both which accelerate secondary deforestation and habitat fragmentation (Fearnside, 2001; Boerema et al., 2016) – and direct ethnic conflicts (Mondardo, 2022).

Our data highlights that southern ILs are at increasing risk and urgently require targeted policy interventions. The expansion of commodity crops –– particularly soy –– within ILs will continue to compromise sociobiodiversity, disrupt cultural practices, and undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples. These concerns are supported by findings from recent analyses showing that while the economic benefits of soybean production are often localized, the environmental costs, especially sociobiodiversity loss, are spatially widespread, affecting both focal and adjacent areas (da Silva et al., 2021).

Recent political activities have added further uncertainty to ILs and sociobiodiversity conservation in Brazil (see Introduction). Proposals such as the bill from Senator Esperidião Amin (Amin, 2024) and the recent uproar against environmental conservation –– such as the PL 2159/2021 (PL of Devastation, Zica, 2021), which was vetoed by the President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva with amendments –– threaten sustainability in two ways: first, by halting IL demarcation in Santa Catarina, and second, by dismantling policy frameworks designed to safeguard Indigenous rights and ecological health. These developments resemble broader governance failures to enforce zero-deforestation commitments in commodity supply chains (Molotoks et al., 2023) and risk intensifying the policy–agribusiness alignment that prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term socioenvironmental resilience.

It is in our view futile to try and fully reverse the impacts of encroachment, as this has multidimensional and complex socioeconomic interactions that, at times, can benefit Indigenous people and overcome shortcomings from the State. However, we must mitigate these challenges. To achieve this, we argue Brazil need structured frameworks that enable Indigenous communities to regain control of agricultural practices, and the wealth they generate, within their lands. This includes moving away from illegal leasing arrangements that benefit external actors, and instead adopting regulated, Indigenous-led agricultural models. Similar to recommendations by Boerema et al. (2016) and Lucas et al. (2021), such models should integrate sustainable cropping practices (e.g., crop rotation, reduced agrochemical use) with cooperative organization, technical assistance, and access to credit other than those from agribusiness. Moreover, policies should account for biodiversity-intactness metrics (Mahlich et al., 2022) rather than relying solely on deforestation rates as performance indicators, thereby ensuring that agricultural development aligns with both cultural values and environmental thresholds.

Finally, the future of ILs in Brazil’s southern states will depend on integrating Indigenous rights with sustainable development strategies that respond to the realities of a rapidly expanding agricultural sector. Holistic monitoring approaches—combining remote sensing, biodiversity risk assessment, and socio-economic evaluation—are essential to avoid repeating the pattern seen elsewhere in Brazil, where soybean expansion has often preceded irreversible ecological degradation (Lourençoni et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). Our results underline the urgency of designing economic alternatives that reconcile cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation with the demands of agribusiness-driven landscapes. In the absence of these actions, we foresee an escalation of ongoing conflicts, which threatens sociobiodiversity and agricultural growth, compromising both ecological integrity and the sustainable futures of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

-Conducting a mechanical analysis of a single publicly available indicator (soy cultivation area) is of limited value. The study would only be meaningful if the authors could relate the changes in soy cultivation to ecological or socio-cultural variables.

 Reply: We disagree. Our premise – given ongoing political movements in Brazil and lobbying from agribusiness – was to test the encroachment of ILs by soy cultivation. It is true that relating those to ecological and socio-cultural variables is important, but is beyond the scope of this present work. It is worth highlighting that conducting those assessments at such large scale studied here (across well over 60 ILs) is non-trivial and life-threatening because it requires individual approval for Indigenous leaders for each community, people, resources and time to visit all these communities across multiple years. Moreover, the last year, two indigenous were decapitated in conflicts with agribusiness.   

-References. It would be best to consult the specific guidelines provided by the journal for instructions on formatting and referencing.

Reply: Done.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Title: Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil I have reviewed the manuscript titled “Indigenous lands turned soy farms poses threats to sustainability in Brazil” My evaluation is as follows:

General comments. Authors analyzed two decades data on soy coverage within indegeneous lands (IL) Brazil’s southernmost states (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul) to determine expansion over two decades (2001-2022). They found that soy cultivation in these lands increased by over 116% in the two decades under examination peaking in 2019 at 176% above the 2001 baseline. The study focus is topical, relevant and timely. It is within the journal’s scope. However, authors should address the issues raised in my specific comments below before it can be considered for publication.

Reply: Thank you for thoughtful comments and support for our work. We addressed the points and detail how we did below:

Title
The title is relevant.

Reply: Thanks!

Abstract:
Much of the abstract provides background information. This should be reduced. Authors should provide an objective and methodolgy. They have provided the study results and implication (ILs are effectively becoming soy farms, which poses a threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge). This has not been shown in the study text.

Reply: We have now rewritten the introduction and discussion to weave our results into the broader literature that have made such correlations. We have also revised our abstract to reflect this, which we now feel is much more aligned with what is presented in the paper (including discussion and introduction).

“Urban areas are growing often at the expense of native ecosystems. As a result, indigenous lands (ILs) have become critical refuges for biodiversity and essential for sustainability and sit at the intersection of cultural, economic, and environmental interests. ILs play a double role in this context: they protect native biodiversity but are often framed as barriers to economic growth. In Brazil, nearly 14% of the territory is demarcated as ILs. This has led to conflicts with Brazil’s agricultural sector, particularly in the southernmost states where the agribusiness drives the economy. We hypothesized that this conflict leads to agricultural encroachment of ILs, which might become extension of farms, compromising their sustainability purpose. We analyzed two decades of public data on soy coverage within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul) and found that soy cultivation in ILs increased by over 116% in the last two decades, peaking in 2019 at 176% above the 2001 baseline. Many ILs are effectively becoming soy farms, which poses a threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. We argue that ILs urgently need a framework that enables the communities therein to benefit from income originating from land lease, while ensuring that encroachment is limited and does not pose threats to native biodiversity. This can be challenging due to growing political pressure to weaken socioenvironmental protection and ILs demarcation, but is nevertheless essential for the sustainable coexistence of urban areas, farms, and ILs.”

They have also indicated that the study proposes solutions to regulate illegal land lease and empower indigenous communities. This too is missing and should be incoporated in the relevant sections.

Reply: Wordcount limits us from adding more information to the Abstract. However, we have now revised the Discussion to bring this to the forefront:

 

“Our findings reveal an alarming trajectory of agricultural encroachment within Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil’s southernmost states. The increase of soy cultivation by over 116% since 2001 reflects not only growing economic pressures from agribusiness but also the vulnerability of ILs in regions where biomes like the Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Cerrado are already under intense anthropogenic stress (e.g., Marque & Grelle, 2021; Ribeiro, Moreira et al., 2021). This expansion aligns with broader national patterns of soybean-driven land-use change, which disproportionately affects biodiversity hotspots such as the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). In these biomes, soy cultivation is among the top drivers of habitat loss, with measurable impacts on multiple taxa including plants, birds, and amphibians at both regional and global scales (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021).

The impacts of soy expansion are not necessarily unidimensional and uniform. Recent work on biodiversity-specific footprinting shows that forest loss is not always a good proxy for sociobiodiversity decline across landscapes (Molotoks et al., 2023). This is relevant for ILs that are more well integrated into urban landscapes, where agricultural encroachment may degrade the land and forest mosaics without necessarily triggering large-scale deforestation metrics. Additionally, sociobiodiversity impacts of soy cultivation expansion are often compounded by indirect effects, such as infrastructure development land speculation – both which accelerate secondary deforestation and habitat fragmentation (Fearnside, 2001; Boerema et al., 2016) – and direct ethnic conflicts (Mondardo, 2022).

Our data highlights that southern ILs are at increasing risk and urgently require targeted policy interventions. The expansion of commodity crops –– particularly soy –– within ILs will continue to compromise sociobiodiversity, disrupt cultural practices, and undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples. These concerns are supported by findings from recent analyses showing that while the economic benefits of soybean production are often localized, the environmental costs, especially sociobiodiversity loss, are spatially widespread, affecting both focal and adjacent areas (da Silva et al., 2021).

Recent political activities have added further uncertainty to ILs and sociobiodiversity conservation in Brazil (see Introduction). Proposals such as the bill from Senator Esperidião Amin (Amin, 2024) and the recent uproar against environmental conservation –– such as the PL 2159/2021 (PL of Devastation, Zica, 2021), which was vetoed by the President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva with amendments –– threaten sustainability in two ways: first, by halting IL demarcation in Santa Catarina, and second, by dismantling policy frameworks designed to safeguard Indigenous rights and ecological health. These developments resemble broader governance failures to enforce zero-deforestation commitments in commodity supply chains (Molotoks et al., 2023) and risk intensifying the policy–agribusiness alignment that prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term socioenvironmental resilience.

It is in our view futile to try and fully reverse the impacts of encroachment, as this has multidimensional and complex socioeconomic interactions that, at times, can benefit Indigenous people and overcome shortcomings from the State. However, we must mitigate these challenges. To achieve this, we argue Brazil need structured frameworks that enable Indigenous communities to regain control of agricultural practices, and the wealth they generate, within their lands. This includes moving away from illegal leasing arrangements that benefit external actors, and instead adopting regulated, Indigenous-led agricultural models. Similar to recommendations by Boerema et al. (2016) and Lucas et al. (2021), such models should integrate sustainable cropping practices (e.g., crop rotation, reduced agrochemical use) with cooperative organization, technical assistance, and access to credit other than those from agribusiness. Moreover, policies should account for biodiversity-intactness metrics (Mahlich et al., 2022) rather than relying solely on deforestation rates as performance indicators, thereby ensuring that agricultural development aligns with both cultural values and environmental thresholds.

Finally, the future of ILs in Brazil’s southern states will depend on integrating Indigenous rights with sustainable development strategies that respond to the realities of a rapidly expanding agricultural sector. Holistic monitoring approaches—combining remote sensing, biodiversity risk assessment, and socio-economic evaluation—are essential to avoid repeating the pattern seen elsewhere in Brazil, where soybean expansion has often preceded irreversible ecological degradation (Lourençoni et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). Our results underline the urgency of designing economic alternatives that reconcile cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation with the demands of agribusiness-driven landscapes. In the absence of these actions, we foresee an escalation of ongoing conflicts, which threatens sociobiodiversity and agricultural growth, compromising both ecological integrity and the sustainable futures of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.”

Key words

• They are sufficient.

Reply: thanks!

 

Introduction
• The authors have introduced the paper by highlighting the importance and ecological vulnerability of Indegenous Lands (IL), especially in Brazil where they are under threat from human activities. • Their interest is in three southern most states with high agricultural activity and other high competing interests shaping IL’s sustainability. • They argue that frozen IL demarcation and identification due to the Supreme Court pronouncements is creating a tricky situation especially on the indegenous people who depend on public assistance policies and how they sustain them. • They provide clear background on the Senate legislation and probable consequences. • However, since the authors’s interest is on the interaction of the past 20 years (2001-2022), they should provide a brief description of past developments on the IL to justify the study.

Reply: Thank you for raising this point. However, and perhaps sadly, there has not been “developments” in the past 20 years. No new IL was demarcated in the south of Brazil in over 30 years. As such, our introduction provides the most “recent” developments that affect the ILs of the region.

 

• They have also indicated on the consequences of turning IL into cropland in the abstract -hreat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge – these can be highlighted with literature supporting this assertion.

Reply: Done (introduction and discussion; see also response to point above):

 

Brazil is the world’s largest soybean exporter and a central player in the global soy supply chain, producing over one-third of global exports in recent years (IBGE, 2023). National soybean area has more than doubled since 2000, expanding from 26.4 million hectares to over 55 million hectares by 2019, largely at the expense of natural vegetation in the Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Pantanal biomes (Song et al., 2021). While the Amazon Soy Moratorium has slowed direct forest-to-soy conversion in parts of the Amazon, expansion continues through indirect land-use change and in biomes with weaker protections (Lucas et al., 2021; Fearnside, 2001). Moreover, other biomes have not benefited from the Amazon Soy Moratorium, especially areas with highly fragmented biomes. This includes the southernmost states of Brazil which are home to Atlantic Forest (including Araucaria Forests), Cerrado and Pampa. Soy is primarily destined for animal feed, with smaller shares for vegetable oil and human consumption (Boerema et al., 2016). Its cultivation is closely tied to infrastructure expansion, land speculation, and biodiversity loss, with measurable impacts on species richness and ecosystem services even where forest loss is minimal (Molotoks et al., 2023).

 

• In the last paragraph, authors report of what they found. This should be taken to the right

section.

Reply: Done.

• The study objectives should be clearly stated.

Reply: Done:

In this study, we analyzed over two decades (from 2001 to 2022) of data from the Global Forest Watch to analyze land use changes, with particular attention to the expansion of soy cultivation within IL boundaries. We were particularly interested in understanding if – and to what extent – ILs were being used for soy cultivation. Our hypothesis was that agribusiness expansion would lead to encroachment of ILs areas, converting parts of ILs into soy plantations. We expected this encroachment to have increased over the years due to the growing contribution of the agribusiness to Brazil’s GDP and socioeconomic wealth. Our findings highlight the constant struggle between sociobiodiversity and economic development in Brazil’s south and report the vulnerabilities of ILs to surrounding agricultural pressures. We emphasize that ILs are indispensable not only for local sociobiodiversity but also for broader sustainability strategies in Brazil, and national policies that integrate ILs needs with sustainable agricultural development is urgently needed to safeguard sustainable development in the country.

 

Materials and methods

The materials and methods section should be improved.
➢ Authors should provide the procedures used in the extraction and processing of data

Reply: Done. Note that the data is already “extracted” and available in Global Forest Watch database. We now mention this explicitly in the methods:

Indigenous land and soy planted data

We focused our analysis to Brazil’s three southernmost states: Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul (Figure 1). Polygons of ILs are publicly available from the Fundação Nacional dos Povos Indígenas (FUNAI), which define the official boundaries of demarcated indigenous territories. To quantify land use changes and the expansion of soy cultivation within these ILs, we extracted data from the Global ForestWatch platform (https://data.globalforestwatch.org/datasets/soy-planted-area-/about), covering the period from 2001 to 2022. This dataset provides annual estimates of soy plantation areas at a fine spatial resolution, allowing us to track temporal and spatial dynamics across more than two decades. The link to access the specific data used here is provided in Table S1.

Data analysis

All spatial analyses were conducted in R v.4.5.0 (R Core Team, 2025) using the ‘terra’ package v 1.8-54, which enables efficient manipulation of large raster and vector datasets. For each IL, we intersected soy cultivation data with IL boundaries and calculated the total area of soy plantations contained within each IL polygon. To normalize these results and allow for comparison across territories of varying sizes, we computed the percentage of IL area covered by soy cultivation, defined as the total area used for soy plantations divided by the total area of each IL. This metric was calculated for every year in the dataset to evaluate temporal trends. We used EPSG:5880 projection to calculate areas, which is suitable for South America. Data visualization and descriptive statistical analyses were done using the ‘ggplot2’ package v3.5.2 (Wickham, 2016). 

 

Results
➢ The results are reported in detail.

➢ Figure 2 is well presented and captioned.

Reply: Thank you.

Discussion
➢ Authors have discussed their results. However, they have not fully presented their implications. Especially on the consequesnces of turning IL into cropland. The implications are highlighted in the abstract, e.g. threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. Authors should bring this out here. Authors argue that the future of IL rely on the ability to integrate indigeneous rights with sustainable development strategies. How can this be achieved in the study case? How has this been applied elsewhere?

Reply: Our proposition is more specific about incorporating soy farming (and other commodities in general), something that has been unthinkable anywhere else. We have made this explicit by completely overhauling the Discussion as follows:

 

Our findings reveal an alarming trajectory of agricultural encroachment within Indigenous Lands (ILs) in Brazil’s southernmost states. The increase of soy cultivation by over 116% since 2001 reflects not only growing economic pressures from agribusiness but also the vulnerability of ILs in regions where biomes like the Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Cerrado are already under intense anthropogenic stress (e.g., Marque & Grelle, 2021; Ribeiro, Moreira et al., 2021). This expansion aligns with broader national patterns of soybean-driven land-use change, which disproportionately affects biodiversity hotspots such as the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). In these biomes, soy cultivation is among the top drivers of habitat loss, with measurable impacts on multiple taxa including plants, birds, and amphibians at both regional and global scales (Lucas et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021).

The impacts of soy expansion are not necessarily unidimensional and uniform. Recent work on biodiversity-specific footprinting shows that forest loss is not always a good proxy for sociobiodiversity decline across landscapes (Molotoks et al., 2023). This is relevant for ILs that are more well integrated into urban landscapes, where agricultural encroachment may degrade the land and forest mosaics without necessarily triggering large-scale deforestation metrics. Additionally, sociobiodiversity impacts of soy cultivation expansion are often compounded by indirect effects, such as infrastructure development land speculation – both which accelerate secondary deforestation and habitat fragmentation (Fearnside, 2001; Boerema et al., 2016) – and direct ethnic conflicts (Mondardo, 2022).

Our data highlights that southern ILs are at increasing risk and urgently require targeted policy interventions. The expansion of commodity crops –– particularly soy –– within ILs will continue to compromise sociobiodiversity, disrupt cultural practices, and undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples. These concerns are supported by findings from recent analyses showing that while the economic benefits of soybean production are often localized, the environmental costs, especially sociobiodiversity loss, are spatially widespread, affecting both focal and adjacent areas (da Silva et al., 2021).

Recent political activities have added further uncertainty to ILs and sociobiodiversity conservation in Brazil (see Introduction). Proposals such as the bill from Senator Esperidião Amin (Amin, 2024) and the recent uproar against environmental conservation –– such as the PL 2159/2021 (PL of Devastation, Zica, 2021), which was vetoed by the President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva with amendments –– threaten sustainability in two ways: first, by halting IL demarcation in Santa Catarina, and second, by dismantling policy frameworks designed to safeguard Indigenous rights and ecological health. These developments resemble broader governance failures to enforce zero-deforestation commitments in commodity supply chains (Molotoks et al., 2023) and risk intensifying the policy–agribusiness alignment that prioritizes short-term revenue over long-term socioenvironmental resilience.

It is in our view futile to try and fully reverse the impacts of encroachment, as this has multidimensional and complex socioeconomic interactions that, at times, can benefit Indigenous people and overcome shortcomings from the State. However, we must mitigate these challenges. To achieve this, we argue Brazil need structured frameworks that enable Indigenous communities to regain control of agricultural practices, and the wealth they generate, within their lands. This includes moving away from illegal leasing arrangements that benefit external actors, and instead adopting regulated, Indigenous-led agricultural models. Similar to recommendations by Boerema et al. (2016) and Lucas et al. (2021), such models should integrate sustainable cropping practices (e.g., crop rotation, reduced agrochemical use) with cooperative organization, technical assistance, and access to credit other than those from agribusiness. Moreover, policies should account for biodiversity-intactness metrics (Mahlich et al., 2022) rather than relying solely on deforestation rates as performance indicators, thereby ensuring that agricultural development aligns with both cultural values and environmental thresholds.

Finally, the future of ILs in Brazil’s southern states will depend on integrating Indigenous rights with sustainable development strategies that respond to the realities of a rapidly expanding agricultural sector. Holistic monitoring approaches—combining remote sensing, biodiversity risk assessment, and socio-economic evaluation—are essential to avoid repeating the pattern seen elsewhere in Brazil, where soybean expansion has often preceded irreversible ecological degradation (Lourençoni et al., 2021; Song et al., 2021). Our results underline the urgency of designing economic alternatives that reconcile cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation with the demands of agribusiness-driven landscapes. In the absence of these actions, we foresee an escalation of ongoing conflicts, which threatens sociobiodiversity and agricultural growth, compromising both ecological integrity and the sustainable futures of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

 

 

Conclusions, policy implications and recommendations.

➢ Conclusions should be just brief statements supported by data from the study.
➢ The discussions and comparison from other studies in the conclusion should be used to enhance the discussion – hence take them to the discussion section.➢ Inclusion of future research, recommendations and study limitations would be beneficial.

Reply: Our conclusion was revised following this reviewer and other reviewers’ comments, and we feel that it now represents a well-balanced section given the competing suggestions.

In conclusion, our study highlights the rapid expansion of soy cultivation within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states, stressing the growing tension between agribusiness and sociobiodiversity. By quantifying over two decades of land-use change, we demonstrate that ILs – though constitutionally protected – are increasingly vulnerable to economic pressures and political decisions that favor agricultural expansion. We argue that a solution to this challenge will require policies that regulate ILs use and empower indigenous communities to liaise with agribusiness for sustainable ways to produce commodities within ILs without threatening ILs role of safeguarding cultural heritage and the sociobiodiversity. This is crucial because ILs have multiple roles including that of safeguarding sociobiodiversity (e.g., Garnett et al., 2018; O'Bryan et al., 2021). Our proposed solution could be used in other regions of Brazil which also face similar conflicts (e.g., Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) (Kastens et al., 2017) as well as serve as model for conflicts within ILs globally (e.g., Correia, 2019; Kepkiewicz and Dale, 2019).

References
➢ The references are current and relevant. Authors have chance to add more references during revision. ➢ They should also change them to numbered format and use the approved journal reference style.

Reply: We have added more references and used journal’s template.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The expansion of urban areas and the deforestation of native ecosystems threaten the existence of indigenous lands. Sustainable land resource management is of paramount importance not only for environmental protection but also for the sustainability of local communities. The topic addressed by the authors is important and should inspire concrete actions for the sustainable development of the described part of Brazil. Such actions are an essential part of protecting the world's cultural and natural heritage. The publication is valuable, but its content requires improvement.

Suggestions for improvement are indicated in the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 4

The expansion of urban areas and the deforestation of native ecosystems threaten the existence of indigenous lands. Sustainable land resource management is of paramount importance not only for environmental protection but also for the sustainability of local communities. The topic addressed by the authors is important and should inspire concrete actions for the sustainable development of the described part of Brazil. Such actions are an essential part of protecting the world's cultural and natural heritage. The publication is valuable, but its content requires improvement.

Reply: Thank you for the appraisal of our work.

Suggestions for improvement are indicated in the manuscript.

In the attached file the reviewer suggested:

• Highlighting that this has relevance to global contexts, not only Brazil
• Reply:
• Provide clearer hypothesis which are tested in the manuscript at the end of the Introduction
• Reply: The section now reads:

In this study, we analyzed over two decades (from 2001 to 2022) of data from the Global Forest Watch to analyze land use changes, with particular attention to the expansion of soy cultivation within IL boundaries. We were particularly interested in understanding if – and to what extent – ILs were being used for soy cultivation. Our hypothesis was that agribusiness expansion would lead to encroachment of ILs areas, converting parts of ILs into soy plantations. We expected this encroachment to have increased over the years due to the growing contribution of the agribusiness to Brazil’s GDP and socioeconomic wealth. Our findings highlight the constant struggle between sociobiodiversity and economic development in Brazil’s south and report the vulnerabilities of ILs to surrounding agricultural pressures. We emphasize that ILs are indispensable not only for local sociobiodiversity but also for broader sustainability strategies in Brazil, and national policies that integrate ILs needs with sustainable agricultural development is urgently needed to safeguard sustainable development in the country.

• Some information about the areas which were described in the study. Whether or not Soy cultivated is GMO.

Reply: This is an interesting point. We have tried to gain this information from at least one of the ILs but could not safely do so. As this is an illegal practice, information about soy cultivars used within ILs are not publicly available. Given the many cultivars developed by EMBRAPA focused on Brazil’s southernmost states and climate (e.g., BRS 543 RR, BRS 5601 RR, BRS 5804 RR, and BRS 6203 RR, INT7100 IPRO and the non-transgenic INTA Paraná 5100 and INTA Paraná 6301) it is impossible to ascertain precisely without proper genetic sampling.

• More precise conclusion, which at this moment appears to be too general as a result of lacking precise hypothesis in the introduction

Reply: Following competing suggestions from reviewers, our revised Conclusion now reads:

In conclusion, our study highlights the rapid expansion of soy cultivation within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states, stressing the growing tension between agribusiness and sociobiodiversity. By quantifying over two decades of land-use change, we demonstrate that ILs – though constitutionally protected – are increasingly vulnerable to economic pressures and political decisions that favor agricultural expansion. We argue that a solution to this challenge will require policies that regulate ILs use and empower indigenous communities to liaise with agribusiness for sustainable ways to produce commodities within ILs without threatening ILs role of safeguarding cultural heritage and the sociobiodiversity. This is crucial because ILs have multiple roles including that of safeguarding sociobiodiversity (e.g., Garnett et al., 2018; O'Bryan et al., 2021). Our proposed solution could be used in other regions of Brazil which also face similar conflicts (e.g., Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states) (Kastens et al., 2017) as well as serve as model for conflicts within ILs globally (e.g., Correia, 2019; Kepkiewicz and Dale, 2019).

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The authors have made certain revisions based on my earlier comments; however, the manuscript is still far from reaching a publishable standard.   First, since this manuscript is submitted as a Communication, sections such as the Abstract and Introduction should not present unsupported hypotheses. Without empirical evidence, it is not acceptable to infer that an increase in soybean cultivation area directly threatens cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge.   Second, the authors state that they “prefer” to discuss socio-ecological changes in the Discussion section. This approach is inappropriate. Ecological and environmental impacts are central to the manuscript and must be explicitly presented in the Abstract and Results sections, not deferred to discussion. This is not a matter of preference, but a fundamental requirement of scientific writing.   Third, regarding keywords: the authors argue that terms such as “land leasing,” “illegal farming,” and “constitution” are intended to expand the manuscript’s searchability. However, these concepts are not actually investigated in the study. They are largely speculative or based on the authors’ own commentary, which inflates the scope and contribution of the paper.   Fourth, the manuscript continues to excessively cite political events and media reports. While the authors claim that science should inform policy, this manuscript does not present original scientific research. Overreliance on political narratives and media commentary introduces subjective bias rather than strengthening scientific rigor.   Finally, although the study topic is of potential interest, inferring threats to sustainability in Brazil solely from changes in soybean cultivation area is not scientifically sound. Despite the authors’ extensive explanations, discussions unsupported by data are of little value. I strongly recommend that the authors supplement their analysis with ecological and environmental change data, link these to land use and human activities, and thereby strengthen the scientific robustness of the manuscript.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The authors have made certain revisions based on my earlier comments; however, the manuscript is still far from reaching a publishable standard.   

Reply:  Thank you for providing a second set of comments.

First, since this manuscript is submitted as a Communication, sections such as the Abstract and Introduction should not present unsupported hypotheses. Without empirical evidence, it is not acceptable to infer that an increase in soybean cultivation area directly threatens cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge.  

Reply: At the request of the reviewer, we have amended the Abstract and removed the sentence: “Many ILs are turning soy farms, which poses a threat to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge”. The revised abstract now reads:

“Urban areas are growing often at the expense of native ecosystems. As a result, indigenous lands (ILs) have become critical refuges for biodiversity and essential for sustainability and sit at the intersection of cultural, economic, and environmental interests. ILs play a double role in this context: they protect native biodiversity but are often framed as barriers to economic growth. In Brazil, nearly 14% of the territory is demarcated as ILs. This has led to conflicts with Brazil’s agricultural sector, particularly in the southernmost states where the agribusiness drives the economy. We hypothesized that this conflict leads to agricultural encroachment of ILs, which might become extension of farms, compromising their sustainability purpose. We analyzed two decades of public data on soy coverage within ILs in Brazil’s southernmost states (Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul) and found that soy cultivation in ILs increased by over 116% in the last two decades, peaking in 2019 at 177% above the 2001 baseline. We argue that ILs urgently need a framework that enables the communities therein to benefit from income originating from land lease, while ensuring that encroachment is limited and does not pose threats to native biodiversity. This can be challenging due to growing political pressure to weaken socioenvironmental protection and ILs demarcation, but is nevertheless essential for the sustainable coexistence of urban areas, farms, and ILs.”

However, we disagree with the reviewer that soybean cultivation does not necessarily pose threats to cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge. There is ample evidence in the literature of these effects, worldwide and in Brazil. We provide a non-extensive list below. As a result, our assertions –– particularly in the Introduction –– are based on the literature and previous studies. Using previous literature as part of our introduction and discussion is not to present “unsupported hypothesis”. Instead, we are providing evidence from other studies, and building onto those to provide our empirical work framed within this context. We therefore will not amend our Introduction to remove these previous work.

References on the effects of soybean on cultural practices, biodiversity, and traditional knowledge

Fearnside, P. M. (2001). Soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in Brazil. Environmental conservation, 28(1), 23-38.

Savilaakso, S., Laumonier, Y., Guariguata, M. R., & Nasi, R. (2013). Does production of oil palm, soybean, or jatropha change biodiversity and ecosystem functions in tropical forests. Environmental Evidence, 2(1), 17.

Donald, P. F. (2004). Biodiversity impacts of some agricultural commodity production systems. Conservation biology, 18(1), 17-37.

Song, X. P., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Pickering, J., Adami, M., ... & Tyukavina, A. (2021). Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. Nature sustainability, 4(9), 784-792.

Second, the authors state that they “prefer” to discuss socio-ecological changes in the Discussion section. This approach is inappropriate. Ecological and environmental impacts are central to the manuscript and must be explicitly presented in the Abstract and Results sections, not deferred to discussion. This is not a matter of preference, but a fundamental requirement of scientific writing.  

Reply:  We disagree. Science is based on knowledge produced by oneself and others. Our work is specifically focused on soybean coverage within ILs. We used appropriate methods to demonstrate this over two decades. We then use previous work to contextualise (Introduction) and discuss (Discussion) our results within this broader context. We agree that this is not a matter of preference, but a fundamental requirement of any scientific paper.

Third, regarding keywords: the authors argue that terms such as “land leasing,” “illegal farming,” and “constitution” are intended to expand the manuscript’s searchability. However, these concepts are not actually investigated in the study. They are largely speculative or based on the authors’ own commentary, which inflates the scope and contribution of the paper.   

Reply:  “Land leasing”: was now removed.

“Illegal faming”: was kept because the scale of soybean cultivation reported here is illegal. Thus, this keyword accurately represents our work and results.

“Constitution”: was now removed.

Fourth, the manuscript continues to excessively cite political events and media reports. While the authors claim that science should inform policy, this manuscript does not present original scientific research. Overreliance on political narratives and media commentary introduces subjective bias rather than strengthening scientific rigor.   

Reply:  We disagree. Science is done within a political context and thus, cannot be detached from it. We know political events shape the direction and consequences of a society. One basic example is funding: far-right government divest from Indigenous people studies, for example (e.g., de Melo Resende et al. 2025). As such, we will retain our citations as we are convinced they provide a reasonable overview of recent events in Brazilian’s politics in relation to the core gap of our study: encroachment of ILs with soybean cultivation.

Reference cited

de Melo Resende, V., Martinelli, Y., & Martinelli, B. M. (2025). Against ethnoecocide: from far-right political violence to the collective resistance of Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Language Discourse &Society, 13(1), 25.

Finally, although the study topic is of potential interest, inferring threats to sustainability in Brazil solely from changes in soybean cultivation area is not scientifically sound. 

Reply:  Our inference is based on extensive list of studies, which we presented in response to point 1 above but would like to reiterate them here (see below). Thus, our study fits into a broader context of proven threats to sustainability posed by soybean cultivation.

References cited supporting the threats to sustainability by soybean cultivation.

Fearnside, P. M. (2001). Soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in Brazil. Environmental conservation, 28(1), 23-38.

Savilaakso, S., Laumonier, Y., Guariguata, M. R., & Nasi, R. (2013). Does production of oil palm, soybean, or jatropha change biodiversity and ecosystem functions in tropical forests. Environmental Evidence, 2(1), 17.

Donald, P. F. (2004). Biodiversity impacts of some agricultural commodity production systems. Conservation biology, 18(1), 17-37.

Song, X. P., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Pickering, J., Adami, M., ... & Tyukavina, A. (2021). Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. Nature sustainability, 4(9), 784-792.

Soutullo, A., Ríos, M., Zaldúa, N., & Teixeira-de-Mello, F. (2020). Soybean expansion and the challenge of the coexistence of agribusiness with local production and conservation initiatives: pesticides in a Ramsar site in Uruguay. Environmental Conservation, 47(2), 97-103.

Despite the authors’ extensive explanations, discussions unsupported by data are of little value. I strongly recommend that the authors supplement their analysis with ecological and environmental change data, link these to land use and human activities, and thereby strengthen the scientific robustness of the manuscript.

Reply:  While this is a worthwhile goal, it is simply not feasible for us or, to date, anyone else. To our knowledge (and unless the reviewer can provide evidence of the contrary), no study has ever conducted a large scale analysis including ecological and environmental data, land use, and human activities including cultural practices in one paper. Song et al is to our knowledge the most comprehensive study of soybean expansion in South America, but they too lack several data requested by the reviewer (and was nevertheless published in Nature Sustainability). Thus, the reviewer is unrealistic in the request, and likely does not understand how funding, especially in the global south, works. We are certain that the lack of these analysis does not invalidate the results presented here, and three other reviewers have agreed with our judgement. As a result, we unfortunately cannot address this request, although we agree it would be a great complement. 

References cited

Song, X. P., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P., Adusei, B., Pickering, J., Adami, M., ... & Tyukavina, A. (2021). Massive soybean expansion in South America since 2000 and implications for conservation. Nature sustainability, 4(9), 784-792.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No further comments.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

No further comments.

Reply:  Thank you for the comments that helped improve our manuscript.