Unmasking the impunity of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: a call for enforcement and accountability

Abstract

Amazon deforestation has been growing since 2012 and more recently under record rates. In fact, a new wave of rainforest destruction is on, challenging environmental agencies and policymakers. Political negligence has boosted deforestation in the Amazon, when coupled with deforestation drives that we already know about, as well as exempting environmental offenders and clearing the way to major infrastructure projects, in addition to weakening environmental agencies and command and control policies. In this letter, we share perspectives on the dynamics of deforestation alerts in the Brazilian Amazon and the action of public enforcement agencies, to draw attention to the urgency of supporting these entities for resuming the fight against deforestation. Our results reveal the few enforcement actions on deforestation alerts (1.3%) by the major environmental agency from the federal government. When compared with state government agencies, our in-depth case study showed a higher number of enforcement actions, promoting accountability for illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It is evident that budget cuts for federal environmental agencies and changes in enforcement procedures have jeopardized actions to combat illegal deforestation. Our analysis calls for federal agencies to resume their powers, and for state agencies to recognize their role in environmental reinforcement and assigning liability. In the end, we list five key factors for reestablishing enforcement actions by public agencies for fighting deforestation and improving dissuasive effects.

Do indigenous territories sustain the standing Amazon forest? The case of the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land

“…Figure 7 shows that, in fact, from 2005, deforestation in the Legal Amazon reduced considerably until 2012 (update of the Brazilian Forest Code) but started to grow again as of 2019, being 34% higher compared to the previous year. PPCDAm was extinguished in 2019 by the federal government, who reduced the budget for environmental agencies and altered the procedures for charging offenders accountable, encouraging illegal activities (Coelho-Junior et al, 2022).…”

Participatory design of a smart forest in the Brazilian Amazon using smartphones, algorithms, and ethnographic methods

“…Developing countries, including Brazil, often lack resources and personnel for effective forest monitoring and conservation; this is the case with recent conservation initiatives under the forest‐carbon financing mechanism of REDD+ (Guadalupe et al., 2018; Silva Junior et al., 2020; Yanai et al., 2017). Illegal logging, mining, and deforestation are commonly detected using remote sensing and aero‐imaging, but usually weeks or months after they begin due to limited technological capacity, and on‐site verification and intervention is further delayed, if it is deployed at all, by limited personnel and sometimes also compromised political will (Coelho‐Junior et al., 2022). Secretive illegal activities are difficult to investigate and poorly regulated, but they directly impact local environments, resources, and communities.…”

Understanding deforestation lock-in: Insights from Land Reform settlements in the Brazilian Amazon

“…In this case on tropical deforestation, lock-in includes a crucial dimension of enforcement. Absent, lax, or selective policy implementation may be even more critical than the regulations per se, as Brazil has plenty of laws that exist on paper but do not materialize in reality (e.g., fines and other punishment for environmental crimes, INCRA's duty to provide tailored rural extension services and technical assistance to Land Reform settlers) (see Trancoso, 2021;Coelho-Junior et al, 2022). It is important to note that such implementation issues have a dual nature, of both permissiveness and neglect (see Bastos Lima and Kmoch, 2021).…”

“…Emerging talk of supply-chain sustainability and commodity traders' nominal zero-deforestation commitments have not prevented tropical deforestation from continuing to be an outcome of unsustainable agri-food systems (see Zu Ermgassen et al, 2020a,b). 1 In the Amazon's case, analysts and decisionmakers generally acknowledge multiple deforestation drivers such as inadequate land tenure, weak law enforcement, unfettered expansion of roads and other infrastructure, and growing market demand for forest-risk commodities (Margulis, 2004;Moran, 2016;Fearnside, 2018;Coelho-Junior et al, 2022). However, while those multiple issues are acknowledged, they are most often assessed as individual drivers rather than a coherent and self-reinforcing system that results, among other things, in deforestation.…”