Reducing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Despite recent reduction in deforestation rates, the Brazilian Amazon continues to face alarming rates of deforestation and degradation, with annual deforestation exceeding 9,000 km² since 2021. Key drivers include economic activities such as cattle ranching, illegal mining, infrastructure development, urbanization, and conversion of forest cover for other uses. Central to these drivers is land grabbing, exacerbated by poorly defined land tenure rights and widespread overlapping land titles.
Forested public lands with undefined tenure are particularly vulnerable. These public forests cover 56 million hectares (an area larger than California) and account for 50% of Amazon deforestation over the past two decades. Addressing land tenure insecurity is crucial to curbing deforestation and safeguarding the Amazon’s ecological and socioeconomic integrity.
Proposed strategies include signing untitled public lands to appropriate tenure regimes, enhancing monitoring technologies to enforce compliance with environmental laws, strengthening legal actions against land grabbing, and promoting sustainable development models that value forest-based products and ecosystem services. These approaches require robust policy frameworks, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ongoing evaluation of their environmental, social, and economic impacts.
This research seeks to advance these objectives by partnering with the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and MIT. Combining IPAM’s deep knowledge and scientific expertise on the Amazon with MIT’s technological and scientific strengths, the collaboration aims to develop practical, transformative solutions for deforestation mitigation, particularly on undesignated public forests. This initiative will foster a long-term partnership to produce actionable recommendations for policymakers, ensuring the conservation of forest cover, ecosystem services, and the rights of local communities.
Funding source: MIT-Brazil Amazonia Seed Fund
