Decretos presidenciais e leis na construção e no desmantelamento da política ambiental brasileira

This doctoral dissertation provides a socio-legal interpretation of the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), Brazils most comprehensive anti-deforestation policy. PPCDAm is credited as the main factor driving the 80% decrease in deforestation rates recorded in the biome from 2004 to 2014 by some accounts, the largest contribution ever made by a single country to mitigate climate change. Among the basket of policy instruments implemented in the scope of PPCDAm, land and territorial planning and monitoring and control scored as the best-performing ones. The agency responsible for inspection operations at federal level is the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). The research was designed as an in-depth case study that has a policy (PPCDAm) as its general unity and an organization (Ibama) as its sub-unity. The question driving the research is: what transformations in its organizational structure and culture did Ibama undergo during the implementation of PPCDAm? Data collection techniques included documental analysis and 44 semi-structured interviews with different actors. The dissertation is divided into two parts. Part I reconstructs PPCDAms context of implementation, governance structure, array of instruments, results achieved, and main gridlocks. Part II identifies, describes, and analyzes the main transformations undergone by Ibama during the implementation of PPCDAm according to political cycle, probing whether they contributed to building or dismantling state capacity and autonomy. One of the researchs main finding is to illuminate the genesis and consolidation of the so-called doctrine of deterrence, the greatest acquisition of Ibamas incremental process of institutional experimentation. Inspired by a leftist reading of Clausewitzs warfare theory, the doctrine postulates the concentration of organizational energies on operations aiming at high- profile targets and resulting in the immediate decapitalization of offenders, guidelines that contributed significantly for the 80% decrease of deforestation.

The primary sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Brazil stem from activities associated with land use and forest changes, particularly due to the clearing of native vegetation. The agricultural sector is the second largest emitter. Geographically, the Amazon region is the focal point of these emissions, and the escalating deforestation in the area led to the creation of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm, in Portuguese) in 2004. This article presents the results of a literature mapping focused on the PPCDAm, guided by key questions regarding the institutionalization process of the plan, its effectiveness, and its recent period of dismantling, as analyzed from the perspective of specialized literature. The methodology adheres to the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) standards for Scoping Reviews (ScR). This review enabled the description and analysis of the four phases of the PPCDAm, spanning from 2004 to 2019, highlighting the effectiveness of the plan’s initial phases (2004–2012), which achieved an 84% reduction in deforestation by 2012 compared to 2004. The literature mapping revealed a gap in academic studies concerning the analysis of the fourth phase (2016–2019) and the dismantling of the plan. This phase is contextualized by Brazil's focus on mitigating climate change to meet the targets of the National Climate Change Plan for 2020, the signing of the Paris Agreement—committing to zero illegal deforestation by 2030—, and the political shifts during the Temer administration and the beginning of the Bolsonaro administration, at which point the PPCDAm was discontinued.

Deforestation control in the Brazilian Amazon: A conservation struggle being lost as agreements and regulations are subverted and bypassed

Após mais de uma década de redução do desmatamento na Amazônia – relacionada a um conjunto de esforços públicos e da sociedade, destacando-se o Plano de Ação para Prevenção e Controle do Desmatamento na Amazônia Legal (PPCDAm) – esta trajetória passa a apresentar sinais de crescimento. Assim, é importante avaliar os resultados das políticas públicas responsáveis pela redução do desmatamento, permitindo focalizar e adaptar aquelas que lograram êxito. Umas das políticas relevantes no âmbito do PPCDAm, que trouxe implicações para a gestão ambiental compartilhada, é a priorização de municípios para focalização de ações relativas à prevenção, monitoramento e controle de desmatamento no Bioma Amazônia, instituída pelo Decreto Nº 6.321/2007. O presente trabalho, de caráter interdisciplinar, busca avaliar os resultados desta política. Foi realizada pesquisa de caráter qualitativo e quantitativo abrangendo (i) pesquisa bibliográfica em documentos oficiais e literatura disponível e (ii) análise do desmatamento municipal. Verificou-se que a política teve resultados mais significativos na redução do desmatamento nos seus primeiros anos, tendo influenciado a criação de políticas de regularização ambiental e de incentivo à governança ambiental local. Entretanto, com o passar dos anos, a política deixa de apresentar eficácia. Este desempenho parece relacionar-se com a redução das ações executadas e com a demora na atualização da lista de municípios priorizados. O atual contexto demanda um esforço de reformulação da política. A atualização da lista em 2017 traz perspectivas positivas, podendo denotar um esforço de se retomar a execução da política, com a revisão dos seus incentivos e aumento de sua efetividade.

O presente estudo analisou a evolução da implementação do Plano de Ação para Prevenção e Controle do Desmatamento na Amazônia Legal (PPCDAm). Para tal, foi realizada análise de: publicações científicas que caracterizam o problema identificado; documentos que compreendem a Fase I (2004-2008), a Fase II (2009-2011) e a Fase III (2012-2015) do PPCDAm; avaliações realizadas sobre a Fase I (realizada por Abdala, 2008) e sobre a Fase II do PPCDAm (realizada por Ipea; GIZ; Cepal, 2011); e impactos do PPDCAm na redução do desmatamento. Conclui-se que o PPCDAm trouxe resultados significativos para a contenção do desmatamento na Amazônia Legal, mas ainda se fazem necessários aprimoramentos para que sejam alcançados os objetivos de promoção de atividades sustentáveis na região. •

Potential land availability for agricultural expansion in the Brazilian Amazon

Tropical deforestation represents one of the world’s great environmental problems, and Brazilian Amazonia has particular importance owing to the current rate of forest loss and the vast area of remaining forest at risk of future deforestation. Approximately two-thirds of the Amazon Basin is in Brazil. Brazil’s “Legal Amazonia” region refers to a 5 million km2 administrative area covering all or part of nine states; about three-fourths of this area was originally covered by Amazonian forest and one-fourth by cerrado (central-Brazilian savanna) or other non-forest vegetation. The “Amazonia Biome” is the area where the predominant original vegetation was Amazon forest; with the exception of a minuscule area in the state of Maranhão, the Amazonia Biome is entirely contained within Legal Amazonia. When the distinction between these two official Amazon areas is not important, the term “Brazilian Amazonia” is used. Deforestation threatens environmental services in maintaining biodiversity, avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, and recycling water that is essential to maintaining rainfall in Amazonia and in other locations that water vapor is transported to (including São Paulo). Understanding the diverse causes of deforestation in the region is essential to effective efforts to slow and contain the process. This article begins with general compendia, followed by sections covering deforestation monitoring, deforestation causes, deforestation actors, infrastructure, agriculture and ranching, forest loss through extreme degradation, deforestation impacts, deforestation control, protected areas, environmental services, and REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation). The causes of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia vary considerably among different parts of this vast region, among landholdings within any given part of the region, and over time at any particular location. Both cumulative and annual statistics for Amazonia represent sums of these diverse actions. A major decline in deforestation rates occurred from 2004 to 2012, followed by oscillation around a lower plateau through 2015. Official statements invariably claim that government control programs can be credited with all of the decline, and they often imply that the decline continues. However, most of the decline occurred in the 2004–2008 period, when virtually all of the change can be explained by falling international prices of soy and beef together with a worsening exchange rate for Brazilian currency from the point-of-view of commodity exporters. After 2008, however, prices recovered while deforestation declined further. The key event in 2008 that appears to explain this change is a resolution of Brazil’s Central Bank barring agricultural credit from government banks for properties with pending environmental fines. The fines themselves can be postponed almost indefinitely through repeated appeals, but the Central Bank decision has no appeal and has an immediate effect on larger landholders who have enjoyed generously subsidized loans for expanding their operations. The loan restriction gives real “teeth” to the Ministry of the Environment’s efforts to control deforestation, greatly increasing the effect of the same investment in inspection and repression. However, the restriction on loans is a fragile protection, as it could be reversed at the stroke of a pen. This is one of the priorities of the powerful “ruralist block” representing large landholders in the National Congress. Another change in 2008 was the government’s publication of “blacklists” of municipalities (counties) with high deforestation rates, thus restricting credit in these municipalities and making them the focus of command-and-control efforts. Events in other years include agreements with major purchasers of soy (in 2006) and beef (in 2009) to bar sales by properties with recent deforestation; these agreements had some effect, despite problems of “laundering” and “leakage.” Although the government’s deforestation-control program is essential, most of the government’s actions are on the other side of the equation: vast plans for more roads, dams, and other infrastructure in Amazonia lead to more rather than less deforestation. The notion that deforestation is under control and that roads and dams can therefore be built without consequences is a dangerous illusion. Since the presidential administration of Jair Bolsonaro began in January 2019, Brazil’s deforestation has accelerated sharply. This has largely resulted from dismantling the country’s environmental agencies, relaxing regulations in myriad ways, and constant rhetoric from the president and his minister of the environment suggesting that environmental regulations need not be obeyed and that any violations will be pardoned. Some of these setbacks can be reversed at a future time, but many, such as building roads that open vast areas of Amazon forest to the entry of deforesters, represent permanent changes that will affect deforestation for as long as there is forest left to clear.

This study examines how land tenure constrains Brazil’s ability to meet its deforestation control and forest restoration goals in its Amazonia biome. Our findings are based on an updated assessment of land tenure and land use in the region. Between 2019 and 2021, 44% of deforestation in Amazonia occurred in private lands, while forest removal in settlements ranged from 31% to 27% of the total. Deforestation in undesignated public lands increased from 11% in 2008 to 18% in 2021. Deforestation is highly concentrated, with 1% of properties accounting for 82.5% of forest cuts in 2021. In Amazonia, there is considerable non-compliance with the legal reserve provisions set by Brazil’s Forest Code. Legal reserve deficits in private lands sum up to 18.17 Mha (million hectares), compared with 12.49 Mha of legal reserve surpluses. Even if all forest surpluses are offered in the forest credits market set in the Forest Code, farmers still need to restore 5.67 Mha to comply with the law. Large-scale cattle ranchers have a legal reserve deficit of 10.35 Mha (34% of their area). Most crop farming occurs in medium and large properties (4.63 Mha) with a large proportion of legal reserve deficits (45%). Given the political power and financial resources of large ranchers and crop producers, Brazil faces major challenges in inducing these farmers to meet their legal obligations. Therefore, Brazil needs to combine robust command-and-control strategies with market-based policies to achieve its deforestation and forest restoration goals. The government should tailor forest protection and restoration policies to the needs of different landowners, considering their land use practices, technical capacity, and financial resources.

Purpose This paper examines the trade-off between poverty reduction and deforestation prevention in the Brazilian Amazon, a crucial region for achieving SDGs 1, 13 and 15 by 2030. It analyzes the poverty deforestation relationship to support policies addressing both issues. Design/methodology/approach Using a three-stage generalized method of moments (3SLS), the study analyzes data from 2006 to 2017, treating poverty and deforestation as endogenous variables, with adjustments for heteroscedasticity and endogeneity. Findings The findings suggest an inverse relationship between the number of Bolsa Família beneficiaries and deforestation, showing that reducing poverty does not necessarily come at the expense of deforestation control. And, therefore, there is no trade-off in the Brazilian Amazon to achieve SDGs 1 and 2 as opposed to SDGs 13 and 15. Practical implications The practical implications emphasize the necessity of aligning poverty reduction policies with deforestation control policies, showcasing the effectiveness of the Bolsa Família Program to fight poverty and the need for more policies that promote sustainable activities while addressing challenges like low institutional capacity to reduce deforestation and land speculation. Originality/value This study brings new insights regarding the indetermination of the relationship between poverty and deforestation that appears in studies on the Brazilian Amazon. Research by the Choices Institute (2023), Santiago and Couto (2020), Sathler et al. (2018), Cortes and D'Antona (2014) and Guedes et al. (2012) suggests a positive correlation between poverty and deforestation. In contrast, studies by Diniz (2017), Celentano et al. (2012) and Wunder (2001) do not support this hypothesis.

Socio-economic development in the Brazilian Amazon is currently reaching national averages although deforestation activity has been declining for a decade. As a consequence, recent studies rejected the widely agreed boom-and-bust development hypothesis that deforestation first generates an economic boom, which is then followed by a collapse as forest resources are depleted. Here, we confirm these studies that there is no boom-bust cycle and suggest that a new pattern of relationship between deforestation and socio-economic development has emerged following an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). In this scenario, environmental degradation increases in the early stages of economic development and decreases in later stages as the economy develops and wellbeing increases. To validate this assumption, we conducted the first sub-municipal analysis of socio-economic development and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon for the 2000–2010 period. Our results confirm the emergence of an EKC relationship with a turning point beyond which socio-economic growth does not appear anymore to be a driver of deforestation. We also emphasize that areas subjected to active deforestation in 2010 present lower socio-economic indicators than stabilized areas, pointing to the precarious socio-economic situation of areas still undergoing active deforestation. We put these results in perspective by considering Brazilian efforts to ensure a transition in environmental governance with the objective of promoting land use sustainability through control of deforestation at the same time as supporting socio-economic development.

Controlling deforestation in Brazil's Amazon region has long been illusive despite repeated efforts of government authorities to slow the process. From 1997 to 2000, deforestation rates in Brazil's 9-state "Legal Amazon" region continually crept upward. Now, a licensing and enforcement program for clearing by large farmers and ranchers in the state of Mato Grosso appears to be having an effect. The deforestation rate in Mato Grosso was already beginning to slacken before initiation of the program in 1999, but examination of county-level data suggests that deforestation in already heavily cleared areas was falling due to lack of suitable uncleared land, while little-cleared areas were experiencing rapid deforestation. Following initiation of the program, the clearing rates declined in the recent frontiers. Areas with greater enforcement effort also appear to have experienced greater declines. Demonstration of government ability to enforce regulations and influence trends is important to domestic and international debates regarding use of avoided deforestation to mitigate global warming.

Historically, development in Brazilian Amazon was promoted by permits of deforestation under soft territory control or supervision. However, due to the importance of this biome for biodiversity and ecosystem balance in a global perspective, Brazilian's government has tightened deforestation control. This work investigates the spatial pattern of deforestation in a cross‐section and time perspective using global and local spatial data analysis. Global results indicate the existence of high spatial correlation and that deforestation holds concentrated across space, despite the efficacy of policy mechanisms adopted for controlling and reducing the level of deforestation in Legal Amazon. Furthermore, local results support the hypothesis of high spillover effects. Considering the spatial analysis results, we highlight some implications for policy design aiming deforestation control.

In the past 10 years, deforestation in the Amazon has been annually decreasing, the figures in 2014 representing less than 20 % of what they were in 2004. Does this mean Brazil now controls the phenomenon? Answering this question is a complex task because deforestation unfolds through several dimensions: economic (what are the rationales behind deforestation), social (access to land, land conflicts), environmental (impacts on climate, local or global effects, biodiversity) and geopolitical (the role of Brazil in international negotiations on climate and GES emissions). The enormous size of the Amazon rainforest adds to this complexity, as the issues at stake are not necessarily the same throughout the region. Despite this complexity, we will provide a synthesis of the principal issues underlying deforestation. We will first recall how, when and where this phenomenon appeared and expanded in the Brazilian Amazon, and what the consequences are on multiple scales. We will then analyse the causes and the social stakeholders involved. Lastly, we will present the actions led by the Brazilian Federal government since 2004 to curb the phenomenon. The conclusion will lead us to think about the limits of current policies and the challenges which remain to be addressed.Keywords: Amazonia, deforestation, greenhouse gases, climate change

This thesis consists of three essays on the use of nightligts to measure economic activity in two developing countries. In the first essay, we analyze the effect of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm) on economic activity in Brazil. The PPCDAm was an initiative of the Brazilian government that aimed to reduce the high rates of deforestation that the country was experiencing at the beginning of the 2000s. Although the program was directed directly to an environmental problem, it could indirectly have effects on economic activity since part of the productive activities in the Amazon are linked to deforestation. To do that, we use two empirical approaches: first, we compare the economic activity (measured as night light density) of municipalities inside and outside Brazilian Amazon before and after PPCDAm implementation in a difference in difference approach. Our results reveal that municipalities inside Amazon experiment a descrease in night lights intensity after 4 year of implementation of PPCDAm. Second, we exploit the geographical limits between Brazil and the other neighboring countries with which Brazil shares part of the Legal Amazon in order to estimate the effect of PPCDAm on economic activity. Specifically, we used regression discontinuity approach, which permits us to compare the economic activity, measured as the intensity of lights at night, on the border of the Brazilian Amazon Forest with its close neighbors. We estimated a regression discontinuity models year by year in order to understand the evolution of the economic activity before and after PPCDAm implementation. The results reveal that before the PPCDAm implementation the night light intensity in the Brazilian border was higher than its relative neighbors, however after the policy its neighbors experience high intensity during the three first years. In the second essay, we take advantage of a natural experiment - the creation of new Brazil capital (Brasília) in the decade of the 60’s – and the subsequent construction of a new road system to analyze the persistence of public investment in road infrastructure on economic activity. The findings show that microregions located near the highway corridor experiment higher night light intensity relative to microregions faraway. In the last essay, exploiting the international coffee price boom and municipal coffee intensity production, we study how commodities price shocks affect local economic activity in Colombia. Our results indicate that, on average, coffee-producing municipalities experience greater luminosity after the unexpected increase in international coffee prices than non-producing municipalities. Keywords: Nighttime Light. Public Policy. Developing country.

As principais fontes geradoras de Gases de Efeito Estufa (GEE) no Brasil correspondem às atividades associadas à mudança de uso do solo e florestas, especialmente decorrentes da supressão da vegetação nativa. O setor agropecuário é o segundo maior emissor. Geograficamente, a Amazônia concentra essas emissões; o avanço crescente do desmatamento na região levou, em 2004, à criação do Plano de Ação para Prevenção e Controle do Desmatamento na Amazônia Legal (PPCDAm). Este artigo apresenta resultados de um mapeamento da literatura dedicada ao PPCDAm, tendo como questões norteadoras o entendimento, do ponto de vista da literatura especializada, do processo de institucionalização do plano, sua eficácia e seu recente período de desmantelamento. A metodologia empregada segue os padrões do Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) para Scoping Review (ScR). Essa revisão permitiu descrever e analisar as quatro fases do PPCDAm, que se desdobram entre 2004 e 2019, com destaque para a efetividade das fases iniciais do plano (2004-2012) com redução de cerca de 84% do desmatamento em 2012 quando comparado a 2004. O mapeamento da literatura permitiu identificar uma lacuna nos estudos acadêmicos no que tange à análise da quarta fase (2016-2019) e o desmantelamento do plano. Essa fase é contextualizada pelo foco na mitigação das mudanças climáticas com o objetivo de cumprir as metas do Plano Nacional de Mudanças Climáticas para o ano de 2020, pela assinatura pelo Brasil do Acordo de Paris, comprometendo-se em alcançar o desmatamento ilegal zero até 2030, com a gestão Temer e o início da gestão Bolsonaro, no início da qual o PPCDAM foi interrompido.