Restoring Brazil's Public Lands: Exploring Public-Private Partnership Options

The document evaluates four public-private partnership models for restoring Brazil's public lands: forestry concessions, ordinary tenders, common public service concessions, and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). While forestry concessions are the current standard due to the Public Forest Management Law (LGFP), they are limited by strict contractual requirements and high risk for the private sector. The report suggests that ordinary tenders could be effective for planting in fully protected areas, while common concessions and PPPs could offer better risk-sharing and flexibility if forest restoration is legally classified as a public service. The authors recommend legally designating restoration as a public service, improving risk management training for public agencies, and creating a specialized entity to manage environmental assets like carbon credits.

• Forestry concessions are currently the only government model for public land restoration with private participation, driven by the detailed guidelines of the Public Forest Management Law (LGFP) and existing experience with forest management. However, this model is limited by its applicability to only certain land categories and a risk structure that transfers most operational burdens to the private sector, which may discourage investment in the Amazon.
• Ordinary tenders (common bidding) provide a flexible risk distribution and are applicable across various land categories. They are identified as a high-potential option for restoring the 1.3 million degraded hectares in federal Protected Areas, as the government can contract planting services without requiring the private partner to manage long-term conservation or carbon credits.
• Common public service concessions could allow the private sector to handle both planting and continuous conservation, with compensation via carbon credits. While they offer more land-category flexibility than forestry concessions, they still maintain a rigid risk distribution where the concessionaire assumes most financial and operational risks.
• Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are highlighted as the most attractive model for high-vulnerability regions like the Amazon because they allow for a more balanced division of risk and enable the government to assume costs for security and surveillance, which are often prohibitively expensive for private entities.
• A significant legal barrier to implementing common concessions and PPPs is the need for forest restoration to be formally classified as a public service. The report argues this is justified by the constitutional duty to preserve ecological processes and the precedent set by the ICMBio Law (Law no. 11,516/2007).
• Restoration projects on lands occupied by Traditional Peoples and Communities (PCT) must implement socio-environmental safeguards, including Free Prior and Informed Consultation and fair benefit distribution, regardless of the chosen legal partnership model.
• The Amazon presents a massive restoration opportunity, with approximately 15 million hectares potentially available for forest restoration, and about half of the region's deforestation occurring on public lands.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2024). Restoring Brazil's Public Lands: Exploring Public-Private Partnership Options. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/restoring-brazils-public-lands-exploring-public-private-partnership-options/

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. Restoring Brazil's Public Lands: Exploring Public-Private Partnership Options. 2024. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/restoring-brazils-public-lands-exploring-public-private-partnership-options/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=Restoring Brazil's Public Lands: Exploring Public-Private Partnership Options |date=3 December 2024 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/restoring-brazils-public-lands-exploring-public-private-partnership-options/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2024restoring, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{Restoring Brazil's Public Lands: Exploring Public-Private Partnership Options}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2024}, month = dec, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/restoring-brazils-public-lands-exploring-public-private-partnership-options/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }