We Need to Talk About Forest Degradation in the Amazon: Brazilian Public Policy Must Understand and Address this Threat

The report highlights that forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon—defined as the partial loss of vegetation—is a critical but neglected threat to climate goals. It asserts that degradation often exceeds deforestation in terms of annual area affected and carbon emissions, driven by selective logging, forest fires, and the edge effects of deforestation. The author argues that Brazil possesses the technical capacity to monitor this phenomenon but fails to include it in official environmental performance metrics or greenhouse gas inventories. The document calls for Brazil to integrate degradation measures into its policies and international reporting to reclaim a global leadership role in climate action.

• Forest degradation is a more significant contributor to global carbon emissions from tropical forests than deforestation, accounting for nearly 70% of such emissions between 2003 and 2014, compared to 30% from deforestation.
• In the Brazilian Amazon, forest degradation is a pervasive issue, with the area annually degraded being at least as large as, or larger than, the area deforested. Between 2010 and 2019, degradation was estimated to be responsible for three quarters of the region's gross biomass loss, while deforestation accounted for only one quarter.
• Forest degradation is driven by three primary activities: selective logging, which removes native species and creates access roads; forest fires, which destroy vulnerable plants and reduce ecosystem resilience; and deforestation, which creates forest borders exposed to atypical temperature, light, and wind conditions.
• Despite having the technology and data to track degradation—including near-real-time alerts and fire data—Brazil excludes degraded forests from its environmental performance metrics and does not include emissions from forest degradation in its national greenhouse gas inventories.
• No Amazonian country currently reports emissions from forest degradation or sets targets to reduce them, despite the UNFCCC's support for financial incentives to address this through REDD+ mechanisms.

APA

Gandour, C. (2022). We Need to Talk About Forest Degradation in the Amazon: Brazilian Public Policy Must Understand and Address this Threat. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/we-need-to-talk-about-forest-degradation-in-the-amazon-brazilian-public-policy-must-understand-and-address-this-threat/

Chicago

Gandour, Clarissa. We Need to Talk About Forest Degradation in the Amazon: Brazilian Public Policy Must Understand and Address this Threat. Climate Policy Initiative, 2022. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/we-need-to-talk-about-forest-degradation-in-the-amazon-brazilian-public-policy-must-understand-and-address-this-threat/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Gandour |first1=Clarissa |title=We Need to Talk About Forest Degradation in the Amazon: Brazilian Public Policy Must Understand and Address this Threat |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=16 August 2022 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/we-need-to-talk-about-forest-degradation-in-the-amazon-brazilian-public-policy-must-understand-and-address-this-threat/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gandour2022need, author = {Gandour, Clarissa}, title = {{We Need to Talk About Forest Degradation in the Amazon: Brazilian Public Policy Must Understand and Address this Threat}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2022}, month = aug, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/we-need-to-talk-about-forest-degradation-in-the-amazon-brazilian-public-policy-must-understand-and-address-this-threat/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }