(Des)Controle do Desmatamento Legal no Matopiba

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) analyzes the regulatory and governance challenges of legal deforestation in Brazil, with a specific focus on the Matopiba region. It examines the issuance of Vegetation Suppression Authorizations (ASV) and the effectiveness of the National System for the Control of the Origin of Forest Products (Sinaflor), concluding that current tools are insufficient for monitoring and controlling legal deforestation.

• The Matopiba region—comprising Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia—is highly vulnerable to deforestation due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier for soy and corn production. In 2023, this region accounted for 75% of the deforestation within the Cerrado biome.
• There is significant legal uncertainty regarding whether municipal environmental agencies have the authority to issue Vegetation Suppression Authorizations (ASV) for agricultural activities on rural properties. While the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM) argues they can, the Public Ministry of the State of Bahia (MPBA) contends that such authority rests exclusively with the state, rendering municipal ASVs null.
• The Sinaflor system is an ineffective tool for managing legal deforestation because it does not contain all issued ASVs. Some states, such as Bahia, do not register authorizations that do not involve the use of forest products, and ASVs issued by municipalities are often not recorded in the system or reported to state agencies.
• States in the Cerrado biome face several operational challenges when using Sinaflor, including a lack of standardized requirements for ASV requests, a database of plant species that favors the Amazon over the Cerrado, a rigid interface that prevents data editing, and a system that does not allow for the renewal of ASV validity periods.
• Public access to ASV data in Matopiba is severely limited. State databases are not public, and federal platforms are either outdated or empty. An analysis of 1,738 ASV requests in the Brazilian Open Data Portal between 2017 and 2021 revealed that 0% of the entries provided essential geographic coordinates or the specific areas requested for suppression.
• The federal government's 4th phase of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Cerrado Biome (PPCerrado) aims for zero deforestation by 2030. This goal requires not only combating illegal deforestation but also implementing alternative measures to manage legal deforestation within the current legislative framework.

APA

Antonaccio, L., Lopes, C. L., & Minsky, E. (2024). (Des)Controle do Desmatamento Legal no Matopiba. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Descontrole-Desmatamento-Legal-Matopiba.pdf

Chicago

Antonaccio, Luiza, Cristina Leme Lopes, and Eduardo Minsky. (Des)Controle do Desmatamento Legal no Matopiba. Climate Policy Initiative, 2024. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Descontrole-Desmatamento-Legal-Matopiba.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Antonaccio |first1=Luiza |last2=Lopes |first2=Cristina Leme |last3=Minsky |first3=Eduardo |title=(Des)Controle do Desmatamento Legal no Matopiba |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=March 2024 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Descontrole-Desmatamento-Legal-Matopiba.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{antonaccio2024descontrole, author = {Antonaccio, Luiza and Lopes, Cristina Leme and Minsky, Eduardo}, title = {{(Des)Controle do Desmatamento Legal no Matopiba}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2024}, month = mar, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Descontrole-Desmatamento-Legal-Matopiba.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }