BRAZIL’S NEW FOREST CODE

This policy brief provides an overview of Brazil's 2012 Forest Code, detailing its mechanisms for protecting private lands, the introduction of a national environmental registry, and the special regimes created for landowners who deforested prior to July 2008.

• The 2012 Forest Code utilizes two primary legally-binding instruments for conservation on private lands: Permanent Preservation Areas (APP) and the Legal Forest Reserve. APPs protect vegetation critical for ecosystem functions like water supply and biodiversity, and must be left intact. The Legal Forest Reserve requires landowners to maintain a percentage of native vegetation, ranging from 20% to 80% depending on the property's location and vegetation type.
• The Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) is a national, online public database that requires every rural property to be registered. It provides georeferenced data on Legal Forest Reserves and Permanent Preservation Areas, serving as a tool for monitoring deforestation and a prerequisite for landowners to access rural credit or authorization to remove native vegetation.
• A special regime exists for rural properties where native vegetation was illegally clear-cut for livestock or agriculture before July 2008. Landowners in this regime can enroll in the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) to receive benefits, including amnesty for environmental fines and immunity from prosecution for clear-cutting that occurred before the July 2008 cutoff.
• Landowners under the special regime have more flexible requirements for restoring Permanent Preservation Areas and maintaining Legal Forest Reserves. For APPs, restoration requirements are reduced based on property size rather than water body size. For Legal Forest Reserves, they may offset shortages by purchasing Environmental Reserve Quotas (CRA), donating land in Protected Areas to the government, or using surplus areas from other properties.
• Small landholders receive additional leniency under the special regime, including the ability to designate their Legal Forest Reserve percentage based on the native vegetation present prior to July 2008, which may result in a requirement lower than 20% or even zero.
• Implementation of the Forest Code is hindered by its dependence on state-level legislation and enforcement. As of October 2015, only 15 of 26 states had enacted provisions for the Environmental Regularization Program, and those in place were not yet fully operational. Further challenges include pending legal actions regarding the code's constitutionality and a lack of resources and information among landholders.

APA

Chiavari, J., & Lopes, C. L. (2015). BRAZIL’S NEW FOREST CODE. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FORESTCODE_policybrief_PartI_CPI-1.pdf

Chicago

Chiavari, Joana, and Cristina Leme Lopes. BRAZIL’S NEW FOREST CODE. Climate Policy Initiative, 2015. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FORESTCODE_policybrief_PartI_CPI-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Chiavari |first1=Joana |last2=Lopes |first2=Cristina Leme |title=BRAZIL’S NEW FOREST CODE |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=November 2015 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FORESTCODE_policybrief_PartI_CPI-1.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{chiavari2015brazils, author = {Chiavari, Joana and Lopes, Cristina Leme}, title = {{BRAZIL’S NEW FOREST CODE}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2015}, month = nov, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FORESTCODE_policybrief_PartI_CPI-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }