Governance of Forest Concessions in the Amazon

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) examines the implementation and governance of forest concessions in the Brazilian Amazon, with a specific focus on the state of Pará. It analyzes why federal and state concession goals have not been met, identifying governance failures such as annulled bids, non-concession of areas, and contract terminations. The document recommends removing legal limits on the number of concessions a single company can hold and improving the training of public officials to enhance the quality of bidding procedures.

• Federal forest concessions in the Amazon have significantly underperformed compared to initial goals; while the government aimed for four million hectares by 2010, current timber extraction concessions cover only about 1.3 million hectares across 22 projects from 11 companies.
• State-level implementation of forest concessions in the Amazon is lagging behind federal efforts. Out of 76 million hectares of state public forests, only 551,000 hectares are operational, and these are located exclusively in Pará (approximately 483,000 hectares) and Amapá (approximately 68,000 hectares).
• In Pará, governance fragilities have led to a high rate of bid cancellations. Half of the bids held in the state were annulled, often due to errors in the call for proposal documents, such as failing to require legally mandated documents, demanding excessive documentation, or lacking criteria to evaluate the feasibility of proposals.
• Several legal and administrative factors contribute to the non-concession of forest areas in Pará. These include candidates failing to meet minimum requirements, procedural delays exceeding proposal deadlines, and legal restrictions that limit a company to a maximum of two concessions per bidding or a total management cap of 10% of available state public forests.
• Contract terminations in Pará's state concessions have occurred due to concessionaires breaching contractual clauses. Specific failures include non-compliance with forest and labor management norms, failure to submit management plans within twelve months, and failure to pay the minimum annual amount due to the state.
• Private sector agents report that government sample inventories often fail to accurately reflect the presence of economically attractive timber species, and that demographic surveys regarding local communities and studies on operational logistics are insufficient.

APA

Cozendey, G., & Chiavari, J. (2023). Governance of Forest Concessions in the Amazon. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Governance-of-Forest-Concessions-in-the-Amazon.pdf

Chicago

Cozendey, Gabriel, and Joana Chiavari. Governance of Forest Concessions in the Amazon. Climate Policy Initiative, 2023. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Governance-of-Forest-Concessions-in-the-Amazon.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Cozendey |first1=Gabriel |last2=Chiavari |first2=Joana |title=Governance of Forest Concessions in the Amazon |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=November 2023 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Governance-of-Forest-Concessions-in-the-Amazon.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cozendey2023governance, author = {Cozendey, Gabriel and Chiavari, Joana}, title = {{Governance of Forest Concessions in the Amazon}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2023}, month = nov, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Governance-of-Forest-Concessions-in-the-Amazon.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }