PROTECTED TERRITORIES, THOUGH CRITICAL, ARE NOT ENOUGH TO SLOW AMAZON DEFORESTATION

The document assesses Brazil's use of protected territories to combat Amazon deforestation, finding that while these areas effectively shield the forests within their boundaries, they have a negligible impact on aggregate deforestation levels by deflecting clearing activities to unprotected regions.

• Protected territories in Brazil, including national parks and indigenous lands, are effective at reducing deforestation within their specific boundaries, particularly in high-risk zones.
• Despite local success, landscape protection has a negligible effect on the total amount of deforestation across the Amazon, as it appears to shift deforestation to unprotected areas.
• A counterfactual analysis from 2007 to 2014 indicates that the total deforested area would have been nearly the same without protected territories, with a difference of only 43,801 hectares, or 1% of the observed total.
• Between 2004 and 2014, Brazil significantly expanded its protection coverage under the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), with protected areas nearly doubling to 113 million hectares and indigenous lands increasing by 10 million hectares to 107 million hectares.
• The PPCDAm introduced a risk-based allocation strategy that targeted the 'Deforestation Arc'—a region within 750 kilometers of the Amazon's southeast border where over 90% of deforestation occurred during the plan's first decade.
• To effectively reduce overall deforestation, Brazil must combine the use of protected landscapes with broader, coordinated conservation policies to prevent the displacement of forest clearing.

APA

Assunção, J., & Gandour, C. (2020). PROTECTED TERRITORIES, THOUGH CRITICAL, ARE NOT ENOUGH TO SLOW AMAZON DEFORESTATION. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PB-Protected-territories.pdf

Chicago

Assunção, Juliano, and Clarissa Gandour. PROTECTED TERRITORIES, THOUGH CRITICAL, ARE NOT ENOUGH TO SLOW AMAZON DEFORESTATION. Climate Policy Initiative, 2020. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PB-Protected-territories.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Assunção |first1=Juliano |last2=Gandour |first2=Clarissa |title=PROTECTED TERRITORIES, THOUGH CRITICAL, ARE NOT ENOUGH TO SLOW AMAZON DEFORESTATION |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=May 2020 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PB-Protected-territories.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{assuno2020protected, author = {Assunção, Juliano and Gandour, Clarissa}, title = {{PROTECTED TERRITORIES, THOUGH CRITICAL, ARE NOT ENOUGH TO SLOW AMAZON DEFORESTATION}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2020}, month = may, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PB-Protected-territories.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }