COMBATING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION

The document argues that strengthening 'command and control'—specifically through technological monitoring and law enforcement—is essential for protecting Brazil's native vegetation. It highlights the success of the DETER system in the Amazon and recommends expanding such remote sensing to all biomes, improving the detection of small-scale clearing and forest degradation, monitoring secondary vegetation, and addressing land tenure issues in public lands and agrarian reform settlements.

• The System for Real-time Detection of Deforestation (DETER), developed by Inpe, significantly increased Brazil's capacity to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon by providing georeferenced alerts that allow Ibama to target law enforcement efforts.
• A technical limitation of the original DETER system is its inability to detect forest loss in contiguous areas smaller than 25 hectares, which has led to a strategic shift by offenders toward small-scale clearings to avoid detection.
• Brazil lacks a monitoring system for secondary vegetation (forest regeneration), leaving these areas vulnerable to illegal clearing despite their importance for the Paris Agreement and the Forest Code.
• Illegal deforestation in the Amazon is heavily concentrated on public lands, with an estimated two-thirds of deforested areas since 2010 occurring in undesignated areas (25%) and agrarian reform settlements (30%).
• Protecting native vegetation is strategically linked to the competitiveness of Brazilian agribusiness in global markets, as international buyers increasingly demand compliance with environmental norms.
• While satellite monitoring was previously limited to the Legal Amazon, it was expanded to the Cerrado biome by mid-2018, bringing near-real-time monitoring to 73% of the country.

APA

ASSUNÇÃO, J., & GANDOUR, C. (2019). COMBATING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/white-paper-Combating-Illegal-Deforestation-Strengthening-Command-and-Control-Is-Fundamental.pdf

Chicago

ASSUNÇÃO, JULIANO, and CLARISSA GANDOUR. COMBATING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION. Climate Policy Initiative, 2019. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/white-paper-Combating-Illegal-Deforestation-Strengthening-Command-and-Control-Is-Fundamental.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=ASSUNÇÃO |first1=JULIANO |last2=GANDOUR |first2=CLARISSA |title=COMBATING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=February 2019 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/white-paper-Combating-Illegal-Deforestation-Strengthening-Command-and-Control-Is-Fundamental.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{assuno2019combating, author = {ASSUNÇÃO, JULIANO and GANDOUR, CLARISSA}, title = {{COMBATING ILLEGAL DEFORESTATION}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/white-paper-Combating-Illegal-Deforestation-Strengthening-Command-and-Control-Is-Fundamental.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }