The Forest Awakens: Amazon Regeneration and Policy Spillover

The research analyzes the relationship between satellite-based law enforcement (DETER) and the growth of secondary vegetation in the Brazilian Amazon from 2004 to 2014. It finds that increased enforcement in a cell's neighborhood significantly increases the probability and area of forest regeneration, supporting a 'deterrence channel' where illegal land use is abandoned. The study suggests that improving monitoring systems to detect secondary vegetation could further increase forest cover.

• Secondary vegetation in the Brazilian Amazon grew by more than 70% between 2004 and 2014, increasing from less than 10 million hectares to more than 17 million hectares.
• Environmental law enforcement targeting primary forest loss had a positive spillover effect on tropical regeneration; specifically, increasing the intensity of enforcement in a pixel's neighborhood by one standard deviation increased the regenerated area in that pixel by 6% of the sample mean.
• The spillover effect of law enforcement on regeneration is most significant within a 20km radius of a cell, but becomes insignificant beyond that distance.
• The results support the 'deterrence channel' over the 'displacement channel', suggesting that stricter enforcement inhibits illegal activity and leads to the abandonment of deforested lands, allowing natural regrowth.
• Counterfactual simulations indicate that improving the monitoring system to detect all deforestation patches recorded by the measuring system (PRODES) could increase secondary vegetation cover in the benchmark sample by approximately 280 thousand hectares.
• The expansion of secondary vegetation occurred primarily over pasture areas; 65% of cells in the baseline sample with regeneration expansion greater than 10% saw a reduction in pasture area, while cropland saw reductions in only a tiny fraction of cells.
• The spillover effect is most pronounced in areas with moderate levels of deforestation; in areas with very high deforestation, land use is too consolidated for regrowth, and in areas with very low deforestation, there is insufficient cleared land for the forest to grow back into.

APA

Assunção, J., Gandour, C., & Souza-Rodrigues, E. (2019). The Forest Awakens: Amazon Regeneration and Policy Spillover. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/WP002-The-Forest-Awakens.pdf

Chicago

Assunção, Juliano, Clarissa Gandour, and Eduardo Souza-Rodrigues. The Forest Awakens: Amazon Regeneration and Policy Spillover. Climate Policy Initiative, 2019. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/WP002-The-Forest-Awakens.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Assunção |first1=Juliano |last2=Gandour |first2=Clarissa |last3=Souza-Rodrigues |first3=Eduardo |title=The Forest Awakens: Amazon Regeneration and Policy Spillover |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=October 2019 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/WP002-The-Forest-Awakens.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{assuno2019forest, author = {Assunção, Juliano and Gandour, Clarissa and Souza-Rodrigues, Eduardo}, title = {{The Forest Awakens: Amazon Regeneration and Policy Spillover}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2019}, month = oct, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/WP002-The-Forest-Awakens.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }