Search Climate Insights Directory

The report assesses gender inequalities in Brazil, specifically within the context of forest conservation and REDD+ implementation. It identifies significant gaps in women's political representation, land ownership, and decision-making power in forest management, despite advances in education and health. The document recommends a gender-responsive Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), the establishment of quotas for the Floresta+ Pilot Program, and the hiring of a gender specialist to ensure equitable benefit-sharing and participation in climate funding activities.

The BioStartUp programme, initiated by PerúBioInnova and the University San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL), provides an eight-month incubation process for start-ups utilizing Amazonian plants and fruits for nutrition and cosmetics. The initiative addresses barriers such as legal issues regarding genetic resources, patent rights, and market access. The programme resulted in seven start-ups improving their business models and the creation of a 'navigator' tool to facilitate the replication and up-scaling of the incubation model, which has been endorsed by the Peruvian Ministry of Environment and Production.

The authors examine the 'financialization of nature,' arguing that securitizing ecosystem services creates incentives to maximize a narrow set of commodifiable outputs at the expense of overall ecosystem health. They contend that the fungibility required for financial markets ignores the complex, location-specific nature of ecosystems. While they identify limited exceptions—such as tradable permits for widely-dispersed gases (e.g., CO2 and SOx) and socially responsible investing (SRI) for already-managed lands—they warn that most environmental credits and offsets fail to protect biodiversity or ensure genuine additionality.

The document introduces SEI-PCS, a modeling tool designed to overcome the limitations of traditional country-level footprinting by providing spatially explicit data on production-to-consumption systems. By integrating subnational production data, domestic trade flows, and international customs data, SEI-PCS allows for the tracing of commodities back to their origin to assess impacts such as carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. The tool is the foundation for the Trase initiative, which specifically monitors deforestation risks associated with agricultural commodities like soy in Brazil, Indonesia, and Latin America, helping companies and governments evaluate the effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments and identify policy 'leakage' effects.

The document argues that Brazil can align economic growth with natural resource protection by modernizing farming and reforming rural credit. It identifies three main directives: improving risk management for intensified production, aligning credit with the Forest Code to support public goods, and simplifying the rural credit system to reduce costs and political interference. Specific proposals include expanding credit limits for producers complying with the Forest Code in the short term, extending planning horizons to three or five years in the medium term, and gradually shifting public subsidies from credit to insurance and financial derivatives in the long term.

The document argues that strengthening 'comando e controle' (command and control) is essential for protecting Brazil's native vegetation, which is critical for environmental conservation, international reputation, and the competitiveness of the agribusiness sector. It highlights the success of the DETER system in the Amazon, which helped reduce annual forest loss by over 80% and avoided the loss of more than 2 million hectares per year during its first five years. However, it identifies gaps such as the inability to detect small-scale deforestation (under 25 hectares) and the lack of monitoring for secondary vegetation. The authors recommend developing technology for small-scale detection and forest degradation, monitoring forest regeneration, expanding remote sensing to all national biomes, and implementing land tenure regularization in public lands and agrarian reform settlements.

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 report argues that Brazil can align agricultural growth with natural resource protection by linking rural credit access to compliance with the Forest Code. It proposes amplifying credit limits for producers without environmental liabilities or those with approved Environmental Regularization Programs (PRA). The authors assert that this alignment would require no additional treasury resources, as it merely redirects existing funds toward producers providing public goods like forest conservation. The document highlights that a significant portion of current credit contracts are near their limits, suggesting that such a policy would have a substantial impact. It draws parallels to the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, which conditions payments on environmental rules, and notes that previous Brazilian Central Bank resolutions linking credit to environmental compliance in the Amazon led to a 15% reduction in deforestation between 2008 and 2011.

The white paper proposes increasing credit limits for Brazilian rural producers who comply with the Forest Code, specifically those without environmental liabilities or those with approved regularization programs. It argues that this alignment would use public subsidies to provide public goods (environmental conservation), improve international trade competitiveness, and accelerate agricultural modernization. The authors suggest reinstating rules from previous Central Bank resolutions (4.106/2012 and 4.226/2013) to implement these limits. Analysis of 2016/2017 data shows that 14% of the total credit volume across ten analyzed lines was granted in contracts exceeding 95% of their limits, indicating a significant potential impact for producers who could benefit from expanded limits.

The policy brief proposes using public lands in the Brazilian Amazon as a starting point for large-scale reforestation, leveraging natural forest regeneration to meet Brazil's Paris Agreement commitments. It highlights that protected territories offer a strong regulatory framework and biophysical advantages, while undesignated public lands, despite higher conflict risks, present a significant opportunity to address wasteful land use and illegal occupation.

The report proposes using public lands in the Amazon as a starting point for large-scale reforestation in Brazil. It highlights that natural regeneration is already occurring, with regenerated areas in the Brazilian Amazon increasing from 10 million to 17 million hectares between 2004 and 2014. The authors suggest that the 3 million hectares of deforested land within protected territories are ideal for initial efforts due to established governance and proximity to primary forests. Additionally, the document identifies approximately 13 million hectares of deforested non-designated public lands as potential areas for reforestation combined with land tenure regularization. This strategy is presented as a necessary complement to the National Plan for the Recovery of Native Vegetation (Planaveg), which focuses on private lands, to help Brazil achieve its Paris Agreement commitment to restore 12 million hectares by 2030.

The document examines the reciprocal relationship between climate change and land in Latin America, highlighting how land degradation and desertification threaten livelihoods and food security. It advocates for sustainable land management, integrated governance, and gender-equitable policies to enhance resilience and achieve climate goals.

The report argues that Brazil can align economic growth with natural resource protection by intensifying production on underutilized pasture lands. It identifies three main directives for reform: improving risk management tools (insurance and derivatives), aligning rural credit with the 2012 Forest Code to incentivize environmental conservation, and simplifying the complex, public-sector-dominated credit system to increase private bank participation and predictability.

The document argues that Brazil can align economic growth with environmental protection by reforming its rural credit system to support the 2012 Forest Code. It identifies inefficiencies in the current credit design, such as annual planning horizons and a dominance of public banks, and proposes a phased transition toward risk management tools, private sector participation, and subsidies strictly tied to the provision of public environmental goods.

The Bolsa Floresta Programme (BFP) in Amazonas, Brazil, uses a payment for ecosystem services (PES) model to reduce deforestation while supporting local communities through cash transfers and infrastructure investments. Since 2007, it has expanded to 583 communities and 10.9 million hectares, reporting a 54% reduction in deforestation rates compared to pre-2008 levels. However, the programme faces challenges regarding the low value of cash payments and the difficulty of monitoring remote areas.

The document explores how green bonds can support Brazil's agricultural sector, noting that while the forestry sector has successfully used these instruments, sustainable agriculture remains underfunded. It highlights the underutilization of government programs like the ABC Program and suggests that securitizing small loans via Certificados de Recebíveis do Agronegócio (CRA) and leveraging bank-issued green bonds could bridge the financing gap for sustainable practices.

The document examines the gap between Brazil's agricultural importance and its limited use of green bonds for the sector, which has been primarily restricted to forestry and paper. It highlights that while government programs like the Low Carbon Agriculture Program (ABC) exist, they are underutilised due to complex application processes and a lack of understanding among financial institutions. The authors argue that green bonds and securitisation tools like Certificates of Agribusiness Receivables (CRA) could scale sustainable financing by aggregating small loans and attracting international capital.

The document details a high-level dialogue on the disparity between 'gray' finance (subsidies and investments driving deforestation) and 'green' finance for forest restoration. It highlights the systemic barriers facing small-scale forest enterprises, the need for better supply chain transparency to avoid stranded assets, and the potential for innovative financial models—such as blended finance and carbon monetization—to accelerate the goals of the New York Declaration on Forests.

The research finds that protected territories in the Brazilian Amazon effectively shield the vegetation within their boundaries from advancing deforestation, particularly in high-risk contexts. However, this protection does not reduce the overall level of deforestation in the region; instead, it appears to deflect clearing activities to unprotected areas. The shielding effect is most pronounced in protected areas for sustainable use and decreases as proximity to transport infrastructure increases.

The Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF) is a proposed debt fund designed to halt agricultural expansion into the Brazilian Cerrado by providing low-interest loans to farmers who produce soy and corn on degraded lands. The facility aims to raise US$ 300 million through green bonds to provide crop financing and land restoration loans, utilizing blockchain for traceability and a dedicated exchange to link producers with international sustainable buyers. Over 10 years, the RCF targets the restoration of 1.2 million hectares of land and the avoidance of 55 million tonnes of carbon emissions.