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The report finds that a significant portion of Peruvian timber exports are high-risk or illegal, despite being accompanied by official Transport Guides (GTF). Analysis of 2015 export data reveals that exporters strategically direct 'green-listed' (low-risk) timber to strictly regulated markets like the US and EU, while sending 'red-listed' (high-risk) timber to markets with weaker regulations, such as China and Mexico. The study highlights a shift toward using Native Community permits and Local Forests to launder illegal wood, noting that 66% of analyzed GTFs were either not supervised or lacked critical traceability data like the harvest year (zafra).

The report analyzes 855 Visual Inspection Certificates and 2,364 Forest Transport Permits (GTFs) from the Port of Callao in 2015 to trace the supply chain of Peruvian timber. It finds that a significant portion of exports are high-risk or illegal, with exporters strategically directing 'red list' timber to countries with weak import laws, such as China and Mexico, while sending 'green list' timber to the US and EU. The study highlights a shift toward using Forest Permits in Indigenous Communities and Local Forests to circumvent oversight, as these modalities often lack supervision or exhibit high rates of illegality.

A study by NAPC/CPI found that rural settlements were responsible for 30% of deforestation in the Amazon region in 2014. Notably, Environmentally Differentiated Settlement Projects (PAADs), designed for sustainable production, accounted for 15% of total Amazon deforestation, representing half of the impact caused by all rural settlements.

Research by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and PUC-Rio indicates that rural settlements were responsible for 30% of deforestation in the Amazon region in 2014. The study highlights that 'special settlements', intended to promote sustainable production, contributed 15% of the total deforestation caused by all rural settlements. While Brazil successfully reduced large-scale clearings between 2004 and 2014 using the DETER satellite-monitoring system, small-scale clearings associated with rural farmers and ranchers became a more prominent driver of forest loss.

The letter argues that the owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline are complicit in human rights abuses against Indigenous peoples in Standing Rock, North Dakota, and asserts that corporate and financial entities have an affirmative duty to prevent such impacts.

The Cerrado, Brazil's second largest biome, is a biodiversity hotspot and critical carbon sink that has seen over half of its native vegetation cleared, primarily for soy and cattle production. While the Amazon has seen a decrease in deforestation, the Cerrado has faced increasing pressure, with deforestation rates surpassing the Amazon by 2011. The document highlights the biome's unique underground carbon storage and warns that climate mitigation policies favoring afforestation and fire suppression may inadvertently harm this fire-adapted ecosystem.

The study finds that Resolution 3,545, implemented in 2008, led to a substantial reduction in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, primarily by restricting access to rural credit for cattle ranching. Using a difference-in-differences approach and 2SLS estimation, the authors estimate that total deforested area from 2009 to 2011 was approximately 60% smaller than it would have been without the policy. The results indicate that cattle ranching is highly dependent on official credit and that credit constraints in the region lead to reduced expansion at the extensive margin. In contrast, crop-oriented municipalities showed no significant impact on deforestation, as crop production is less dependent on official rural credit and more focused on intensification.

The report argues that Brazil's insecure land rights lead to significant rural conflicts, deforestation, and economic inefficiencies. It highlights a systemic failure in land governance characterized by institutional complexity, unreliable registries, and the absence of an integrated database for public and private lands. These issues are exacerbated by the 'social function of property' requirement, which can incentivize land clearing to prove productivity and legitimize illegal land grabbing (grilagem).

The report argues that Brazil lags globally in property rights protection, leading to severe consequences including land-related violence, deforestation, and inefficient land use. It highlights a systemic failure in land governance characterized by institutional complexity, unreliable registration systems, and the absence of an integrated database for public and private lands. The document specifically notes that insecurity encourages deforestation as a means to prove land productivity to avoid expropriation and suppresses the land rental market due to legal and social distrust.

The document argues that current development and climate policies in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru often conflict, particularly where biofuel and hydropower expansion undermine forest conservation and water security. It advocates for a 'security agenda' based on the water-energy-food nexus to better manage resource trade-offs and improve coordination between national and subnational governments.

The document argues that increasing transparency in agricultural supply chains is a critical pre-condition for improving governance and reducing deforestation in Amazonia. It introduces a 'middle-ground' modelling approach that links specific production jurisdictions (municipalities or departments) to downstream actors, allowing for the identification of risk exposure and the formation of public-private coalitions to manage production landscapes sustainably.

The policy brief argues for the immediate integration of Rural Credit and the Forest Code in Brazil to incentivize environmental preservation. It proposes that producers without environmental liabilities, or those in the process of regularization via the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA), should receive expanded credit limits. This approach is presented as a more effective alternative to the government's 2018 plan, which only required registration in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). The authors highlight that such a policy requires no additional Treasury funds and aligns with international models like the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The Living Amazon Report 2016 provides a comprehensive overview of the Amazon biome, highlighting its immense biodiversity and critical role in global climate and hydrological regulation. It identifies primary threats including large-scale agriculture, cattle ranching, hydropower dams, and extractive industries, while advocating for a coordinated, biome-wide conservation approach. The report emphasizes the importance of protected areas and indigenous territories, which currently cover over 50% of the biome, and recommends strategies for enhancing climate resilience and securing water connectivity.

This research paper examines the relationship between property rights and the implementation of Brazil's 2012 Forest Code, analyzing how land ownership structures and administrative institutions influence landowner behavior and environmental outcomes.

The document argues that bridging the emissions gap requires both 'getting the economics right' through financial mobilisation and carbon pricing, and 'getting the politics right' through leadership and stakeholder engagement. It emphasizes a 'development first' approach for developing countries, using the 'cost of inaction' to build national consensus. To avoid maladaptation and protect the poorest, the text advocates for the inclusion of socially marginalised groups and women in decision-making, while managing the 'water-energy-food nexus' and removing laws that undermine climate goals.

The study examines the impact of wildfires occurring between 2000 and 2012 on the Chiquitania forests of Bolivia. It finds that recurrent fires lead to a significant loss in biomass and a shift in species composition where fire-tolerant species become more dominant, resulting in an increase in species richness despite the biomass loss. The authors warn that this transition to a fire-adapted state could become irreversible under future conditions of increased drought and forest fragmentation.

The report argues that Brazil's historical land abundance led to a misallocation of resources and land-intensive agricultural models. However, it demonstrates that productivity gains can be achieved without further deforestation by converting degraded pastures to crops and improving technology dissemination, credit access, and infrastructure. It highlights the success of the PPCDAm and DETER system in reducing Amazon deforestation but warns of new challenges, such as smaller-scale clearings and deforestation shifting to areas outside the Amazon and around protected zones.

Between 2004 and 2012, Brazil's Amazon deforestation rates fell by nearly 80%, but the nature of the clearings shifted. While large-scale deforestation was curtailed by remote sensing-based monitoring, small-scale clearings (25 hectares or less) grew from 25% to over 50% of overall annual clearings because they are difficult for current systems to detect. Analysis of Mato Grosso and Pará shows that landholders adapted their behavior to avoid detection, with smallholders in Pará emerging as primary agents of clearing. The report recommends enhancing monitoring technology and tailoring policies to regional differences.

The research finds that while centralized conservation policies successfully reduced medium- and large-scale deforestation in both Mato Grosso and Pará, the impact on small-scale deforestation varied by state. In Mato Grosso, large landowners adapted by clearing forest in smaller patches to elude the DETER monitoring system, which cannot detect clearings under 25 hectares. In Pará, smallholders were more persistent in deforesting because their clearings were predominantly smaller than 25 hectares and thus remained invisible to law enforcement. The authors argue that the apparent similarity in deforestation scale across states masks critical differences in the agents involved, necessitating tailored regional policies.

Between 2004 and 2012, annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell from 27,000 km2 to 4,500 km2, largely due to conservation policies and remote sensing monitoring. However, these systems cannot detect clearings of 25 hectares or less, leading to a shift where small-scale deforestation grew from a quarter to more than half of overall annual clearings. Research in Mato Grosso and Pará shows that medium- and large-scale property holders adapted to enforcement by shifting to smaller clearings, while smallholders in Pará emerged as the primary agents of forest clearing. The brief recommends enhancing monitoring technology and tailoring policies to regional differences to address these evolving patterns.