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This report argues that Brazilian public policy focuses excessively on clear-cut deforestation while overlooking forest degradation in the Amazon. The author contends that degradation—defined as the partial loss of vegetation—is a distinct phenomenon with its own drivers that contributes significantly more to greenhouse gas emissions and biomass loss than deforestation does, necessitating a shift in how Brazil monitors and reports environmental performance.

A statement by Jean McLean of the Green Economy Coalition emphasizing the critical role of youth activists in addressing climate, environmental, and economic crises, while calling for greater intergenerational collaboration to ensure the burden of change does not fall solely on the younger generation.

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative argues that forest degradation in the Amazon is a critical but overlooked threat to climate goals. It highlights that degradation often causes more biomass loss and carbon emissions than clear-cutting deforestation, yet it remains largely absent from Brazil's official environmental metrics and greenhouse gas inventories.

The Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) report outlines a roadmap to make land transportation infrastructure in the Brazilian Amazon more sustainable. It identifies a strong link between road development and deforestation, noting that 95% of deforestation occurred within 5.5 km of roads until 2006. The report criticizes the current decision-making process for its lack of linearity and transparency, noting that 57% of primary documents for ten analyzed federal concessions were unavailable. Key recommendations include introducing a pre-feasibility phase, adopting a 'market access' approach to define indirect areas of influence, and establishing a single, georeferenced public database for infrastructure projects to better protect indigenous lands and conservation units.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) proposes a 12-point action plan to decouple terrestrial infrastructure development from deforestation in the Amazon. The agenda focuses on three pillars: improving the public administration's decision-making process to anticipate socio-environmental analysis, enhancing the quality of socio-environmental studies, and increasing transparency in federal concessions.

The 'Roadmap for Sustainable Infrastructure in the Amazon' report by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) proposes a framework to decouple land transport infrastructure from deforestation in the Amazon. The report identifies systemic failures in the decision-making process, the quality of socio-environmental studies, and transparency, offering twelve specific recommendations to improve project viability and reduce environmental risks.

This concept note from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and FAPESP, submitted to the Belmont Forum Plenary, proposes a transdisciplinary and participatory initiative to address urgent threats to the Amazon region. The proposal emphasizes the link between biodiversity loss, climate change, and human health, while advocating for the protection of indigenous knowledge and the implementation of environmental governance frameworks.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative analyzes how Brazilian mining regulations, specifically the distinction between industrial mining and 'garimpeiro' (artisanal) mining, are being exploited by cooperatives to conduct industrial-scale operations under a weaker regulatory framework. It argues that two February 2022 presidential decrees further exacerbate this contradiction by providing incentives and simplified licensing to these cooperatives, which often operate on a larger scale than major industrial mining companies in the Amazon.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative highlights a critical gap in the Brazilian Amazon, specifically in the state of Pará, where infrastructure planning prioritizes large-scale logistics projects (roads, railroads, ports) over basic local services. Using high-resolution data, the study finds extreme deficiencies in sanitation—with 69% of households disposing of sewage improperly—and significant inequalities in access to health care, education, and 4G connectivity, particularly in rural areas and the surroundings of large projects like BR-230. The authors recommend utilizing compensation payments from large-scale projects to fund essential local infrastructure.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) argues that Brazilian presidential decrees from February 2022 exacerbate a regulatory gap in the mining sector, allowing gold mining cooperatives to operate as industrial entities while benefiting from lenient regulations intended for vulnerable individual miners. The authors call for the revocation of these decrees to better protect the environment and improve oversight in the Amazon.

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) analyzes the disparity between large-scale infrastructure projects and local quality-of-life infrastructure in the state of Pará, Brazil. It argues that the prioritization of logistics for commodity exports has neglected basic services such as sanitation, health, and education, particularly in low-density areas and regions surrounding planned major projects.

A 2022 guide for journalists to cover environmental issues during Colombia's presidential elections, highlighting critical areas such as Amazonian deforestation, the energy transition away from fossil fuels, and the protection of environmental defenders.

This report analyzes the impact of transport infrastructure on employment in Brazil between 1990 and 2019 using a 'market access' approach. The study finds a positive correlation between increased connectivity and employment growth, with the most significant benefits occurring in poorer and more isolated regions, suggesting that infrastructure investment can reduce regional inequality.

This working paper provides an overview of climate commitments and actions by non-state and subnational actors in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a specific focus on the land use sector and the Amazon region.

Infrastructure and extractive industries act as catalysts for deforestation by opening access to intact forests. Despite representing a smaller share of direct forest loss than agriculture, their indirect impacts are vast, driven by massive planned investments in roads and economic corridors. While some high-level policy alignments and financial safeguards have emerged, the document argues that a fundamental realignment of economic incentives and stronger enforcement of IPLC rights and environmental regulations are required to achieve forest protection goals.

This statement highlights the critical role of tropical forests, particularly the Amazon, in maintaining rainfall across Brazil. It warns that continuing historical deforestation trends will lead to severe droughts and unsustainable economic costs for the country, urging the application of existing tools and scientific lessons over the next decade.

The Climate Policy Initiative warns that Brazil faces a potential cessation of official deforestation data for the Cerrado biome starting in April 2022 due to a lack of guaranteed funding for the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

This report by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) and WWF-Brasil analyzes the impact of Decree No. 9,760/2019, which introduced a mandatory environmental conciliation stage in the administrative process for environmental infractions in the Amazon. The study finds that this new system has led to a severe paralysis of punitive actions, with 98% of relevant infraction notices stalled by May 2021 due to Ibama's inability to conduct the required hearings. The report also highlights a broader trend of weakening environmental control since 2015 and significant transparency gaps in Ibama's open data portal.

This briefing by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) analyzes the legislative report by Senator Carlos Fávaro regarding Bill (PL) no 510/2021 and Bill (PL) no 2633/2020, which propose changes to land regularization laws. The authors argue that the Senator's report favors medium and large land occupants while failing to improve conditions for small farmers, potentially incentivizing illegal deforestation and land grabbing.

This research paper by the Climate Policy Initiative and PUC-Rio analyzes the relationship between forest fires and subsequent deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from 2013 to 2020. The study finds that while forest fires are not systematically used as a direct first step to clear vegetation in the same location, they serve as a strong leading indicator of imminent deforestation in the surrounding vicinity, particularly in rural settlements and occupied public lands.