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The Atlantic Forest is a global biodiversity hotspot and a significant provider of ecosystem services to 65% of the Brazilian population. Due to being highly threatened, it is protected by federal law 11,428/2006, which establishes forest use restrictions based on native vegetation successional stages in the Atlantic Forest, with more advanced stages receiving more protection. The classification parameters are established at the state level. However, the parameters employed to classify forest fragments in different successional stages are subjective and imprecise, negatively impacting environmental permitting and related offset policies. Here, we critically assessed the major limitations in applying the 11,428/2006 law and presented alternatives for establishing a more transparent, applicable, legally safe, and effective protocol for identifying the conservation value of forest fragments. We also highlight problems related to sampling, indicators, and methodologies and present guidelines for revising the parameters for applying the Atlantic Forest law and associated state-level resolutions. We suggest an inclusive two-step analysis based on vegetation structure, forest cover history, biodiversity, ecosystem services (social), and landscape indicators. By employing a more technological approach and transferring part of the assessment responsibility to the state-level environmental agencies instead of allowing self-declared reports by landowners, our proposal focuses on the potential for evaluating ecological integrity among different successional classes by forest types. As nearly 90% of the remaining Brazilian Atlantic Forest is located within private lands, improving this legal instrument is essential for protecting the vulnerable biodiversity of this unique and threatened biome.

Brazilian forests critical are for climate, water, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. The Atlantic Forest and the Amazon are among the most important tropical forests of the world but have different conservation status. The first is below its minimum threshold for biodiversity conservation while the Amazon is approaching its dieback threshold. Aiming to examine policy lessons from the Atlantic Forest which could be applied to the conservation of the Amazon, we first analysed the forest cover of basins of the Amazon compared to the reality of the Atlantic Forest. We found that regions of the Amazon already have forest cover similar to the Atlantic Forest and that 34% of them are below the dieback threshold. We propose policy lessons to avoid that the Amazon follow the same route of the Atlantic Forest and concluded that they need to be implemented urgently in a precautionary approach.