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In 2023, Brazil achieved positive environmental strides in the Amazon, with a 22% reduction in deforestation rates and a 16% decline in total fire counts compared with 2022, attributed to renewed environmental policy implementation. However, despite progress, deforestation remains above the target, and forest wildfires in old‐growth Amazonian forests surged by 152% in 2023 versus 2022, threatening biodiversity and carbon stocks. The rise in fires poses challenges for traditional farmers, impacts urban areas' air quality, and necessitates urgent measures like enhanced firefighting capabilities and long‐term strategies for fire‐free production chains to protect the Amazonian standing forests—a global socio‐environmental asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Brazil publicly committed to reduce deforestation in Amazonia at the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), the Brazilian parliament is moving toward weakening environmental laws. Deforestation rates continue ascending, reaching in 2021 the highest value since 2006 (13,235 km2). To overcome this paradox, strategies to curb deforestation are mandatory. The current strategy, "Plano Amazônia 21/22," prioritizes law enforcement actions to curb illegal deforestation in only 11 Amazonian municipalities. Here, we show that this prioritization is likely to be insufficient since these municipalities account for just 37% of the current deforestation rate. This strategy may also be undermined by the leakage of deforestation actions to unmonitored municipalities. Using a set of spatially explicit datasets integrated into a deforestation‐prediction modeling approach, we propose a science‐based alternative method for ranking deforestation hotspots to be prioritized by law enforcement actions. Our prioritization method accounts for more than 60% of the deforestation, detecting larger deforested areas in both private and public lands, while covering 27% less territory than "Plano Amazônia 21/22." Optimizing the detection of priority areas for curbing deforestation, as proposed here, is the first step to reducing deforestation rates and comply with the Brazilian legal commitment of 3925 km2 year−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation between environmentalists, scientists, and governmental actors was a crucial driver behind Brazil's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the forest sector from 2004 onward. The same climate coalition's advocacy work to reduce emissions in the energy sector, Brazil's second-most emitting sector, has been unsuccessful. Why has climate-policy development been so different in the two sectors? Building on the advocacy coalition framework, this paper analyzes the climate coalition's role, systematically comparing how the coalition has worked to influence policy development in the two key sectors for Brazilian GHG emissions between 2003 and 2015. The paper finds that strong climate-coalition unity, unambiguous scientific knowledge, economic growth, and international pressure functioned as a constellation of factors that enhanced the climate coalition's ability to take advantage of a climate-policy window and frame deforestation as a core climate concern. The same constellation of factors was missing in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. This article reviews changes in the social contexts of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from the 1970s to the 1990s, moving from the household to the global level. Methods. I draw on satellite imagery, state publications, farm surveys, ethnographic field work, and policy analyses for a comparative analysis that shows how land cover, agriculture, demographics, politics, and markets have changed over time. Results. Alterations in the social contexts of deforestation appear on all levels considered, from household demographic evolution and new land use strategies to a regional demographic transition and the emergence of cattle and timber economies, to a “greening” of Brazilian development policy and changes in national land markets, to multilateral bank loans for new infrastructure and local-international alliances between grassroots and environmental organizations. Conclusions. The social contexts of deforestation are very complex and changing and call for greater attention by social scientists to land cover and land use change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]