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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]

The proposal of a cartography of colonialism incites indisciplinary thinking, which transits in the interregnum of readings that analyze the movement of commodity capitalism, environmental conflicts and struggles for libertarian zones. In Brazil, the destruction of the Amazon forest, the mining tragedies and the violence against forest peoples are examples that place nature in a condition subdued by the colonialism of power. In this article, affiliat with epistemologies of the South to rethink the place of nature in environmental policy from the handicraft socioenvironmental practices in the Amazon, as in the case of Indigenous Lands and Extractive Reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries have been recently addressing the respiratory health impact of agricultural burnings with innovative environmental policy. In Acre state, Brazilian Amazon, mechanization is subsidized, enabling smallholders to comply with a cap on burned area. To appraise amendments in the policy, a statistical Hicks-Kaldor test was developed and applied to stakeholders' stated choice surveys coupled with an econometric estimate of fire's effect on health. The test unveiled the trade-off between urban dwellers' health and smallholders' production. It also avoided the large disparity of groups in size and in goods valued to result into instability of efficiency assessment across six alternative group weighting schemes. The amendments that increased joint welfare required a great expansion of mechanization supply. Such change, which is not presently feasible at state level, could be piloted at municipal level by relying on the private sector and smallholders' organizations, and also on subsidized credit and power tillers. • A statistical Hicks-Kaldor test, robust to stakeholders' disparities, is devised. • It is applied to a policy replacing agricultural fires with subsidized tractors. • A health and welfare trade-off is unveiled by alternative stakeholder weightings. • · The test proved highly stable across six alternative group weightings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use regulations are a critical component of forest governance and conservation strategies, but their effectiveness in shaping landholder behaviour is poorly understood. We conducted a spatial and temporal analysis of the Brazilian ForestCode (BFC) to understand the patterns of regulatory compliance over time and across changes in the policy, and the implications of these compliance patterns for the perceived costs to landholders and environmental performance of agricultural landscapes in the southern Amazon state of Mato Grosso. Landholdings tended to remain in compliance or not according to their status at the beginning of the study period. The perceived economic burden of BFC compliance on soya bean and beef producers (US$3-5.6 billion in net present value of the land)may in part explain themassive, successful campaign launched by the farm lobby to change the BFC. The ecological benefits of compliance (e.g. greater connectivity and carbon) with the BFC are diffuse and do not compete effectively with the economic benefits of non-compliance that are perceived by landholders. Volatile regulation of land-use decisions that affect billions in economic rent that could be captured is an inadequate forest governance instrument; effectiveness of such regulations may increase when implemented in tandem with positive incentives for forest conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two main drivers shape the global governance of climate change: "climate power" and climate commitment. Climate power refers to the level of influence of certain agents over the climate social outcome at the systemic level. Climate commitment recalls the fact that the logic of global climate governance is also defined by the interaction of reformist and conservative forces, with the former willing to take post-sovereigntist measures to tackle the crisis, and the latter resisting any major changes in the way business is conducted. This article analyses the role of Brazil in global climate governance, considering both climate power and climate commitment. It argues that the country transitioned from a conservative great climate power to a moderate conservative position over the last decade, based on three pillars: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the adoption of domestic climate policies, and a shift in its international standing on the issue. However, since 2011 the process has stalled and partially reversed. The aim of this article is to address that transformation and explore its perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With regards to the debate about governance of climate change, it should be assumed that the Amazon region plays an important role, as this large area is highly vulnerable to its effects. In this sense, this article aims to discuss how some Amazonian municipalities of Brazil have been taking part in the complexes and multilayered processes of climate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine two potential economic benefits of environmental policy, increased agricultural investment and productivity. This is important because if these benefits are realized, environmental policy could optimize land use for food production while minimizing the negative environmental impacts. We employ multiple empirical techniques to analyze a market-led and a public-led anti-deforestation policy that influence the vast cattle ranching sector in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that both policies increased cattle productivity, while the market-led policy also increased investment. We find no evidence that the two policies were substitutes or complements. Results indicate that the policies were each effective in different market- and land-use-contexts, so that enforcement of both policies increased productivity for a larger set of properties. Our research reveals both indirect and unintended benefits of environmental regulation, which have implications for the design of policies that affect the agricultural sector, a major driver of land-use change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the environmental and political conditions of Amazonia in Brazil. Impact of economic development on environmental conservation; Effects of political sovereignty on the ecological condition of Amazonia; Exploitation of the international interest on the Amazonian territory.

Discusses the creation of extractive reserves in Brazil that grants legal protection to forest land traditionally used by rubber tappers, Brazil-nut gatherers and others. Number of extractive reserves established in one of Brazil's states most threatened by deforestation; Value to rubber tappers; Sustainable harvest versus deforestation; Economic value of extractive products; Extractive products for the future; Beyond cost-benefit analysis; Forest justification; Forest maintenance as a constraint on development.

Uses the Brazilian situation as a starting point in discussing the First World's role in environmental protection. Socio-economic conditions in Brazil; Destruction of the Amazon ecosystem and its effects; Argument on the extent of rich and poor countries' responsibilities in environmental conservation efforts.

This article presents an editorial in which the author comments on the threats of the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro toward the Amazon Rainforest. He discusses the dismantling of environmental policies and government agencies in favor of mining and agricultural industries, which are known to negatively impact the Amazonian environment.