---

Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management 11(4) (2023) 467--479 | DOI:10.5890/JEAM.2023.12.007

Rodrigo M. Pereira${}^{1}$, Celso Vila Nova de S. J\'{u}nior${}^{2}$, Tito Belchior S. Moreira${}^{3}$

Download Full Text PDF

 

Abstract

In the mid 2000's the Brazilian Government introduced a new environmental policy to reduce deforestation in the ``Plan for Prevention and Control of Legal Amazon Deforestation'', (PPCDAM). With 14 years of track record, heavily relying on technological innovation, the policy is nowadays considered a major example of success in the overall war waged against the deforestation of tropical rainforests. In this paper we quantify this success. The results suggest that the policy not only had a direct effect of reducing deforestation, but also rendered deforestation less sensitive to fluctuations in the Amazon commodity production, which can be considered our academic contribution to this paper. We also perform a counterfactual exercise, estimating the levels of deforestation that would have been registered, had the policy not existed. We estimate that the plan saved a total of 196 thousand square kilometers of forest between 2005 and 2015, corresponding to almost twice the total amount of deforestation observed during this period, and 4.9\% of the entire Brazilian Amazon Forest.

References

1. [1]	L'Roe, J., Rausch, L., Munger, J., and Gibbs, H. (2016), Mapping properties to monitor forests: Landholder response to a large enviromental registration program in the Brazilian Amazon, Land Use Policy, 57, 193-2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.05.029.

2. [2]	Azevedo-Ramos, C. and Moutinho, P. (2018), No man's land in the Brazilian Amazon: Could undesignated public forests slow Amazon deforestation? Land Use Policy, 73, 125-127.

3. [3]

   Ellwanger, J.H., kulmann-leal, B., kaminski, V.L., Valverde-Villegas, J.M., Da Veiga, A.B.G., Spilki, F.R., Fearnside, P.M., Caesar, L., Giatti, L.L., Wallau, G.L., Almeida, S.E.M., Borba, M.R., Da Hora, V.P., and Chies, J.A.B. (2020), Beyond diversity loss and climate change: Impacts of Amazon deforestation on infectious diseases and public health, Biological Sciences, 92(1), 1-33. https://doi.org/ 10.1590/0001-3765202020191375.

4. [4]	Barona, E., Ramankutty, N., Hyman, G., and Coomes, O. (2010), The role of pasture and soybean, Environmental Research Letters, 5, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/024002.

5. [5]	Fearnside, P. (2005), Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: history, rates and consequences, Conservation Biology, 19, 680-688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00697.x.

6. [6]	Margulis, S. (2004), Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, World Bank Working Paper, 22. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/15060.

7. [7]	Ferraz, C. (2001), Explaining agriculture expansion and deforestation: evidence from the 1980/98, Texto para Discuss\~{ao 828, IPEA}, 1-42. http://www.ipea.gov.br/portal/images/stories/PDFs/TDs/ingles/dp\_106.pdf.

8. [8]	Andersen, L. (1996), The Causes of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, The Journal of Environment $\&$ Development, 5(3), 309-328.