Lessons from the historical dynamics of environmental law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon

Here, we analyze critical changes in environmental law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2020. Based on a dataset of law enforcement indicators, we discuss how these changes explain recent Amazon deforestation dynamics. Our analysis also covers changes in the legal prosecution pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 1828
Main Authors:	Nunes, Felipe S. M., Soares-Filho, Britaldo S., Oliveira, Amanda R., Veloso, Laura V. S., Schmitt, Jair, Van der Hoff, Richard, Assis, Debora C., Costa, Rayane P., Börner, Jan, Ribeiro, Sonia M. C., Rajão, Raoni G. L., de Oliveira, Ubirajara, Costa, Marcelo Azevedo
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London Nature Publishing Group UK 21-01-2024 Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio
Subjects:	704/158 704/172 Deforestation Environmental changes Environmental law Fines & penalties Humanities and Social Sciences Land use Law enforcement multidisciplinary Science Science (multidisciplinary) Brazil Amazon Basin
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Here, we analyze critical changes in environmental law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2020. Based on a dataset of law enforcement indicators, we discuss how these changes explain recent Amazon deforestation dynamics. Our analysis also covers changes in the legal prosecution process and documents a militarization of enforcement between 2018 and 2022. From 2004 to 2018, 43.6 thousand land-use embargoes and 84.3 thousand fines were issued, targeting 3.3 million ha of land, and totaling USD 9.3 billion in penalties. Nevertheless, enforcement relaxed and became spatially more limited, signaling an increasing lack of commitment by the State to enforcing the law. The number of embargoes and asset confiscations dropped by 59% and 55% in 2019 and 2020, respectively. These changes were accompanied by a marked increase in enforcement expenditure, suggesting a massive efficiency loss. More importantly, the creation of so-called conciliation hearings and the centralization of legal processes in 2019 reduced the number of actual judgments and fines collected by 85% and decreased the ratio between lawsuits resulting in paid fines over filed ones from 17 to 5%. As Brazil gears up to crack-down on illegal deforestation once again, our assessment suggests urgent entry points for policy action.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	2045-2322 2045-2322
DOI:	10.1038/s41598-024-52180-7