Impact of environmental law enforcement on deforestation, land use and natural regeneration in the Brazilian Amazon
type: CreativeWork
description: Humankind is facing one of the most challenging periods in its short history on Planet Earth. These challenges have largely arisen as a result of climate change and the loss of tropical forests. Indeed, these challenges present two of the greatest environmental challenges of all time. Nevertheless, Brazil has recently adopted policies that have greatly reduced forest loss over the past decade or more. A strong combination of different policies and actors have made this achievement possible, and environmental law enforcement is thought to have played a key role. Therefore, the central questions for this thesis is to determine the influence of environmental law enforcement, mostly ground operations in the Brazilian Amazon region, on reducing deforestation, reshaping land use change, through livestock, agriculture and natural restoration, and the persistence of natural regeneration. First, I assess the influence of law enforcement on forest loss reduction through a spatial analysis at the municipality level. The results confirmed that law enforcement, along with other factors, is an important influence on reducing forest loss. However, law enforcement also has to tackle some administrative limitations, as a shift and modernization of the environmental police strategy is imperative to face the new challenges, and the appropriate implementation of the rural environmental registry policy will be crucial. Second, I explore the possible influence of law enforcement on reshaping land use change, focusing on annual crops, livestock and natural regeneration, using a difference-in-differences with an entropy balance approach at the municipality, private property and settlement levels. I have evaluated the priority municipality policy implemented in 2008 that led to an intensification of law enforcement on target municipalities. The results show an increased persistence of agriculture and clean pastures, as a substantial increase in natural regeneration occurs through abandonmen…
abstract: Humankind is facing one of the most challenging periods in its short history on Planet Earth. These challenges have largely arisen as a result of climate change and the loss of tropical forests. Indeed, these challenges present two of the greatest environmental challenges of all time. Nevertheless, Brazil has recently adopted policies that have greatly reduced forest loss over the past decade or more. A strong combination of different policies and actors have made this achievement possible, and environmental law enforcement is thought to have played a key role. Therefore, the central questions for this thesis is to determine the influence of environmental law enforcement, mostly ground operations in the Brazilian Amazon region, on reducing deforestation, reshaping land use change, through livestock, agriculture and natural restoration, and the persistence of natural regeneration. First, I assess the influence of law enforcement on forest loss reduction through a spatial analysis at the municipality level. The results confirmed that law enforcement, along with other factors, is an important influence on reducing forest loss. However, law enforcement also has to tackle some administrative limitations, as a shift and modernization of the environmental police strategy is imperative to face the new challenges, and the appropriate implementation of the rural environmental registry policy will be crucial. Second, I explore the possible influence of law enforcement on reshaping land use change, focusing on annual crops, livestock and natural regeneration, using a difference-in-differences with an entropy balance approach at the municipality, private property and settlement levels. I have evaluated the priority municipality policy implemented in 2008 that led to an intensification of law enforcement on target municipalities. The results show an increased persistence of agriculture and clean pastures, as a substantial increase in natural regeneration occurs through abandonmen…
author: Barbosa De Oliveira Filho, Francisco Jose
language: en
keywords: Amazon, Deforestation, Landuse, Natural regeneration, environmental law enforcement, econometric, difference-in-differences, entropy balance
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/fe1d5ceb-ee31-44ce-8edc-1bd5803a8df5/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2020-02-04
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:54Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.49512