By Luacas Guaraldo*
The protection of the Amazon and the destination of Non-Destined Public Forests have a direct impact on all sectors of the Brazilian economy and should be the focus of multi-sector efforts. The analysis was made by Paulo Moutinho, senior researcher at IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), at an event held in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday 21st.
“Protecting the Amazon should also be on the agenda of the economy, agriculture and energy. None of these sectors is viable without the forest. That’s the point. What’s at stake is not just the climate crisis, but also the planet’s food security, basic human rights and the health of the population,” he said.
Undesignated Forests occupy around 50 million hectares in the Brazilian Amazon. These public lands, under state or federal control, are still awaiting a definition of use, as provided for in the Public Forest Management Law. During this wait, they have become the target of land grabbing, deforestation and illegal logging.
According to IPAM studies, the growing illegal occupation of FPNDs is today one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Amazon, concentrating 36.5% of all the loss of native vegetation in the biome. In the first half of 2025, more than 69,000 hectares were deforested in these areas, while another 32.7 million hectares remain at risk of land grabbing.
“The clearing of public forests is an attack on Brazilian heritage. It’s the same as going into Congress and destroying public property. And this happens every year, on an astronomical scale, with severe planetary effects on climate change mitigation. That’s why we need to talk to other sectors. Even those outside the climate agenda already realize that something is wrong,” Moutinho warned.
Letter to Nature
In a letter published in the scientific journal Nature at the beginning of last week, Paulo Moutinho and André Guimarães, executive director of IPAM, advocate the allocation of 50 million hectares of public land – an area equivalent to the state of Bahia. Protecting these areas would be enough to double the extent of protected forests in the Amazon.
“This could be Brazil’s greatest legacy for COP30 in Belém and beyond. By promoting this expansion of protected areas in the region, the country will have made the largest single contribution to combating the climate crisis. By law, these forest areas should already be earmarked for conservation, but regional governments have delayed this process, leaving them vulnerable to land grabbing, illegal mining and forest fires,” say the researchers.
IPAM journalist, lucas.itaborahy@Ipam.org.br*