Large-scale land governance and environmental monitoring are huge challenges for tropical countries with significant forest cover. In this discussion paper, we analyzed the conditions and achievements of the implementation of the Brazilian Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). CAR was an important breakthrough of the Native Vegetation Protection Law for environmental monitoring in Brazil.

Here we report that protected areas in the Amazon basin—the central feature of prevailing conservation approaches—are an important but insufficient component of this strategy, based on policysensitive simulations of future deforestation.