Anna Júlia Lopes*
Areas equivalent to twice the size of the state of São Paulo remain undefined in the Legal Amazon. These are the FPNDs (Public Non-Destined Forests), which total 56 million hectares and, according to IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), accounted for 36.5% of deforestation in the Amazon in 2023.
According to IPAM’s studies in the region, the increasing illegal occupation of FPNDs is currently one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. As the Institute celebrates its 30th anniversary, it emphasizes that allocating these areas—legally intended for conservation or sustainable use—is one of the main strategies to halt the forest’s destruction.
The Public Forests Observatory, launched in 2024 through a partnership between IPAM and the “Amazônia de Pé” Movement, monitors the forest allocation process to bring transparency and highlight socio-environmental protection efforts.
For Paulo Moutinho, senior researcher and one of IPAM’s co-founders, the initiative is a “consequence” of work carried out by the Institute since 2011. Moutinho explains that IPAM began monitoring FPNDs following a joint study with the Brazilian Forest Service. The researchers observed that much of the region’s deforestation occurred in forests awaiting official allocation to a land tenure category.
“We started trying to understand why this share—around 15% or 16% from 2005 to 2015—of total Amazon deforestation was so significant. We saw this trend growing: every year, the share of deforestation in Unallocated Public Forests increased. Over the last seven years, it has grown alarmingly—from 16% to 25%, and then to nearly 30%,” he says. The data appears in the study “Destination of Public Forests: A means of combating land grabbing and illegal deforestation in the Amazon”, published in February 2022 and covering the period from 2019 to 2021.
Land grabbing
Moutinho describes the issue of FPNDs as a “Pandora’s box.” According to him, one of the main threats to forest protection is land grabbing—i.e., the illegal seizure of public land in an attempt to “turn it into private property.”
IPAM identified the land grabbers’ modus operandi for seizing unallocated areas: they file fraudulent entries in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), claiming false ownership. Afterward, they clear the forest and sell the deforested land for other uses.
“We found out what happened to these forests: most became pasture. It was part of an attempted privatization process—even though it was an illegal one involving public lands,” explains the researcher.
The CAR is a self-declared document. Landowners use it to indicate the boundaries of their property and receive a provisional registration. Final validation depends on federal and state governments through technical teams.
According to the booklet “For an Amazon free of land grabbing”, developed by the Amazoniarproject, the validation process is slow, which enables land grabbers to misuse the CAR to claim public lands. Without validation, the CAR is often used as a de facto land title and is accepted by land buyers and even banks.
IPAM’s research shows that by the end of 2020, over 18 million hectares of FPNDs had been illegally registered in the CAR system as private properties.
Moutinho explains that land grabbing in unallocated public forests is driven by the perception that they are “no man’s lands.” The lack of official designation makes these forests more vulnerable to destruction, even though they are public property of the federal or state governments.
“If it’s ‘no man’s land,’ someone will want to claim ownership. So there’s this invasion with speculative intent: I go in, clear the forest, introduce cattle, and then try to sell the land to someone unaware or looking to legalize it somehow. The big issue is that, because there’s no cattle or crops, people think the land is abandoned,” he adds.
Barriers to Allocation
With illegal deforestation being one of the region’s biggest challenges, the allocation of public forests is one of the main measures for protecting the Amazon, highlights the booklet “Solutions for deforestation in the Amazon”. However, there are several obstacles in the allocation process.
IPAM considers the most significant barrier to be political. “There’s no political will to allocate the land, especially within state governments, because it’s seen as an asset for mining, oil exports, soy, or cattle—things considered ‘productive,’” says Moutinho. He explains that this happens because traditional extractivism and Payments for Environmental Services are not yet well-structured enough to generate substantial profits for the governments.
Additionally, the allocation process is slow and typically carried out by a technical team. In the federal government’s case, the “Technical Chamber for the Allocation and Land Tenure Regularization of Federal Rural Public Lands” includes members from different ministries, such as the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, and federal agencies like Funai, Incra, and ICMBio. Within this chamber, the work is specifically handled by the Public Forests Allocation Task Force. At the state level, only the state of Pará currently has a dedicated team for this purpose.
Federal and state teams must identify public lands and determine which areas are of interest to the participating agencies. They then begin a feasibility study—a lengthy process, according to Moutinho.
Possible Allocations
As established by the Public Forest Management Law (Law 11.284/06), Unallocated Public Forests must be designated for conservation or sustainable use of their resources. Some possible designations include:
- Indigenous Territory
- Conservation Unit
- Quilombola Territory
- Agrarian Settlement
- Forest Concession
Each category has specific related public policies. Forest concessions may also benefit the private sector, as they allow companies to sustainably manage the forest, including logging or tourism activities.
However, such activities can only occur if there are no signs of traditional communities living in the area. In the allocation process, traditional populations are given priority if they reside in the territory.
The Climate Factor in Unallocated Public Forests
Moutinho describes the discussion around Undesignated Public Forests (UPFs) as one of IPAM’s most important: “Without these forests, we create a different country and planet than the ones we have today.” The scientist’s statement refers to the vast amount of carbon stored in the forest—which, due to its size, he explains, has a global effect.
Carbon storage or sequestration is a process that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, preventing it from contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Because UPFs represent about 7.4% of Brazil’s territory (with 89% of all undesignated public forest areas located in the Amazon), Moutinho explains that these areas act like a “giant air conditioner” for the planet, helping to regulate the climate.
“If you simply remove the vegetation and put in pasture, you turn off the planet’s air conditioner. Without the forest, there would be an increase of nearly 10°C in global temperature,” he says. One practical effect of that rise, according to the researcher, would be 55°C temperatures on a normal day in the Amazon—making the region nearly uninhabitable.
In addition to impacts on global warming, deforestation of UPFs would also harm agribusiness in South America. Around 95% of Brazilian agribusiness has no irrigation system and therefore depends on rainfall. For this reason, the Amazon is considered the “sprinkler” of agricultural activity in the country.
Nicknamed the “green ocean” by scientists, the Amazon releases water vapor into the atmosphere through a process similar to what happens over the oceans. This moisture travels across various regions: within the Amazon itself, to the Center-West of Brazil, and even to the La Plata Basin—benefiting Argentina and Uruguay.
“It’s a giant irrigation system on a massive scale. If you lose this function, you stop irrigating a huge area,” Moutinho explains. Deforestation in the forest decreases its ability to transport water and irrigate the rest of the continent.
The lack of allocation of UPFs compromises not only the integrity of the Amazon but also the climate and economic stability of the entire planet. For IPAM, transforming these areas into protected or sustainably productive territories is an environmental, climatic, and social urgency.
Concern over the climate impact of Amazon deforestation has led IPAM to partner with the Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) and Abrampa (the Brazilian Association of Environmental Prosecutors). Both MPF and Abrampa work together with the Institute in the Amazônia Destinada initiative—a multi-institutional effort that aims to support the Brazilian government in reaching the goal of ending deforestation by 2030 and allocating Undesignated Public Forest areas.
According to Moutinho, IPAM contributed to the development of a methodology to calculate the climate damage caused by the illegal destruction of public forests. The carbon calculator developed by the Institute began being used in legal proceedings to estimate the volume of greenhouse gas emissions and the associated economic damage, based on carbon credit monetization parameters used by the Amazon Fund. In 2024, a public civil lawsuit filed by the MPF in the state of Amazonas used the tool to calculate R$ 44.7 million in climate damage caused by the deforestation of over 2,000 hectares in the municipality of Boca do Acre.
“This is the first time a lawsuit has brought to the Judiciary the claim that climate damage is involved in the illegal deforestation of public land,” Moutinho states. The methodology was recognized by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and incorporated into a protocol to guide court decisions on environmental crimes. The goal of IPAM and the Prosecution Office is for judicial systems in other countries to adopt similar tools.
According to Moutinho, Brazil is currently experiencing a “window of opportunity” until 2026 to make progress in this process. Looking ahead, IPAM plans to focus efforts on also supporting the federal government in allocating millions of hectares, precisely because of the benefits these forests bring to climate regulation, water supply, and agribusiness. “And from then on, the work doesn’t end,” he concludes.
*IPAM journalist, anna.rodrigues@ipam.org.br