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2. Dynamics of the Ecosystem of Environmental Crimes in the Brazilian Legal Amazon
- Author:
- Igarapé Institute
- Publication Date:
- 08-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Igarapé Institute
- Abstract:
- The Brazilian Legal Amazon is the site of a complex ecosystem of environmental and related non-environmental crimes that impact both the environment and the people living there. Organized environmental crime contributes in many ways to the destruction and degradation of the forest, significantly accelerating land use changes in the world’s largest tropical forest. The loss of Amazon forest cover is causing irreversible damage to Brazil and the world by accelerating climate change. Despite growing recognition among actors inside and outside the Brazilian state, there is still a lack of systematic and in-depth understanding of the scope, scale, and dynamics of organized environmental crime in the Amazon region. While there has been significant progress in the development of georeferenced information systems to monitor deforestation in the Legal Amazon – an area spanning nine states in the northern region of the country – Brazil lacks data on organized crime to assist the government and society in addressing one of the most significant challenges of our time. In an effort to understand the phenomenon, the Igarapé Institute is launching the Strategic Article Dynamics of the Ecosystem of Environmental Crimes in the Legal Amazon. This article presents an overview of the different crime patterns in the states that make up the Brazilian Amazon based on updated data on Federal Police operations in the region covering 2016 to 2022. This analysis is essential not only to understand the Brazilian State’s efforts in combating organized environmental crime but also to reveal the transnational connections of environmental crime, links between environmental crimes and drug-related offenses, the presence of rural militias, and these crimes in Indigenous Lands.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Police, Indigenous, Militias, Organized Crime, Deforestation, and Environmental Crime
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
3. Inventory of data on economic activity and deforestation in the Amazon Basin
- Author:
- Igarapé Institute
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Igarapé Institute
- Abstract:
- Multiple factors shape land change and land use patterns in the Amazon Basin.This note aims to identify data sources for two specific phenomena: changes in land cover and GHG emissions. It also considers key economic sectors that accelerate deforestation including livestock and agricultural development. To this end, the focus is on available data sources across three countries with an analysis of their geographic scope, depth of detail, and the frequency and periodicity with which they are reported.
- Topic:
- Security, Climate Change, Environment, Economy, Carbon Emissions, and Deforestation
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
4. Connecting the Dots: Territories and Trajectories of Environmental Crime in the Brazilian Amazon and Beyond
- Author:
- Laura Trajber Waisbich and Terine Husek
- Publication Date:
- 07-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Igarapé Institute
- Abstract:
- A new study by the Igarapé institute analyzing more than 300 Federal Police operations between 2016 and 2021 found that environmental crime in the Amazon region is not only organized but far more than a local problem. Indeed, this vertibable criminal ecosystem behind Amazon plunder has expanded nationwide, reaching 24 of Brazil’s 27 states as well as neighboring nations. According to the study “Connecting the Dots: Territories and Trajectories of Environmental Crime in the Brazilian Amazon and Beyond”, published Wednesday July 20, the federal operations flagged criminal networks in 846 venues across Brazil and the region. This article is the latest in our series “Mapping Environmental Crime in the Amazon Basin.” The police ops focused largely on the nine states comprising Brazil’s Legal Amazon region, where spreading criminal activities took investigators to 197 municipalities, representing 75% of total interventions. Police also targeted environmental crimes in 57 Brazilian municipalities outside the Amazon region, and another eight cities in neighboring countries. The Federal Police interventions were triggered by unchecked deforestation associated with a variety of unlawful economic activities, from outright crimes to nominally licit market activity tainted by crime. These include illegal timber extraction, illicit mining (especially gold), land grabbing and predatory farming and ranching. This criminal network was first explored in Igarapé’s strategic paper, published earlier this year, “The Ecosystem of Environmental Crime in Amazonia: An Analysis of Illicit Economies in the Forest.” The current study takes a deeper dive into the widening criminal nexus that undergirds environmental crimes and related offenses, including illegal money flows, tax evasion, corruption, fraud and criminal violence.
- Topic:
- Crime, Environment, Law Enforcement, Deforestation, and Illicit Financial Flows
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin
5. Technology Solutions for Supply Chain Traceability in the Brazilian Amazon: Opportunities for the Financial Sector
- Author:
- Brodie Ferguson, Julia Sekula, and Ilona Szabo de Carvalho
- Publication Date:
- 08-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Igarapé Institute
- Abstract:
- The Amazon is reaching a point that may be irreversible, in which its biome, and with it the global climate, will suffer irreparable damage, negatively impacting not only local communities, but also entire regions and industries. In this article, the Igarapé Institute analyzes challenges around illegal deforestation and recommends measures that, when supported and adopted by financial institutions, will have a rapid, effective and large-scale impact on the control of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. To this end, the article analyzes current practices in standards and benchmarking for soy farming, livestock and timber extraction. Although the financial sector has started the process of adopting policies against deforestation, few institutions make them mandatory for loan contracts or actively monitor them. This article also highlights some of the key technologies that support greater traceability of the supply chains needed to measure progress on ESG metrics. Remote sensing, big data and artificial intelligence now offer unprecedented ability to track specific environmental impacts of properties, licenses and concessions.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy, Science and Technology, Finance, Data, Supply Chains, and Deforestation
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Latin America, and Amazon Basin
6. Environmental Crime in the Amazon Basin: A Typology for Research, Policy and Action
- Author:
- Adriana Abdenur, Brodie Ferguson, Ilona Szabo de Carvalho, Melina Risso, and Robert Muggah
- Publication Date:
- 08-2020
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Igarapé Institute
- Abstract:
- According to the world’s top scientific experts, deforestation and degradation are up 25 percent in the first six months compared to last year. More forests are being cleared in 2020 than at any point in the past 15 years. Although spectacular levels of illegal burning have occupied global headlines, a host of other less visible but equally significant environmental crimes are being committed throughout the Amazon basin every day. Such crimes not only impact biodiversity and the global climate, but are virtually always associated with social ills ranging from corruption to slavery and violence. A new paper from the Igarape Institute – Environmental Crime in the Amazon Basin: a Typology for Research, Policy and Action – introduces a typology to help better understand the scope and scale of the problem and its extensive social and environmental impacts. To date, one of the principal barriers to better policing of the Amazon is the confusion and ambiguity of what is, and is not, a crime. Different countries apply different interpretations which can frustrate investigations and the enforcement of existing laws. The new paper is designed to provide greater clarity to policy makers, law enforcement agencies, civil society actors, and companies committed to curbing environmental crime.
- Topic:
- Crime, Environment, Public Policy, Ecology, and Deforestation
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, Latin America, and Amazon Basin
7. Modeling Amazon Deforestation for Policy Purposes
- Author:
- Clive W. J. Granger and Lykke E. Andersen
- Publication Date:
- 10-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
- Abstract:
- Brazil has long ago removed most of the perverse government incentives that stimulated massive deforestation in the Amazon in the 70s and 80s, but one highly controversial policy remains: Road building. While data is now abundantly available due to the constant satellite surveillance of the Amazon, the analytical methods typically used to analyze the impact of roads on natural vegetation cover are methodologically weak and not very helpful to guide public policy. This paper discusses the respective weaknesses of typical GIS analysis and typical municipality level regression analysis, and shows what would be needed to construct an ideal model of deforestation processes. It also presents an alternative approach that is much less demanding in terms of modeling and estimation and more useful for policy makers as well.
- Topic:
- Environment, Infrastructure, Econometrics, and Deforestation
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and Amazon Basin
8. Small Producer Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Integrating Household Structure and Economic Circumstance in Behavioral Explanation
- Author:
- Marcellus Caldas, Robert Walker, and Stephen Perz
- Publication Date:
- 10-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- This study examines the impact household structure and economic circumstances on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It presents the results of an analysis conducted at property level, using both survey data and information derived from remote sensing. Regression analyses and spatial autocorrelation tests are given, following a theoretical development integrating notions of the household economy with von Thünen. The results from the empirical model indicate that social and demographic characteristics of households, as well as institutional and market factors, affect land use decisions. Thus, aggregate studies and spatially explicit models that do not include household information may be subject to specification bias.
- Topic:
- Economics, Deforestation, Remote Sensing, and Behavioral Modeling
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin