Eroding resilience of deforestation interventions — evidence from Brazil’s lost decade

Abstract Brazil once set the example for curtailing deforestation with command and control policies, but, in last decade, these interventions have gone astray. Environmental research policy today are largely informed by earlier successes of interventions, but not their recent failures. Here, we investigate resilience interventions. We discuss how trend reversal came to be, what its implications design future policies are. use newly compiled information on environmental fines an econometric model show that enforcement has become ineffective years. Our results add empirical evidence studies documenting erosion institutions responsible forest protection, highlight considerable impacts this erosion. Future efforts sustainable protection should be aimed at strengthening institutions, spreading responsibilities, redistributing common value forests via incentive-based systems.