In this paper, we draw on common-pool resource theory to argue that indigenous territories, when granted full property rights, will be effective at curbing deforestation. Using satellite data, we test the effect of property rights on deforestation between 1982 and 2016. In order to identify causal effects, we combine a regression discontinuity design with the orthogonal timing of homologation. We find that observations inside territories with full property rights show a significant decrease in deforestation, while the effect does not exist in territories without full property rights. While these are local average treatment effects, our results suggest that not only do indigenous territories serve a human-rights role, but they are a cost-effective way for governments to preserve their forested areas. First, obtaining full property rights is crucial to recognize indigenous peoples’ original right to land and protect their territories from illegal deforestation. Second, when implemented, indigenous property rights reduce deforestation inside indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest, and could provide an important positive externality for Brazil and the rest of the world in terms of climate change mitigation.

Forests serve a crucial role in our fight against climate change. Secondary forests provide important potential for conservation of biodiversity and climate change mitigation. In this paper, we explore whether collective property rights in the form of indigenous territories (ITs) lead to higher rates of secondary forest growth in previously deforested areas. We exploit the timing of granting of property rights, the geographic boundaries of ITs and two different methods, regression discontinuity design and difference-in-difference, to recover causal estimates. We find strong evidence that indigenous territories with secure tenure not only reduce deforestation inside their lands but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas. After receiving full property rights, land inside ITs displayed higher secondary forest growth than land outside ITs, with an estimated effect of 5% using our main RDD specification, and 2.21% using our difference-in-difference research design. Furthermore, we estimate that the average age of secondary forests was 2.2 y older inside ITs with secure tenure using our main RDD specification, and 2.8 y older when using our difference-in-difference research design. Together, these findings provide evidence for the role that collective property rights can play in the push to restore forest ecosystems.

Protected areas are a cornerstone of global conservation policy, yet those located in remote regions are often viewed as inefficient because they protect forests under little immediate threat. This view assumes static institutions and stable land-use patterns. We show instead that the conservation value of protected areas is dynamic and can rise sharply when environmental governance weakens and deforestation pressure expands. Studying Brazil’s Amazon rainforest during two major institutional shocks—the 2012 Forest Code reform and the 2019–2022 Bolsonaro administration—we find that protected areas prevented large increases in deforestation during periods of institutional decline. Using quasi-experimental evidence from 2004 to 2022, we show that deforestation surged outside protected areas but remained stable within them, particularly in remote regions. Areas previously considered non-additional thus revealed a latent conservation value, functioning as critical buffers against governance erosion. These findings have important implications for global conservation strategies and 30×30 commitments.

Protected areas foster biodiversity and ecosystem preservation while contributing to climate change mitigation, thereby providing global public goods while generating costs for those competing locally for land use. We study Latin America between 1960 and 2016, a period of regime variation when democracy coincided with the expansion of protected land shifting its focus from territorial consolidation to biodiversity protection. Following a case study literature on civil society coalitions and state allies, we provide systematic evidence of democracy's association with both land conservation and its location in areas of higher biodiversity. We link this relationship to democracy's impact on civil society openness, which allows the emergence of conservation coalitions and increases their policy influence, despite resistance from extractive interests.  

Command-and-control policies are effective at reducing deforestation in the Amazon, but remain vulnerable to political influence. This paper examines how interest groups shape an environmental agency's ability to monitor forest use and sanction violators. I propose agencies have their own enforcement capacity, the product of an agency's territorial presence and access to technology. I argue that two interest groups, agribusiness actors and environmental transnational advocacy networks (TANs), can shape a forestry agency's enforcement capacity. Agribusiness actors use economic and political power to shape the supply of politicians through lobbying and coalitional channels, weakening enforcement capacity. TANs provide resources and technical support, enabling bureaucrats to bypass political constraints. I test this theory in the Brazilian Amazon, combining over 30 interviews with a municipality-year dataset from 2000 to 2023 and the annual location of field offices from 1990 to 2023. Sanctions in high-pressure municipalities held steady as agribusiness consolidated as a legislative force in 2011, and fell sharply once agribusiness entered the executive's core coalition in 2019 and TANs were repressed. Enforcement capacity is what links interest groups to this outcome. Employing a difference-in-differences framework, I find that field office closures reduced all types of sanctions in exposed municipalities, and that closures did not optimize for deforestation coverage: remaining field offices could have covered 14 percentage points more deforestation hotspots. Leveraging a 2011 upgrade from biweekly to daily satellite imagery and quasi-random variation in cloud cover, I find that unusually clear municipalities received more sanctions after 2011, with the largest effects where field offices are nearby.