Land governance as a precondition for decreasing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

•Land governance is a factor of Brazilian Amazon deforestation control.•Lack of an integrated land cadaster paves the way for land speculation and land grabs.•Recent political shift has generated uncertainties about the future of Brazilian environmental policies. This paper’s aim is to show that improvements in land governance in Brazil, and particularly in the Amazon region, have been the main pre-condition enabling reductions in deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Deforestation occurs primarily where property rights are not clearly established, and occurs mostly on land directly or indirectly under state responsibility. This paper also shows that land speculation plays an important role in deforestation. Based on these findings, it is evident that Brazil must improve its land governance in order to decrease rates of deforestation. The Brazilian government has adopted important new efforts to improve land administration, including improvements in the registration process and the Terra Legal program, which are addressing public land problems across large areas of the Amazon. The concluding section highlights how efforts to reduce deforestation will only be possible through more efficient land governance, especially in the Amazon region, and discusses the important role that participatory land governance may play in improving land use and land ownership through application of land taxes.