The Amazon basin contains the largest continuous area of tropical rainforests in the world, and has a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate1. Rates of tropical-rainforest deforestation and the impacts of fire and drought there are well established2,3. Less is known, however, about how these factors might interact to affect biodiversity, and about the role that forest policy and its enforcement have had over time. Writing in Nature, Feng et al.4 address these issues.
Unmasking the impunity of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: a call for enforcement and accountability
Unmasking the impunity of illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: a call for enforcement and accountability
Our results reveal an extremely low number (1.3%) of enforcement actions in deforested areas, warning that impunity can undermine the expected dissuasive effect against environmental crime in Amazon.