Amazon deforestation: Drivers, damages, and policies

This review discusses the economic drivers, the environmental damages, and the policies enacted to fight Amazon deforestation. It provides key statistics about conservation in the nine Amazon countries, and discusses the underlying causes leading to forest destruction in the region. Economic exploitation of the forest generates profits, but forest destruction creates harm on global, regional, and local levels. The global harm is the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change. Regional damage is due to the impact of deforestation on rainfall, and the impact of forest fires on air pollution. On a local level, deforestation destroys ecosystem services, and mining activities pollute water bodies. The chapter proposes a typology of conservation policies: bans on deforestation, financial incentives, land tenure regulations, market access, sustainable practices, and indirect instruments. It discusses examples of policies and reviews impact evaluations. • Amazon deforestation has different economic drivers depending on the country, from cattle-ranching to palm cultivation. • Brazil has deforested much more than its neighboring countries. • Several policy evaluations in the Amazon have shed light on the effectiveness of conservation instruments.