evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

CONSERV — Twice-Yearly Payments for Legally Clearable Forest, Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado

Brazil · Cuiabá · See the Brazil profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 7% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since 2020, Brazil's CONSERV programme has paid Amazon/Cerrado landowners ~$50-79/hectare twice yearly to conserve legally clearable forest, protecting over 30,000 hectares -- 14,843 verified storing 540,635 tonnes of carbon -- with measurably fewer fires on enrolled land.

30000 ha+
Total avoided legal deforestation
14843 ha
Verified forest area storing carbon
540635 tonnes
Carbon stored (verified)
20707 ha
Pilot area protected (2020-2024) (2020-2024)
23
Properties enrolled (pilot) (2020-2024)
50-79 USD/ha, twice yearly
Payment rate
CONSERV — Twice-Yearly Payments for Legally Clearable Forest, Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), with Woodwell Climate Research Center, Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy Brazil
Period
2020-2024 pilot; 2024-present scaling phase
Keywords
payments for ecosystem services, avoided deforestation, agriculture, carbon

Context

Brazil's Forest Code allows landowners in the Amazon and Cerrado to legally clear a substantial share of native vegetation on private land. CONSERV, led by IPAM with Woodwell Climate Research Center and the Environmental Defense Fund, instead pays landowners not to clear that legally clearable forest.

Objectives

Test whether direct compensation, verified twice yearly by site visits and satellite monitoring, can outcompete the returns from converting forest to pasture or cropland.

Activities

The pilot ran 2020-2024 across 23 properties in Mato Grosso, Pará and Maranhão, protecting 20,707 hectares; ongoing contracts have since added roughly 7,000 more hectares. Payments (~US$50-79/ha, twice yearly) are set by estimated deforestation risk, ecosystem-service value and local land cost, and released only after IPAM verifies enrolled forest remains undisturbed.

Results

Total avoided legal deforestation now exceeds 30,000 hectares. IPAM/Woodwell verified 14,843 hectares storing 540,635 tonnes of carbon. Fire incidents were measurably lower on CONSERV properties than on comparable nearby land. Enrolled landowners self-reported more wildlife sightings and rainfall, but IPAM itself flags these as anecdotal rather than independently measured.

Conclusions

IPAM is explicit that the pilot's donor-funded model (governments of Norway and the Netherlands, now Soft Commodities Forum members) 'is not built to scale,' that 'carbon credits alone would not cover opportunity costs' for landowners, and that Cerrado carbon accounting is methodologically more complex than in the Amazon, meaning wider rollout needs regulatory standardisation of payment calculations.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Per-hectare payments of ~US$50-79 twice yearly plus IPAM/Woodwell verification costs (site visits + satellite monitoring); pilot originally funded by Norway/Netherlands government donations, ongoing contracts by Soft Commodities Forum members.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Pilot 2020-2024 (20,707 ha), scaling phase 2024-present (+~7,000 ha), with twice-yearly verification cycles.
Staffing & skills
IPAM field verification teams (twice-yearly site visits), Woodwell Climate Research Center satellite-monitoring scientists, Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy Brazil partners

Conditions for success

  • independent twice-yearly verification (site visits + satellite) before payment release
  • risk/value/cost-based payment tiering rather than a flat rate
  • diversified long-term funding beyond initial bilateral donor grants

Common failure modes

  • donor-funded pilot model explicitly 'not built to scale' per IPAM
  • carbon credits alone insufficient to cover landowner opportunity costs
  • Cerrado carbon accounting is more methodologically complex than Amazon accounting, complicating wider rollout

Where it fits

Governance type
private-land conservation contracts with NGO-led verification
Scale
sub-national (Mato Grosso, Pará, Maranhão)
Income level
middle-income (Brazil), private landowners

Commonly funded by

LIFE Programme

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

Similar practices you may find useful

★ 73

West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA)

Australia

Aboriginal-owned carbon project in western Arnhem Land: Traditional Owners apply strategic early dry-season burning over 28,000 km2 to reduce late-season …