Floresta+ Amazônia — Brazil's National Payment for Environmental Services Programme

In January 2021 Brazil enacted Lei no. 14.119/2021, creating the National Policy for Payment for Environmental Services (PNPSA), a Federal Programme for Payment for Environmental Services (PFPSA), and a National Registry of Payment for Environmental Services (CNPSA) - the country's first legal framework for a nationwide, federally run payment-for-ecosystem-services scheme. Its flagship initiative, Floresta+ Amazonia, is run by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA) with UNDP Brazil as implementing partner and US$96 million in financing from the Green Climate Fund, paying smallholder and family farmers directly for conserving standing native vegetation across nine states of the Legal Amazon.

More than 1,200 family farmers are registered across roughly 80 municipalities, including over 730 families from agrarian-reform settlements; government figures put cumulative reach at around 15,000 people region-wide. In its first disbursement round (May 2025) the programme paid R$2.2 million (about US$400,000) to 217 farmers - 39% of them women, and more than 80% of family-farmer applicants identifying as Black or Brown - for conserving nearly 12,000 hectares of native vegetation, with individual payments ranging from R$1,500 to R$28,000 depending on property size and the area of preserved vegetation.

Because payments only began in 2025 and are disbursed in successive rounds against a much larger pool of registered farmers, independent third-party verification of avoided deforestation or long-term additionality has not yet been published - the programme's own and UNDP's reporting are the primary sources for reach and payment figures to date.