Indigenous land registration cut Amazon deforestation; recent Brazilian rulings reverse course
Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.
Full legal registration of Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon was linked to lower deforestation. In 2025 clearing rose in some territories, and courts and Congress were still disputing the cut-off rule for land claims.
- Soy, cotton and maize farms — hold the Batelão territory land Mongabay
- Natura — bought REDD+ credits from the Paiter Suruí scheme in 2013
- FIFA — bought Paiter Suruí credits to offset 2014 World Cup emissions
- Illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers — lose gains as Indigenous land is protected, per the reviewed material
- Guajajara people — 81 Guajajara were killed in Maranhão between 1991 and 2023, and no perpetrator was prosecuted
- Forest on the Paiter Suruí territory — clearing exceeded the permitted limit by 256% in 2017; the scheme was suspended in 2018
What happened
Baragwanath and Bayi (2020) studied 245 Indigenous territories and found that full legal registration cut annual deforestation at the border from about 3% to about 1%; territories whose registration was incomplete showed no effect.
Funai reported that clearing in Indigenous territories fell 25% in 2025, to 30,128 hectares from 40,178, while clearing in the Batelão territory in Mato Grosso rose from 5.5 to 567 hectares.
In December 2025 the Supreme Court again held the 2023 time-limit law unconstitutional, with one dissenting vote, according to Mayer Brown.
On 9 December 2025 the Senate approved constitutional amendment PEC 48/2023 by 52 votes to 14 and 52 to 15, setting 5 October 1988 as the cut-off date and providing preliminary compensation for occupiers.
In court and with insurers
Lawsuits and rulings
Insurers
What we don't know
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
Record
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: the Supreme Court ruled 9 votes to 2 against the time limit in 2023, and Congress wrote the rule into law a week later.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: the COP30 announcement that ten Indigenous territories would be recognised.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: BenYishay and colleagues (2017) found no measurable effect of recognition, because deforestation was already low in those territories.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: Funai said 297 Indigenous territories would be left unprotected under the 2025 licensing law.
- None on record The Amazonas REDD concessions of May 2024 (21 concessions over 11.9 million hectares, 483 communities not consulted) are in the reviewed material but are not in the happened section.
Did the harm stop?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Who paid?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Sources
Press and investigations
- Mongabay: Funai and MapBiomas deforestation data for Brazil's AmazonMongabay · 2026-06-12
- Mayer Brown: Brazil Supreme Court ruling on the Indigenous time-limit doctrineMayer Brown · 2026-01
- Senado Notícias: PEC on the time-limit doctrine approved in two roundsSenado Federal (Brazil) · 2025-12-09
Connected cases
- Brazil REDD+ forest credits: Suruí project suspended; 2024 Amazonas concessions probed Brazil · 2013–2026
- Brazil's general environmental licensing law: Congress overrides the vetoes Brazil · 2025–2026
- FUNAI (National Indigenous Peoples Foundation) (Public authority) — here: Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency; source of the 2025 clearing figures; there: Indigenous affairs agency whose opinion became advisory