As climate extremes intensify globally, the urgency to transition to a low-carbon economy incorporating nature-based solutions has never been clearer. In Brazil, the Forest Code¹ serves as a strategic policy framework to facilitate this shift, promoting sustainable economic growth, ensuring environmental protection, and enhancing Brazil’s position as a global leader in sustainable agriculture.
A strategic macroeconomic roadmap, named PlanaFlor², has been developed to turn this vision into reality. It integrates productive agricultural practices with conservation and restoration of native ecosystems³, ensuring sustainable land use, economic vitality, and environmental integrity. This comprehensive approach was designed to stimulate rural employment, entrepreneurship, and long-term prosperity.
With Brazil’s international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement demanding a substantial reduction in deforestation and restoration of at least 12 million hectares of degraded ecosystems, the PlanaFlor roadmap offers a robust framework. It presents 21 strategies and 104 actions focused on zero-deforestation production, ecosystem conservation, and ecological restoration.
It identifies a critical resource: Brazil’s approximately 75 million hectares of degraded pastureland. Of these, 44 million hectares can be rehabilitated into restored forests and productive agricultural and integrated agroforestry systems, while the remaining 31 million hectares can significantly boost livestock productivity through improvements in pastureland. Remarkably, this strategic use of degraded lands alone could fulfil Brazil’s projected agricultural expansion, an additional 17 million hectares and a 10.2% rise in beef production⁴ by 2033/34, without any further deforestation.
Economic modelling conducted for this roadmap clearly illustrates its economic viability, projecting a GDP increase of around BRL 8.2 billion (USD ≈ 1.48 billion) annually. This significantly surpasses the estimated public investment of BRL 2.5 billion (USD ≈ 450 million) per year required to incentivise the transition to sustainable land use practices, primarily through subsidised credit lines⁵. Indeed, most of the needed BRL 55 billion (USD ≈ 9.9 billion) annual investment would be driven by existing private-sector involvement.
The social and environmental returns are equally compelling:
- Creation of at least 2.5 million direct and indirect jobs in restoration and sustainable agriculture.
- Improved livelihoods for 2.6 million family farmers across 11.4 million hectares.
- Implementation of low-carbon agriculture across 31.7 million hectares.
- Protection of 110 million hectares of native vegetation.
- Restoration of 12 million hectares of degraded lands.
- Avoidance or sequestration of 25 gigatonnes of CO₂.
- An estimated BRL 35 billion (USD ≈ 6.30 billion) annual revenue potential from environmental markets.
Moreover, the roadmap shows that proactively preserving ecosystem services⁶ could generate benefits valued at more than BRL 5 trillion (USD ≈ 899 billion). This significantly mitigates costs from climate-related disasters such as floods, fires, landslides, and crop failures, underscoring the principle that preservation is far more cost-effective than remediation.
Beyond these figures, PlanaFlor underscores an often-overlooked truth: preservation is more cost-effective than recovery. The cascading social and economic losses from disasters like the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, the fires in the Pantanal, and the crop failures driven by droughts and heatwaves make clear that resilience must be built into development planning.
The Forest Code is more than a regulatory obligation. It is an opportunity to recalibrate Brazil’s rural economy, boosting productivity, attracting investment, creating jobs, and protecting critical ecosystems. However, to realise this potential, implementation cannot be left to chance. It emphasises a transformative approach to land use, proving that safeguarding environmental integrity enhances economic prosperity, social wellbeing, and global climate resilience.
Footnotes:
¹ Brazilian Forest Code: Law nº 12.651, May 25, 2012.
² The roadmap, titled PlanaFlor, was developed by BVRio, Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS), Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), and Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF-Brazil). More information: www.planaflor.org.
³ Native vegetation and associated ecosystem services.
⁴ MAPA – Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply. 2024. Agribusiness Projections: Brazil 2023/24 to 2033/34. Long-term Projections, Agricultural Policy Secretariat.
⁵ Subsidised interest rates for sustainable activities, as stipulated in Article 41 of the Forest Code.
⁶ Non-timber forest products, erosion control, water regulation, bioprospecting, habitat for species, and pollination.
