Five years ago, a drastic overhaul of Brazil’s principal forest-protection law drew fire from environmental advocates, mainly because it granted a de facto amnesty covering a good deal of illegal land clearing that had occurred in the past. Supporters of the rewritten law argued that a novel provision in the legislation would ensure stronger forest protection in the future—a mandatory land-registration regimen that would facilitate monitoring and enforcement. But according to a recently issued study, the land-registration system’s impact on deforestation is by no means assured. The study, published in July in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official scientific journal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, suggests the land-registration system should have been accompanied... [Log in to read more]