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This work aims to evaluate alternatives to conciliate economic growth and the Amazon preservation. For this, we measured the economic costs to preserve the Brazilian Amazon by simulating a zero-deforestation policy. We also evaluate the scenario of deforestation in Brazil in the last decades. We observed a marked growth in deforestation starting in 2014. However, in the last two years, such growth has been even more expressive, which shows the urgency of thinking in multiple ways for the problem of deforestation in the Amazon Biome. Through an economic model for Brazil, we simulated a shock on land use, which shows that there are negative effects on economic dynamism in the Amazon region and that, through a spillover effect, there may be even higher rates of greenhouse gas emissions. This work also shows that the problem of deforestation in the Amazon does not mean only the issue of reducing deforestation rates, but that it must be accompanied by a serious and plural policy aiming to reduce regional inequalities. Finally, a public and private effort is needed so that sustainable practices become more widespread and information about the importance of maintaining the forest standing and conserving the biome can be disseminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas (PAs) are a widely used strategy for conserving forests and ecosystem services. When PAs succeed in deterring economic activities that degrade forests, the impacts include more forest yet less economic gain. These economic opportunity costs of conservation lead actors with economic interests to resist new PAs, driving their sites away from profitable market centers and towards areas featuring lower opportunity costs. Further, after PAs are created, economic actors may want PA downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (collectively PADDD). We examine reductions in PAs' spatial extent – downsizings (partial erasures) and degazettements (complete erasures) − that presumably reduce protection. Using data for the entire Brazilian Amazon from PADDDtracker.org , our empirical analyses explore whether size reductions from 2006 to 2015 resulted from bargaining between development and conservation. We find that the risks of PA size reductions are raised by: lower travel costs (as implied by distances to roads and cities), which affect economic gains and enforcement; greater PA size, which affects enforcement; and more prior internal deforestation, which lowers the impacts of size reductions. These dynamics of protection offer insights on the potentially conflicting factors that lead to PA size reductions, with implications for policymaking to enhance PA effectiveness and permanence. • We assess how factors in agencies' payoffs have affected PA size reductions across the Brazilian Amazon from 2006 to 2015. • We examine events in PADDDtracker.org Data Release Version 1.1 using relevant measures of both land and PA characteristics. • Our results suggest size reductions have development and conservation influences, rather than being only development driven. • Size reductions are more common nearer to cities, where PAs have more environmental gains, reflecting development objectives. • Size reductions are more likely given deforestation in PAs (often farther from cities), reflecting conservation objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]