Who owns Brazilian lands?

Gerd Sparovek, Bastiaan Philip Reydon, Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, Vinicius Faria, Flavio Luiz Mazzaro de Freitas, Claudia Azevedo-Ramos, Toby Gardner, Caio Hamamura, Raoni Rajão, Felipe Cerignoni, Gabriel Pansani Siqueira, Tomás Carvalho, Ane Alencar and Vivian Ribeiro

Land Use Policy, 2019, vol. 87, issue C

Abstract: Land tenure in many parts of Brazil remains uncertain and controversial. These problems have recently been exacerbated by changes in the legal framework regulating protected areas and the land market. A particular challenge facing attempts to improve land tenure security and governance in Brazil is the lack of a single, integrated assessment of all types of lands. Here we address this problem and present a first, integrated map of Brazilian land tenure encompassing all official data sources pertaining to both public and private lands. Of the total (8.5 million km2) 36.1% of all lands are public (with 6.4% officially undesignated), 44.2% are private, and 16.6% are unregistered or with unknown tenure. Strikingly, overlaps among land tenure categories sum to 50% of the registered territory of Brazil. A clearer understanding of uncertainties in land tenure, and the spatial distribution of those uncertainties can help guide research and public policies focused on minimizing land conflicts and strengthening governance and territorial planning to improve economic, environmental and social outcomes from land use in Brazil.

Keywords: Brazil; Governance; Land tenure; Policy; Territorial planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:87:y:2019:i:c:s0264837719304077

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104062

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