Brazil’s Next Deforestation Frontiers

Public land grabbing, concomitant with hinterland colonization and agrarian reform programs, translocated millions of rural migrants into remote regions Brazil, most recently to the Amazonian forest domain. Despite state-of-the-art command-and-control sensing monitoring systems in effective law enforcement a country ∼8.5 million km 2 remains huge challenge, particularly difficult times lenient central-government environmental policies. Cropland pasture expansion is important factor use change leading driver primary habitat conversion worldwide. This essay discusses likely business-as-usual agricultural frontiers Northern Central Brazil make room for new farmland: MaToPiBa region transitional Cerrado-Caatinga biogeographic zone; northernmost Cerrado areas Amapá; opening-up Indigenous Lands industrial scale agriculture. We discuss origins, recent developments implications conservation these frontiers.