Researchers examining the finances behind Brazil's protected areas found that Amazon reserves received only about 20 percent of the money they needed to operate, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Conservation. The finding is part of a broader pattern of underfunding that the researchers say is systematically weakening conservation across one of the most biologically diverse countries on earth.
The study looked at 300 federal protected areas covering a combined 289,527 square miles across three ecological zones: the Amazon, a belt of adjacent drylands and savannas, and the Atlantic coastal forest along the country's eastern edge. Researchers based at the Federal University of Amapá, Conservation International Brazil, and the University of Miami analyzed financial data from 2014 to 2023, comparing what each protected area actually received against what it cost to run.
The results showed that 72 percent of Brazil's federal protected areas were underfunded, with a total shortfall of approximately $958 million in 2023 alone. The Amazon faced the largest gap by far. The Atlantic Forest region, which borders heavily urbanized and economically active areas, received roughly 72 percent of its needed funding, more than three times the share flowing to Amazon reserves.
The study found that parks closer to cities and towns consistently received more money, likely because urban populations are better positioned to advocate for nearby protected land. Remote reserves, by contrast, are both the most underfunded and, in many cases, the most ecologically significant.
Despite an overall 30 percent increase in funding across the decade studied, spending did not keep up with the expansion of land placed under protection. A sharp contraction occurred in 2020 and 2021, driven by COVID-19 budget cuts and deliberate rollbacks in environmental policy. Funding recovered only partly in the following two years.
"In a country with high income inequality like Brazil, conservation investments can make a big difference in places with limited traditional economic output, but huge natural capital," said José Maria Cardoso da Silva, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami and one of the study's authors. "If protected areas that are distant from urban centers are fully funded and resources are used locally, a conservation-based economy yoked to genuine social progress can be sparked."
The researchers did not focus solely on the environmental consequences of underfunding. They also pointed to the economic potential that adequately supported reserves could generate for remote communities that currently have few other sources of income.
Brazil is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a global framework that identifies protected areas as central to efforts to slow species loss and preserve essential resources such as water and soil. The study's authors argue that funding levels will need to rise substantially and be distributed more equitably if those commitments are to mean anything in practice.
