ArticlePNAS nexus2023
Formalizing tenure of Indigenous lands improved forest outcomes in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.
Article in PNAS nexus, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Reviewing the science on 50 years of conservation: Knowledge production biases and lessons for practice.Ambio · 2024Pooled it
- When does higher credit lower forest area? Amazon contexts change credit's impacts.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The importance of Indigenous Lands and landscape structure in shaping the zoonotic disease risk-Insights from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Land tenure regimes influenced long-term restoration gains and reversals across Brazil's Atlantic forest.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Socio-economic and environmental trade-offs in Amazonian protected areas and Indigenous territories revealed by assessing competing land uses.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Across the globe, the legal land rights and tenure of many Indigenous peoples are yet to be recognized. A growing body of research demonstrates that tenure of Indigenous lands improves livelihoods and protects forests in addition to inherently recognizing human rights. However, the effect of tenure on environmental outcomes has scarcely been tested in regions with high development pressure, such as those with persisting forest-agriculture conflicts. In this paper, we conduct an event study and a difference-in-differences analysis to estimate the average treatment effect of land tenure on forest cover change for 129 Indigenous lands in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil from 1985 to 2019. We found that forest outcomes in Indigenous lands improved following tenure compared to pretenure and that forest outcomes improved in tenured compared to nontenured lands. We also found that formalized tenure, rather than incomplete tenure, was necessary to improve forest outcomes. Our study is the first rigorous analysis of the effect of tenure on Indigenous lands in the globally important Atlantic Forest biome and contributes to a growing body of literature on the role of rights-based approaches to conservation. The evidence presented in this study may support efforts to secure the legal rights and autonomy of Indigenous peoples.
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