Forest Governance without Transparency? Evaluating state efforts to reduce deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Over 60% of the Amazon basin is contained within nine federal Brazilian states. How transparent are state‐level governments about implementing and enforcing deforestation reduction policies? Advocates and officials can only influence forest conservation outcomes to the extent that they have information about the actions – the inputs and outputs – of front‐line local actors. Leveraging a recently adopted freedom of information (FOI) law, this paper evaluates how well governments comply with website‐based disclosure requirements (active transparency), and how effectively they respond to FOI requests (passive transparency) on the implementation and enforcement of deforestation reduction policies. By focusing on how subnational administrations disclose accountings of forest governance – the inputs and outputs of governance – the current study complements an already extensive body of scholarship on central government monitoring of forest cover – the transparency of outcomes. Comparing our results with an original database of transparency evaluations from Brazil, we find extremely low levels of compliance with FOI obligations. We do find, however, that government agencies possessing electronic FOI platforms, which help applicants send requests and appeals and accompany responses, fare better than those without. This and other findings have implications for the design of transparency systems, while global results speak to the policy challenges of federalism, especially dilemmas of subnational policy enforcement. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Googling the requester: Identity‐questing and discrimination in public service provision

“…Even though this study advances no causal estimation for the impact of channels in the sending of requests, it is worth noting that Web-based FOI request-and-response platforms were significantly correlated with FOI compliance, as expected based on previous findings (Bizzo & Michener, 2017;Michener et al, 2018). These results indicate that sending requests through a specific access to information platform is associated with a 27% increase (SE = 0.04; p < .01) in the probability of receiving a compliant response, as compared to requests submitted through an agency's e-mail.…”

“…We assume that the difference in our sample—which represents Brazil's largest cities—generally has to do with commitments to FOI (Michener et al, ). According to evidence presented by Bizzo and Michener () and Michener et al (), responsiveness is significantly higher where municipalities have implemented a Web‐based request‐and‐response platform. Thus, we included this variable in order to control for this effect.…”

Challenges in Using Earth Observation (EO) Data to Support Environmental Management in Brazil

“…What would seem to be required are efficient ways in which the barriers to cooperation and transparency could best be addressed. In a study about forest governance and transparency in public institutions and state agencies in the Amazon region, Bizzo and Michener [31] noted poor governance outcomes (passive transparency) and weak compliance with environmental open-data obligations and policies and with expenditures and procurement practices of government agencies.…”

Putting in Check the Brazilian Moves in the Climate Chessboard

“…Regardless of the perspective, it is a fact that the regional view allows including sub-regions (e.g., the Amazon, Andes, Meso-America, the Caribbean) or more local contexts into consideration, as done by Faria and Magrini (2016), Viana et al (2016), Davenport et al (2017), Bizzo and Michener (2017) and Gebara et al (2019). However, the purpose of this paper is to look at areas barely discussed in the LA regional context.…”