Further Reading for Lessons learned from the impact of the Amazon Soy Moratorium

6.1 How does the ASM work to reduce deforestation in the Amazon?

Several factors have been key in determining the effectiveness of the ASM and provide insights that are relevant to efforts to extend zero deforestation commitments to other areas.

First, the ASM was adopted by traders who purchased 90% of the soy produced in the Amazon. This level of market penetration was crucial in ensuring a strong and consistent market signal for compliance and provided protections against leakage.1 A similar level of commitment is needed if agreements are to change the behaviour of purchasers in other regions.

Second, the ASM prohibits the purchase of soy grown on lands cleared after a given cut-off date (originally July 2006, and later revised to July 2008 to align with the cut-off date established in the 2012 revision of Brazil’s Forest Code), as well as prohibiting soy expansion into pastures or other croplands cleared after the cut-off date. In so doing it creates multiple disincentives that help to decrease deforestation in the Amazon. Soy farmers who believe that the ASM will restrict the sale of non-compliant soy are unlikely to invest in the direct or indirect conversion of forests to soy production. And by limiting the expected revenues from future land uses for currently forested lands, the ASM decreases the speculative value of forest clearing for cattle ranchers and other investors.2

Third, the ASM is dependent upon a strong enabling environment and transparent monitoring and enforcement procedures created by public conservation policies.3,4 Monitoring and enforcement is overseen by the soy working group (GTS), a partnership between soy-traders, NGOs and government agencies. Each year, the GTS commissions maps of soy extent in the Amazon and assesses areas of new expansion for overlap with post-2008 deforestation. To link violations to specific actors, the ASM requires that soy producers register their properties in the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). Using a combination of information in the CAR and field visits, the GTS prepares an annual list of farms with ASM violations which soy traders are required to reference to determine whether potential suppliers have violated the ASM.

The 2020 study of the impact of the ASM on deforestation found that post-ASM deforestation declines in the Amazon biome were concentrated in places that were either monitored by the GTS or registered in the CAR. It also found that locations where the ASM was fully monitored and enforced through both property registration in the CAR and GTS observation experienced the greatest reduction in deforestation, highlighting the additive synergies of the agreement, registration and monitoring. By leveraging existing public institutions, the ASM also kept implementation costs down while increasing its credibility among a diversity of stakeholders.5

1 Fraanje, W. & Garnett, T. (2020). Soy: food, feed, and land use change.(Foodsource: Building Blocks). Food Climate Research Network,University of Oxford.
2 Heilmayr, R., Rausch, L. L., Munger, J., & Gibbs, H. K. (2020). Brazil’s Amazon soy moratorium reduced deforestation. Nature Food, 1(12), 801-810.
3 Heilmayr, R., Rausch, L. L., Munger, J., & Gibbs, H. K. (2020). Brazil’s Amazon soy moratorium reduced deforestation. Nature Food, 1(12), 801-810.
4 Gibbs, H. K., Munger, J., L'Roe, J., Barreto, P., Pereira, R., Christie, M., ... & Walker, N. F. (2016). Did ranchers and slaughterhouses respond to zero‐deforestation agreements in the Brazilian Amazon?. Conservation Letters, 9(1), 32-42.
5 Heilmayr, R., Rausch, L. L., Munger, J., & Gibbs, H. K. (2020). Brazil’s Amazon soy moratorium reduced deforestation. Nature Food, 1(12), 801-810.