Environmental licensing system of rural property (SLAPR) was implemented in the State of Mato Grosso in 2000, within a process of decentralization of forest policy to subnational states. The main objective of SLAPR was the reduction of illegal deforestation in the State, and this has caused a lot of enthusiasm among public managers at that time. This article analyzed the results of deforestation occurred within the system, as well as the level of its regularization that this policy could cause in the state until 2007. It was used geoprocessing tools, extracting licensed properties data (until 2006) and deforestation dynamics (2000-2007) from SEMA -MT (Secretary of State of Mato Grosso for the Environment). In addition, documents stating the number of authorized deforestation during the period were used. Among the results it was found that system licensed, in that period, mostly large properties (1500 ha average), existing high level of deforestation allowances. A total of 1,420,500.50 hectares were cleared on farms throughout the state of Mato Grosso in the period 2000 to 2007, representing an increase of 32% accumulated in the previous period, from 1995 to 1999. Most of this deforestation had legal authorization. Also was concluded that there was deforestation in legal reserve within the licensed properties, even though such breach was minor in relation to properties outside the system. The deforestation allowance fell down drastically after 2005, showing that system was most effective when the whole state had performed high levels of deforestation and higher deforestation polygons. The study addressed to the necessity of being careful on numerical data analysis about the deforestation control by SLAPR, indicating in which aspects that enthusiasm could be confirmed or not, and addressing the traps and difficulties of this kind of instrument of environmental public policies.
Deforestation; environmental policy; rural licensing; sustainability
