Solving our global climate crisis hinges on doing a number of things right. One is slowing - eventually stopping - deforestation, which now accounts for 15-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To do that we need to know how much stopping deforestation costs and where on the Earth's vast tropical belt it can be done most cost-effectively. With the support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, CSF has designed an "opportunity cost" analysis method that will work at the level of individual farms and single land uses and be scalable up to the level of entire regions.

A study (in Portuguese) led by Marcos Amend of Conservação Estratégica (CSF-Brazil) has calculated the financial incentive that will be needed to change the destructive pattern of cutting a burning forest to open new pasture. The study, "Subsidies for Cattle and Conservation: Estimates for the Municipality of Humaitá," looks at what it would take to encourage landowners to restore degraded pasture instead of clearing forest, focusing on a sprawling territory in the state of Amazonas, one of the main "fronts" of deforestation. The team found that it would cost R$292/hectare/year (US$74/acre/year) to deter deforestation.