Authors: Valette, Michel; Mills, Morena;Woods, Jem;Kountouris, Yiannis;Singh, Minerva;

While ambitious environmental policies have decreased deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon over the 2005-2015 period, wildfires remain common in the region and led to pervasive forest degradation and associated carbon emissions. The authors developed a spatiotemporal model using Bayesian inferences for assessing the drivers of fire regimes in the State of Pará for the period 2006-2020. Agricultural land use, ranching, deforestation and rural settlements supporting the agrarian reforms were the most prominent drivers of fire regimes. While indigenous land and integrally protected areas (IUCN categories I to III) strongly inhibit fire occurrence, sustainable use areas (IUCN categories IV to VI) slightly favour fire occurrence. Among other inhibitory effects were the percentage of rainforest cover, the intensity of law enforcement efforts, budget to institutions charged with environmental protection, and also the intensity of beef ranching plausibly because of the higher asset value of agricultural land. Results suggest that maintaining a large tract of indigenous land and integrally protected areas, and supporting local landholders switch towards more intensive and less fire-dependant agricultural systems, are essential for reducing forest degradation in the Brazilian Amazon.