The Green Grant Program (Bolsa Verde, Portuguese) is a socioeconomic and environmental program that offers an income transfer to families who commit to taking care of the region where they live, using natural resources in a sustainable way and preserving the forest, in addition to helping with the monitoring and protection work of these areas. In addition to payments, they will have access to technical assistance actions, socio-environmental rural extension, environmental conservation and socio-productive inclusion (MMA).
- Payment preferably made to women;
- "Active Search" for potential beneficiaries to include eligible families who have not signed the Green Grant Program Adhesion Agreement;
- Priority access to the benefit for extractivist populations, riverine communities and artisanal fishermen;
- Focused on low-income families that carry out environmental conservation activities in in the following areas: national forests, extractive reserves and federal sustainable development reserves, forest settlement projects, sustainable development projects or agro-extractive settlement projects established by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), occupied territories by riverside dwellers, extractivists, indigenous populations, quilombolas and other traditional communities and other rural areas, indicated by the Green Grant Program Management Committee and defined by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA);
- Priority will be given to families who, at the time of joining, are beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família Program. The subsequent withdrawal of the beneficiary from the Bolsa Família Program will not imply automatic exclusion of the family from the Green Grant Program.
The programme supports around 56.2 families living in 462 areas, mainly in the Amazon region, spread across 109 municipalities in the states of Acre, Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará, Pernambuco and Rondônia. In addition to quarterly payments, families have access to technical assistance, socio-environmental rural extension, environmental conservation and socio-productive inclusion initiatives (2025).
The Green Grant Program pays quarterly R$600,00 to families or R$ 2,400.00 family/year (benefit) + R$ 4,000.00 family/year (Technical Assistance and Rural Extension).
Multisectoral and inter-federative governance. It involves the coordination of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), the participation of other ministries (Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger-MDS; Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture-MDA; Ministry of Planning and Budget-MPO; Ministry of Finance-MF and Civil House) at national level.
In the Management Committee, the work of the management bodies of the areas covered (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform-INCRA and Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBIO).
The role of the municipalities at local level in managing the ([[Brazil:Single Registry|Single Registry]]) and supporting the accession of eligible families, and the participation of community associations and social movements in supporting the local management of the program and updating the list of beneficiary families in the territories.
CAIXA bank acts as the paying agent for the program, under the management of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, responsible for the direct transfer of financial resources to pay benefits.
Bolsa Verde Program's official WhatsApp channel: The official app for the Federal Government’s environmental subsidy programme is Bolsa Verde. It enables families living in extreme poverty in rural areas who are committed to preserving the environment to check whether they are eligible for the benefit and to view the dates and status of their payments (which are quarterly payments of R$ 600.00). You can download the app officially from your mobile’s app store: Android: Download via Google Play. iOS (iPhone): Download via the App Store. To use the app, the head of the household must be registered on the Gov.br system and with CadÚnico.
The Green Grant program has been contributing to food security, improved living conditions and income for beneficiary families, by encouraging environmental conservation activities and strengthening productive activities based on the sustainable use of biodiversity.
Pay for Performance and Deforestation: Evidence from Brazil (2018) (Wong et al., 2026)
Using a 2005–2015 spatial panel of Priority Areas in the Brazilian Amazon and staggered-adoption-robust difference-in-differences estimators, this study finds that full Bolsa Verde coverage reduced the annual deforestation share by up to 0.20 percentage points, with the sample's average coverage level of 40% of households corresponding to a 0.08 percentage-point reduction, about a third of the post-programme mean in untreated areas. The program also reduced the average and maximum sizes of deforestation patches by 8% and 16%. Effects were concentrated in unpopulated and unregistered land, indicating Bolsa Verde deterred external actors such as loggers rather than changing beneficiaries' own land use. Fines in Bolsa Verde areas occurred farther from satellite deforestation alerts and from cities, without any rise in total fines issued, suggesting beneficiaries fed information to enforcement agencies beyond satellite reach. A cost-effectiveness analysis put avoided emissions at 8.3 million tonnes of CO2 (2012–2015), valued at roughly 2.8 times total programme cost.
Green Basic Income: Evaluating the Bolsa Verde Project in the Brazilian Amazon (MacNeill and Drummond, 2025)
This paper analyzes the Bolsa Verde Program (BVP) - an income support and environmental conservation program that served Traditional Communities in the Brazilian Amazon from 2011 to 2017. The program is being re-instituted, initially to 30,000 beneficiary families, in 2024 (Paraguassu 2023). The paper’s central argument is that the BVP was a de facto Green Basic Income (GBI) experiment that was successful in reducing deforestation while providing poverty relief. As such, the BVP was likely the only largescale actually-implemented GBI in the world, and therefore provides a unique opportunity to explore the relations between basic income and environmental protection. We hope that the insights provided in this analysis will aid in the program’s re-institution as a de facto GBI program and will also provide an important contribution to research on the relationship between basic income and the environment.
Cost-effective climate mitigation via conservation incentives targeting poverty: Bolsa Verde's impact in Brazilian Amazonia settlements (2022) (Costedoat et al., 2022)
The Bolsa Verde Program has contributed to decrease the average annual deforestation rate by 0.15% in enrolled settlements of the Amazonia between 2011 and 2017. The Bolsa Verde Program avoided a total of of approximately 80,000 hectares of forest loss and this represents a reduction of 35 megatons fewer CO2 emissions over the program’s duration. The benefits of the Bolsa Verde Program (monetized based on the cost per carbon emission avoided) outweighed its costs, with an estimated average cost of USD 1.77 per avoided ton of CO2. Monetizing emissions avoidance in settlements yields a value over three times the program cost in this region, even without considering any of the environmental or socioeconomic co-benefits.
References
Costedoat, S., Pfaff, A., Coutinho, B., & Mascia, M. (2022). Cost-effective climate mitigation via conservation incentives targeting poverty: Bolsa Verde’s impact in Brazilian Amazonia settlements [Preprint]. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2122112/v1
MacNeill, T., & Drummond, C. (2025). Green basic income: Evaluating the Bolsa Verde project in the Brazilian Amazon. Basic Income Studies, 20(1), 125–149. https://doi.org/10.1515/bis-2023-0031
Wong, P. Y., Kuralbayeva, K., Anderson, L. O., Pessôa, A. C. M., & Harding, T. (2026). Individual pay for collective performance: Evidence from deforestation in Brazil. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 138, Article 103308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2026.103308
Evaluation by stakeholders, during the resumption of the Green Grant Program in 2023:
- Strengthening local governance: A pressing need given the current weakening of management in conservation units. Set collective conservation targets in the territories, involve communities in environmental monitoring and in updating the beneficiary register. Think the role of councils in managing the program. Strengthen community-based organizations and establish local commitments related to environmental conservation. Promote the socio-political empowerment of beneficiaries.
- Beneficiary management: Problems with the criteria for who does and does not receive the benefit, which ends up generating distortions in the communities, causing individual logic to prevail.
- Moving towards the concept of Payment for Environmental Services: Reconciling the individual logic of paying the benefit with strengthening the territories. Associating the value of the benefit with the value of the territories. Think about a bank of projects to be implemented in partnership with the associations.
- Monitoring: Think about other types of monitoring, in addition to monitoring vegetation cover. Think about participatory methodologies. Monitoring biodiversity and local production.
- Beneficiary Training Program: Technical Assistance and Rural Extension and Pronatec Green Grant, environmental education (including on marine waste, sanitation, etc.), favoring critical training.
- Territory management: strengthen the Concession Contracts for Real Rights of Use (CCDRU). Think about including territories other than Settlement Projects and Conservation Units (UCs). Consider the Sustainable Use Authorization Term (TAUS) model as an instrument for expanding the program to other areas, such as riverside communities in floodplain areas. Consider including full protection Conservation Units, given the legal recognition of resident communities.
As lessons learned from the Green Grant Program until 2017:
Making sense of multilevel governance and governance coordination in Brazil: The case of the Bolsa Verde Programme (2018) studied the implementation and governance process of the Green Grant Program until 2017. They pointed out:
- The Green Grant Program implementation process had a logic of accelerated expansion, aimed at increasing the number of families served, even before adding a structured logic to the environmental component of the program theory that supported Green Grant Program;
- The implementation process would have been more rushed and directed in a more technocratic manner - particularly in comparison with other social policies such as the Bolsa Família Program;
- The monitoring methodology was developed only after the program had been implemented.
SDG 1 - No poverty
- Target 1.1 - By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day.
- Indicator 1.1.1 - Proportion of the population living below the international poverty line by sex, age, employment status and geographical location (urban/rural)
- Target 1.2 - By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
- Indicator 1.2.1 - Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age
- Indicator 1.2.2 - Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
- Target 1.3 - Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable.
- Indicator 1.3.1 - Proportion of population covered by social protection floors/systems, by sex, distinguishing children, unemployed persons, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, newborns, work-injury victims and the poor and the vulnerable.
SDG 2 - Zero hunger
- Target 2.1 - By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
- Indicator 2.1.1 - Prevalence of undernourishment
- Indicator 2.1.2 - Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)
- Target 2.2 - By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.
- Indicator 2.2.1 - Prevalence of stunting (height for age <-2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age
- Indicator 2.2.2 - Prevalence of malnutrition (weight for height >+2 or <-2 standard deviation from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age, by type (wasting and overweight)
- Indicator 2.2.3 - Prevalence of anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years, by pregnancy status (percentage).
SDG 1 – No poverty
- Target 1.1 – By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day.
- Indicator 1.1.1 – Proportion of the population living below the international poverty line by sex, age, employment status and geographical location (urban/rural)
- Target 1.2 – By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
- Indicator 1.2.1 – Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age
- Indicator 1.2.2 – Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions
- Target 1.3 – Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable.
- Indicator 1.3.1 – Proportion of population covered by social protection floors/systems, by sex, distinguishing children, unemployed persons, older persons, persons with disabilities, pregnant women, newborns, work-injury victims and the poor and the vulnerable.
SDG 2 – Zero hunger
- Target 2.1 – By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
- Indicator 2.1.1 – Prevalence of undernourishment
- Indicator 2.1.2 – Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)
- Target 2.2 – By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.
- Indicator 2.2.1 – Prevalence of stunting (height for age <-2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age
- Indicator 2.2.2 – Prevalence of malnutrition (weight for height >+2 or <-2 standard deviation from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age, by type (wasting and overweight)
- Indicator 2.2.3 – Prevalence of anaemia in women aged 15 to 49 years, by pregnancy status (percentage).
The Green Grant Program (Bolsa Verde, Portuguese) is a socioeconomic and environmental program that offers an income transfer to families who commit to taking care of the region where they live, using natural resources in a sustainable way and preserving the forest, in addition to helping with the monitoring and protection work of these areas. In addition to payments, they will have access to technical assistance actions, socio-environmental rural extension, environmental conservation and socio-productive inclusion (MMA).
- Payment preferably made to women;
- “Active Search” for potential beneficiaries to include eligible families who have not signed the Green Grant Program Adhesion Agreement;
- Priority access to the benefit for extractivist populations, riverine communities and artisanal fishermen;
- Focused on low-income families that carry out environmental conservation activities in in the following areas: national forests, extractive reserves and federal sustainable development reserves, forest settlement projects, sustainable development projects or agro-extractive settlement projects established by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), occupied territories by riverside dwellers, extractivists, indigenous populations, quilombolas and other traditional communities and other rural areas, indicated by the Green Grant Program Management Committee and defined by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA);
- Priority will be given to families who, at the time of joining, are beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família Program. The subsequent withdrawal of the beneficiary from the Bolsa Família Program will not imply automatic exclusion of the family from the Green Grant Program.
Evaluation by stakeholders, during the resumption of the Green Grant Program in 2023:
- Strengthening local governance: A pressing need given the current weakening of management in conservation units. Set collective conservation targets in the territories, involve communities in environmental monitoring and in updating the beneficiary register. Think the role of councils in managing the program. Strengthen community-based organizations and establish local commitments related to environmental conservation. Promote the socio-political empowerment of beneficiaries.
- Beneficiary management: Problems with the criteria for who does and does not receive the benefit, which ends up generating distortions in the communities, causing individual logic to prevail.
- Moving towards the concept of Payment for Environmental Services: Reconciling the individual logic of paying the benefit with strengthening the territories. Associating the value of the benefit with the value of the territories. Think about a bank of projects to be implemented in partnership with the associations.
- Monitoring: Think about other types of monitoring, in addition to monitoring vegetation cover. Think about participatory methodologies. Monitoring biodiversity and local production.
- Beneficiary Training Program: Technical Assistance and Rural Extension and Pronatec Green Grant, environmental education (including on marine waste, sanitation, etc.), favoring critical training.
- Territory management: strengthen the Concession Contracts for Real Rights of Use (CCDRU). Think about including territories other than Settlement Projects and Conservation Units (UCs). Consider the Sustainable Use Authorization Term (TAUS) model as an instrument for expanding the program to other areas, such as riverside communities in floodplain areas. Consider including full protection Conservation Units, given the legal recognition of resident communities.
As lessons learned from the Green Grant Program until 2017:
Making sense of multilevel governance and governance coordination in Brazil: The case of the Bolsa Verde Programme (2018) studied the implementation and governance process of the Green Grant Program until 2017. They pointed out:
- The Green Grant Program implementation process had a logic of accelerated expansion, aimed at increasing the number of families served, even before adding a structured logic to the environmental component of the program theory that supported Green Grant Program;
- The implementation process would have been more rushed and directed in a more technocratic manner – particularly in comparison with other social policies such as the Bolsa Família Program;
- The monitoring methodology was developed only after the program had been implemented.
Social registry; Pro-poor access to agricultural inputs, technology and knowledge; Conditional cash transfer (CCT); Access to irrigation; Land access, ownership and tenure security
Multisectoral and inter-federative governance. It involves the coordination of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), the participation of other ministries (Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger-MDS; Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture-MDA; Ministry of Planning and Budget-MPO; Ministry of Finance-MF and Civil House) at national level.
In the Management Committee, the work of the management bodies of the areas covered (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform-INCRA and Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBIO).
The role of the municipalities at local level in managing the ([[Brazil:Single Registry|Single Registry]]) and supporting the accession of eligible families, and the participation of community associations and social movements in supporting the local management of the program and updating the list of beneficiary families in the territories.
CAIXA bank acts as the paying agent for the program, under the management of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, responsible for the direct transfer of financial resources to pay benefits.
The programme supports around 56.2 families living in 462 areas, mainly in the Amazon region, spread across 109 municipalities in the states of Acre, Alagoas, Amapá, Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará, Pernambuco and Rondônia. In addition to quarterly payments, families have access to technical assistance, socio-environmental rural extension, environmental conservation and socio-productive inclusion initiatives (2025).
The Green Grant Program pays quarterly R$600,00 to families or R$ 2,400.00 family/year (benefit) + R$ 4,000.00 family/year (Technical Assistance and Rural Extension).
Bolsa Verde Program’s official WhatsApp channel: The official app for the Federal Government’s environmental subsidy programme is Bolsa Verde. It enables families living in extreme poverty in rural areas who are committed to preserving the environment to check whether they are eligible for the benefit and to view the dates and status of their payments (which are quarterly payments of R$ 600.00). You can download the app officially from your mobile’s app store: Android: Download via Google Play. iOS (iPhone): Download via the App Store. To use the app, the head of the household must be registered on the Gov.br system and with CadÚnico.