Federal Forest Concessions in the Brazilian Amazon: Transparency in Public Revenue Collection and Statutory Revenue Sharing (2013–2025)

Federal forest concessions link public forest management to contractual obligations and statutory revenue-sharing mechanisms. This study assessed the extent to which official records supported verification of the documented implementation of these mechanisms in native-forest concessions in the Amazon biome between 2013 and 2025, and their temporal correspondence with forest activity. The documentary research integrated reports, official databases, contracts, and administrative acts concerning nine National Forests. The legal-economic analysis distinguished the applicability, enforceability, and due dates of obligations from public receipts, revenue allocation, and transfers, and examined four critical cases selected for documentary discrepancies. Transported timber volume and inflation-adjusted public revenue increased over the period but did not show a direct annual correspondence; in 2025, a substantial share of receipts related to obligations from previous fiscal years. Most accumulated municipal allocations had been transferred, although the records lacked the dates needed to verify compliance with the statutory transfer schedule. In critical cases, contracts were fully identified, but the records rarely itemized amounts due and public receipts. The study concluded that the records allowed measurement of forest activity, public revenue, and revenue sharing but did not permit full reconstruction of the sequence linking the period to which an obligation related, its due date, receipt of payment, beneficiary eligibility, and transfer.