Revisiting the concept of “fiscal modules”: implications for restoration and conservation programs in Brazil

Fiscal modules (FMs) were created to facilitate the collection of the rural territorial tax in Brazil. In theory, the area of a FM should be enough for a family to have income, survive, and thrive. The current Native Vegetation Protection Law (Law 12.651/2012) gives equal treatment to all people who own up to four FMs through the Environmental Regularization Program for small properties and family agriculture. Thus, FMs are parameters for flexible land allocation, reducing the area in which the restoration of native vegetation is mandatory. In this study, we sought to describe the history of the creation of FMs to verify the correlations between current agricultural and socioeconomic indicators and FM size. We used a case study in the state of Rio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil to analyze how updating the FM affects the Environmental Regularization Program proposed by the Native Vegetation Protection Law. FMs were created in 1979 and set in 1980, but have never been updated. Current data on land use, rate of deforestation, and productivity in rural areas should lead to changes in the FM size and value. Analyzing the data from municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, we found that the groups formed in the cluster analysis differed from the existing FM groups in the state, which range from 5 to 35 ha. This difference may be a consequence of the failure to update the FM parameters, because updating the FM definition may result in less hectares in each FM. This would result in a larger area to be restored, according to the Environmental Regularization Program, and would thus favor the overall goals of forest restoration.