Brazilian native vegetation stands as one of the largest global carbon storages.  Here is also where most of the emissions related to land use change take place,  mostly driven by agricultural expansion. Policies of incentives and support to  avoid deforestation are expected to play a significant role to improve the  effectiveness of the prevailing command and control regulation and expand the  protection of carbon stocks in the native vegetation. However, the limited  available resources require wise targeting policies that maximise the outcomes  regarding carbon protection. In this study, we conducted a quantitative  assessment of the effect of command and control regulations in the protection of  above-ground carbon (AGC) stocks employing a land use policy assessment (LUPA)  model. The model enabled the construction of a land tenure dataset of national  coverage and modelled the effects of the major pieces of land use legislation in  the protection of AGC stocks. The outcomes suggest that roughly 70% of the AGC  stock in Brazil is protected and additional 20% is expected to be protected  after the tenure regularisation process of undesignated land. Private territory  sustains about 30% of the AGC stocks, half within small or medium sized private  properties which represent 98% of the Brazilian landholders and the other half  in the 2% larger properties. Roughly 20% of the AGC in private land is under  command and control protection, and the remaining 10% is unprotected. We argued  that targeting policy may prioritise the unprotected AGC stocks; however,  different biomes may require different policy settings considering the  specificity of each biome.