Amazon conservation policy in Brazil has long focused on containing deforestation pressures. Yet, tropical forest regrowth expanded significantly in recent decades, despite the lack of targeted policy efforts to promote or protect regeneration. New work from Climate Policy Initiative/Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (CPI/PUC-Rio) shows that environmental monitoring and law enforcement exclusively aimed at reducing Amazon deforestation helped boost tropical regeneration. Results suggest that environmental and socio-economic gains from conservation policies may be larger than initially presumed. Today, it would be both timely and strategic for Brazil to incorporate the promotion and protection of tropical regeneration into its conservation policy agenda.