Amazon Deforestation Falls to Record Low of 3,335 Sq Km

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest fell to the lowest level on record in the 12 months through July, according to data released on Friday by Inpe, Brazil's national space research agency.

Some 3,335 square kilometres of Amazon forest were destroyed in the period, about 42 percent less than the 5,731 square kilometres recorded a year earlier. It is the lowest figure in the official series that goes back to 1988. The previous low was 4,571 square kilometres in 2011 and 2012, and in the mid 1990s the yearly loss reached almost 30,000 square kilometres.

The Cerrado savanna, Brazil's fastest cleared biome in recent years, also set a record low. Clearing there fell about 24 percent to some 5,516 square kilometres, the lowest in a series that goes back to 2001.

How the number is counted

The figures come from Inpe's PRODES satellite monitoring program, which measures each year from August to July because the middle of the year has less cloud cover to hide clearing from satellites, Reuters reported. That makes the 2025/26 figure the cleanest yearly comparison the program can produce.

"The figures released today are a historic achievement," said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the climate network Observatorio do Clima. He said the data show that with political will, it is possible to curb deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.

A four year turn

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in 2023 promising to end deforestation by 2030, after clearing rose about 60 percent under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Observatorio do Clima said the Amazon lost 24,648 square kilometres during Lula's current term so far, 46 percent less than the 45,586 square kilometres cleared under the Bolsonaro administration. Lula revived the long running Amazon protection plan known as PPCDAm soon after taking office and restored the environmental enforcement teams that run it, the Associated Press reported.

The record low lands one week before a presidential election runoff on October 25, when Lula faces Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president's eldest son, after the senator performed better than expected in the first round. The younger Bolsonaro has pledged to strengthen environmental oversight in the Amazon, with enforcement focused on organized crime rather than on small farmers and extractive workers.

What it does not settle

A record low is still 3,335 square kilometres of forest gone in one year. The Cerrado keeps losing ground even at its slowest pace on record, and one good year does not end the pressure from farming, mining and land speculation. What the data does prove is narrower and still large: enforcement choices move the number, fast, in both directions.