Brazil Amazon deforestation plummeted by 11.2% over the last year, hitting its lowest level since 2016, the Brazilian government announced Thursday in a major victory for the environmental policies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The data, released by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), is seen as definitive proof that the administration’s aggressive crackdown on environmental crime is working.
However, the celebration in Brasília was tempered by a parallel, alarming dataset: deforestation in the vital Cerrado savanna, Brazil’s second-largest biome, spiked by 5.5% over the same period. The “tale of two biomes” suggests that while the government is winning the high-profile battle in the Amazon, the agricultural frontier is simply—and devastatingly—migrating next door.
The figures arrive just weeks before Brazil is set to host the landmark COP30 climate negotiations in the Amazonian city of Belém. The data provides President Lula with powerful political capital, positioning Brazil as a global leader in climate mitigation, but also exposes the complex internal challenges that remain.
A Sharp Divergence
The official annual deforestation numbers come from INPE’s PRODES system, a high-resolution satellite monitoring program that is considered the gold standard for measuring clear-cut forest loss. The data covers the official “deforestation year,” running from August 1, 2024, to July 31, 2025.
1. The Amazon Victory
The new data confirms that 8,450 sq km of rainforest were cleared in the Legal Amazon. This is a significant drop from the 9,515 sq km lost in the 2023-2024 period and represents a dramatic reversal from the 2021 peak of 13,038 sq km.
This 2025 figure is the lowest annual loss Brazil has reported since 2016, which saw 7,893 sq km cleared. The numbers unequivocally validate the effectiveness of the Lula administration’s muscular environmental agenda, which began when he took office in January 2023.
According to the latest INPE PRODES data released on October 30, 2025, deforestation in Brazil’s Legal Amazon has continued its downward trend, reaching the lowest level in nearly a decade. Between August 2024 and July 2025, an estimated 8,450 square kilometers of forest were cleared — a decline of 11.2% compared to the previous year.
This marks the third consecutive annual reduction under the Lula administration, following 9,515 sq km cleared between August 2023 and July 2024 (a 6.1% decrease) and 10,129 sq km between August 2022 and July 2023, which represented a 12.6% drop during Lula’s first year back in office.
By contrast, during the August 2020–July 2021 monitoring period, deforestation surged to a peak of 13,038 sq km, a 21% increase recorded under the previous administration. The subsequent year (2021–2022) saw a modest recovery, with forest loss reduced to 11,594 sq km, down 11.1% year-over-year.
2. The Cerrado Defeat
The victory in the Amazon is shadowed by a deepening crisis in the Cerrado, a vast tropical savanna that is critical to Brazil’s hydrology and a global biodiversity hotspot.
In the same 2024-2025 period, the Cerrado lost 6,800 sq km to deforestation, a 5.5% increase from the 6,445 sq km cleared the previous year. This continues an upward trend, proving that the agricultural and speculative pressures—primarily from soy cultivation and cattle ranching—have not vanished. They have merely been displaced from the highly policed Amazon to the less-protected savanna.
‘A Victory for Brazilian Society’
At a press conference in Brasília on Thursday, Environment Minister Marina Silva, a symbolic figure of Brazil’s environmental movement, called the Amazon numbers a historic achievement.
This is a victory for Brazilian society and a testament to President Lula’s unwavering commitment to ‘zero deforestation,'” Silva stated. “We have rebuilt our enforcement capacity, re-hired agents, unblocked the Amazon Fund, and drawn a clear line: environmental crime will no longer be tolerated. These numbers prove our plan is working.”
The government’s “Amazon Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation” (PPCDAm) is the engine behind the success. Key actions include:
- Increased Enforcement: The budget for the environmental agency IBAMA and the biodiversity institute ICMBio has been more than doubled, allowing for a 150% increase in field operations targeting illegal logging, mining, and land-grabbing.
- Protecting Indigenous Lands: The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, led by Sônia Guajajara, reported that the drop in Amazon deforestation correlates with a 30% reduction in documented invasions of protected Indigenous territories, particularly in the Yanomami reserve, which had been decimated by illegal mining,.
- International Cooperation: The reactivation of the $3.9 billion Amazon Fund, financed primarily by Germany and Norway, has funded many of these enforcement and sustainable development projects.
The ‘Leakage Effect’ and the Coming War for the Cerrado
Environmental analysts and NGOs, while praising the Amazon results, immediately pointed to the Cerrado data as Brazil’s next great environmental failure.
Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a prominent network of environmental organizations, described the data as “a portrait of a government winning a battle but at risk of losing the war.”
“The Amazon result is extremely positive and shows that political will is the main ingredient for fighting deforestation,” Astrini said in a statement. “However, the tragedy in the Cerrado shows a critical flaw in the strategy. The government is squeezing the balloon in one place, and the air is simply rushing to another. The soy and cattle interests are operating with impunity in the Cerrado.”
This phenomenon, known as the “leakage effect,” is not new. But the 2025 data shows it in its starkest terms yet. The Cerrado is often called Brazil’s “water tank,” as its deep-rooted plants feed the aquifers that supply Brazil’s largest rivers and cities. Its destruction has profound implications for Brazil’s energy (hydropower) and agricultural (rain patterns) security.
Unlike the Amazon, where 80% of the original forest remains, the Cerrado has already lost over 50% of its native vegetation.
COP30 and the Pressure to Act
The timing of this data release is critical. In just a few weeks, global leaders will descend on Belém for the COP30 climate summit.
President Lula now has indisputable evidence that his model of governance can deliver one of the single largest contributions to global climate mitigation—reducing deforestation. He will use this data to leverage billions more in international climate finance and to pressure other nations to increase their own ambitions.
However, he will also face intense scrutiny over the Cerrado. European nations, in particular, which are implementing new supply chain laws (like the EU Deforestation Regulation – EUDR), will not distinguish between rainforest and savanna. Soy, beef, and other commodities grown on recently deforested Cerrado land will face bans, putting pressure on Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector.
The government’s next move is clear: it must now replicate its successful Amazon strategy in the Cerrado. This will be a more complex political fight, as much of the clearing in the Cerrado is, by Brazil’s own lenient laws, legal. This means the fight is not just against criminals, but against the powerful agribusiness lobby and the laws that protect them.
The 2025 data, therefore, is not an endpoint. It is the end of the first chapter in Brazil’s new environmental era and the beginning of a far more complex second act.
The Information is Collected from France 24 and MSN.
