As Brazil prepares for a high-stakes presidential run-off that will shape the future of the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the national government has announced a landmark milestone: deforestation rates across the Brazilian Amazon and the Cerrado savanna have dropped to their lowest levels since systematic record-keeping began. The announcement comes as left-wing incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defends his environmental policy legacy against challenger Flavio Bolsonaro, son of Lula’s right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration presided over a catastrophic surge in forest clearing.
When Lula took office three years ago, he made a sweeping pledge: end all illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2030, a direct reversal of the pro-development, industry-friendly policies that had sent forest loss skyrocketing between 2019 and 2022. That campaign promise now stands as the centerpiece of his re-election bid, with the October 25 run-off shaping up to be a razor-tight contest, according to recent polling. Flavio Bolsonaro has signaled he would largely continue his father’s pro-agriculture and pro-mining policies if elected, though he has added a pledge to crack down on organized criminal activity operating in the Amazon region.
Newly released satellite data tracking deforestation through July 2026 confirms a dramatic turnaround: over the 12-month measurement period, Amazon deforestation fell by 41.8% – the single largest annual drop recorded since data collection launched in 1988. In the Cerrado, Brazil’s biodiverse savanna ecosystem that has increasingly faced clearing pressure from large-scale agribusiness, deforestation dropped by 23.8% over the same period, pushing overall rates to historic lows across both biomes.
The Amazon rainforest holds irreplaceable global climate significance: spanning 6.7 million square kilometers, 60% of which lies within Brazil’s borders, it acts as one of the planet’s most critical natural carbon sinks, absorbing billions of tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide each year and regulating global weather patterns. It is also home to millions of unique plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth, as well as hundreds of Indigenous communities that have stewarded the forest for millennia.
During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, the administration rolled back environmental protections, opened protected Indigenous lands to commercial mining and logging, and cut funding for environmental enforcement agencies. Official data cited by Agence France-Presse shows that during Bolsonaro’s four-year term, Amazon forest loss was nearly 60% higher than it was during the preceding four-year administration, bringing the region within 200 kilometers of the widely cited tipping point after which large swathes of the rainforest could degrade into savanna irreversibly.
Lula moved quickly to reverse those policies after taking office, strengthening satellite-based environmental monitoring, increasing fines and legal penalties for illegal logging and land clearing, and reactivating protected area designations that had been rolled back under his predecessor. In his first year back in office, deforestation dropped to a six-year low, and the downward trend has continued through his current term. On Friday, the President reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to long-term forest protection in a post on social media platform X, writing: “Our goal is to achieve zero illegal deforestation by 2030.”
Scientists and climate advocates have hailed the new data as a transformative proof of concept for forest protection policy. Brazil’s Environment Minister Joao Paulo Capobianco described the scale of the reduction in Amazon deforestation as “absolutely stratospheric”, while Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Brazilian climate advocacy group Observatorio do Clima, called the milestone a “historic achievement” for the country. “It shows that with political will, it is possible to curb deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions,” Astrini said of the results.
For decades, the Amazon and Cerrado have faced growing pressure from commercial activity, with large-scale clearing for cattle ranching, soy cultivation, and illegal logging driving most forest loss. Climate change has compounded these pressures, scientists warn, creating drier conditions that increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires and speed up forest degradation. The new data comes as global climate negotiators increasingly look to forest protection as a cost-effective, high-impact strategy to cut global emissions and keep the 1.5°C global warming target within reach.