Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest Drops to Lowest Level Since 2019

Central News Agency, Rio de Janeiro, May 26. According to a report released today, deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest fell to its lowest level since 2019 last year, marking positive news for leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. AFP reported that the environmental monitoring platform MapBiomas announced that the country lost 985,000 hectares of native vegetation last year, a 20.6% decrease compared to 2024. This is the lowest record since MapBiomas began tracking in 2019. Notably, this data does not include losses from forest fires, but after a record-breaking fire season in 2024, Brazil was relatively spared from major wildfires last year. Lula, who is seeking a fourth term in this year's October election, has made combating deforestation a core policy of his administration. Protecting forest cover is crucial for slowing global warming as trees act as natural carbon sinks. After four years of massive deforestation under far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, Lula has promised to completely eliminate illegal deforestation by 2030. The decline in deforestation was observed across all six of Brazil's major biomes. Marcos Rosa, a technical coordinator at MapBiomas, told AFP, "We are seeing an increase in enforcement actions and sanctions... this has a direct causal link to the decline in deforestation rates across all Brazilian biomes."