According to the latest figures published by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, which monitors Amazon deforestation as part of its PRODES program, the rate of deforestation fell by 42% between August 2025 and July 2026 compared with the previous year.
Deforestation in the Amazon is thus at its lowest level since PRODES began tracking it in 1988.
- Lula, the Brazilian president who will today, Sunday October 25, face Flávio Bolsonaro in the presidential runoff, is widely credited with the decline in deforestation.
- During his first two terms, from 2003 to 2010, the area of Amazonian forest cleared each year fell from 27,800 km² (in 2004) to 7,000 km². After Jair Bolsonaro came to power in 2019, this figure rose markedly, surpassing 10,000 km² for the first time since 2008.
- In 2022, the last year of Bolsonaro’s presidency, 11,600 km² of forest were cleared.
The Bolsonaro government had been characterized by a dismantling of environmental policies implemented by its predecessors. Its first Environment Minister, Ricardo Salles, notably urged, during a ministerial meeting in April 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, to take advantage of the media’s focus on the issue to “pass the herd” (to push through the herd), that is to modify and loosen all environmental standards.
- During the presidential campaign, Lula continued to defend the themes that carried him to power in the past: economic development, the fight against hunger and poverty, and the fight against deforestation. He placed at the heart of his discourse the defense of an independent and sovereign foreign policy.
- Flávio Bolsonaro, for his part, aligned with his father’s line: his program notably calls for loosening environmental licenses, accelerating mining projects, and permitting fracking, while weakening the agencies responsible for protecting and monitoring Brazil’s ecosystems.
Flávio Bolsonaro has promised to end illegal deforestation by 2029 if elected. According to several experts, however, this pledge could translate into authorizing a greater amount of legal tree-cutting. He is notably in favor of opening protected lands to mining and agricultural exploitation.