Brazil sees record fall in Amazon deforestation as key election looms — SkimNews
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- Brazilian government satellite data shows Amazon deforestation fell 41.8% in the year to July 2026 — the largest annual drop since tracking began in 1988 — while the Cerrado savanna region fell 23.8%.
- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged to end Amazon deforestation by 2030, tightened environmental monitoring and hiked penalties for illegal logging, and drove the rate to a six-year low in his first year in office.
- Flávio Bolsonaro will face Lula in the October 25 run-off with polls showing a neck-and-neck race; he has pledged to continue his father's policies while adding a fight against organised crime in the Amazon.
- Under Jair Bolsonaro's 2019-2022 presidency, the Amazon lost nearly 60% more forest than the previous four years as his government promoted mining in indigenous lands and cut enforcement resources.
- Brazil's Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco called the Amazon decline "absolutely stratospheric," while Marcio Astrini of Observatório do Clima called it an "historic achievement" showing that "with political will, it is possible to curb deforestation."
Why it matters: With polls showing Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro locked in a neck-and-neck race for the October 25 run-off, the 41.8% Amazon drop — the biggest since 1988 tracking began — hands Lula a concrete win to campaign on while making his 2030 zero-deforestation pledge a measurable target his opponent either inherits or dismantles.
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