Amazon deforestation hits record low before Brazil runoff — SkimNews
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- Prodes satellite data showed Amazon deforestation fell 41.8% in the past year to 3,335 square kilometres, beating the previous record low by 1,236 sq km — roughly the size of Rio de Janeiro — and bringing the rate 71.2% below the 2022 pre-Lula baseline.
- The Cerrado savannah biome recorded its lowest annual deforestation since 2001 at 5,516 sq km, a 48.4% drop over four years, ending its long treatment as an 'area of environmental sacrifice' for soya and beef producers.
- Incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fell behind in the first round despite his record of slowing forest loss and reducing poverty, and now faces a 25 October run-off against Flávio Bolsonaro, son of convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro.
- Flávio Bolsonaro has courted predatory landowners and extractivist interests, ignored the climate crisis in his manifesto, and pledged to release his father from prison; his brother Eduardo has lived in Texas and urged the Trump administration to impose punitive tariffs on Brazil.
- Former environment minister Marina Silva warned that Flávio would finish his father's 'perverse project' to destroy the Amazon, while the electoral map shows Bolsonaro support concentrated near degraded forest, mines, ranches, and soya monocultures.
- Marcio Astrini of the Climate Observatory said the data proves ending forest destruction is 'entirely possible' but 'everything depends on the election result,' as Roraima was the only state where deforestation rose (up 0.4%) — a known Bolsonaro stronghold.
Why it matters: The deforestation data offers the clearest empirical case yet that strong enforcement and environmental agency funding work, but the run-off introduces a binary risk: a Flávio Bolsonaro win would likely reverse the 71.2% post-2022 reduction and reopen the frontier for extractivism, while also redirecting Brazil's critical-mineral trade from China toward the Trump-aligned US.
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