Record Low Deforestation Under Lula
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped to its lowest level since measurements began in 1988, according to new government data. The Prodes satellite series, widely regarded as the most accurate gauge of forest loss, recorded 3,335 square kilometers cleared over the past year—a 41.8% decline. This beats the previous record low by 1,236 square kilometers, an area roughly the size of Rio de Janeiro. Since 2022, the year before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office, the deforestation rate has slowed by 71.2%, as reported by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. The improvement is largely attributed to stronger enforcement measures and state investments in environmental agencies.[S1][S2][S3][S4]
Pará topped the list of states with the heaviest forest loss in 2026, responsible for 33.9% of Amazon deforestation, with Mato Grosso next at 25.5% and Amazonas at 15.7%. Yet even there, the numbers dropped by over 45% year on year. Roraima, a base of support for former president Jair Bolsonaro, was the sole state to see an increase, of 0.4%. In the neighbouring Cerrado savannah, annual clearance reached 5,516 sq km, its smallest since 2001 — notable because the Cerrado has long served as a sacrifice zone where soya and cattle interests could clear more than the Amazon allows. Cerrado deforestation has declined 48.4% over four years.[S1]
Contrast With Bolsonaro Era
The picture is very different from Jair Bolsonaro's 2019-23 presidency, when Amazon deforestation rose 59.5% — about a million trees lost every day — as forest protection agencies were weakened, penalties for environmental offences were enforced less, and illegal miners, loggers and land grabbers received verbal encouragement. Bolsonaro was subsequently convicted over an attempted coup, and his son Flávio has promised to free him and let him hold whatever government post he wants. Flávio has copied his father by seeking backing from predatory Amazon landowners and other extractivist groups, while his manifesto says nothing about the climate crisis.[S1]
Marina Silva, the former environment minister who has perhaps done more than anyone to protect the rainforest, cautioned that Flávio Bolsonaro would seek to complete his father's destructive Amazon agenda. The gulf between the two candidates shows up on the electoral map of the Amazon: Bolsonaro drew his strongest support around degraded forest, mines, ranches and soya monocultures, whereas Lula performed better in large cities and in areas where the forest remains largely intact. Their US relations differ just as sharply. Lula has said Trump wants to colonise Brazil and seize its resources, and argues the Amazon is a sovereign Brazilian asset, a vital Indigenous homeland and a crucial part of global climate stabilisation.[S1]
US Ties and Election Stakes
The Bolsonaro family, in contrast, is closely connected to the United States. Flávio's brother Eduardo has been based in Texas since last year and urged the Trump administration to hit his own country with punitive tariffs. Jair has saluted the US flag and joined chants of "USA, USA". Should the family regain power, Brazil's trade priorities — especially for critical minerals — are expected to be redirected from China and Europe toward the US. The larger shift, though, would probably be the far right's readiness to extract Amazon and other Brazilian resources and sell to whoever pays most, with little regard for environmental or social consequences.[S1]
Environmental organisations said the fresh deforestation figures demonstrated how high the stakes were in the presidential runoff. Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, described the number as proof that halting forest destruction in Brazil is fully within reach. Whether that happens, he added, hinges entirely on how the election turns out: the country must choose between an end to deforestation and an end to the forest.[S1]
