Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon at its lowest level in nine years

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 30.6% year-on-year, between August 2023 and July 2024, according to data published by the government. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had promised to fight resolutely against the phenomenon.

According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) of Brazil, 6,288 square kilometers of primary forest were deforested in the region over these twelve months, or, it emphasizes, “the lowest result in the last nine years of monitoring”.

Furthermore, further south, the rate of damage to the Cerrado, the savannah richest in biodiversity in the world, also fell by 25.7%, with a loss of vegetation equivalent to 8,174 km²according to the same source.

Reduce deforestation to zero by 2030

The destruction of the Amazon and the Cerrado is essentially the work of farmers wanting to increase their land for crops and livestock, activities whose development former President Jair Bolsonaro always encouraged.

Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva welcomed a “significant decline” of the rate of deforestation in the Amazon and in the Cerrado, a few days before taking part in the 29^e United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), which will be held from November 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office as president of Brazil in January 2023 – for the third time – making forest protection one of his priorities. He has pledged to reduce deforestation in the country to zero by 2030 by reversing the environmental policies of his far-right predecessor, climate change skeptic Jair Bolsonaro (president from 2019 to 2022). .

Under the Bolsonaro government, an ally of the powerful agribusiness lobby, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon jumped 75.5% compared to the previous decade.