Brazil’s Amazon deforestation falls 11% even as fires surge to record levels

Workers construct an avenue, named Liberdade, or Freedom, ahead of the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File)

BOGOTA, Colombia — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest fell by 11 per cent from August 2024 to July this year, the government said Thursday, even as wildfires tracked by Brazil’s space agency surged to record levels amid a severe drought.

According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), 5,796 square kilometres (2,238 square miles) of forest were cleared between August 2024 and July 2025 — an area nearly four times the size of New York City, but still a significant drop from the previous year and the lowest level in nearly a decade.

The Environment Ministry said the drop in deforestation reflects stronger environmental enforcement, expanded satellite monitoring and renewed co-ordination among federal agencies.

The results come just weeks before Brazil hosts the COP30 UN climate summit in the Amazon city of Belem, where the country will be under pressure to demonstrate progress toward its 2030 goal of ending illegal deforestation.

At the same time, INPE reported that fire detections in the Amazon from January through October 2025 were the highest since 2010. Widespread burning and prolonged drought have blanketed parts of northern Brazil in smoke, forcing flight cancellations and prompting health warnings in states such as Amazonas and Para.

Experts say the fires — often used to clear already-deforested land — risk undermining recent conservation gains.

Ibama, Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, said during the announcement that it carried out 9,540 inspections this year, a 38 per cent increase from 2024, issuing 2.85 billion reais (US$520 million) in environmental fines this year and seizing more than 4,500 pieces of machinery and livestock tied to illegal clearing.

Officials said over 75 civil lawsuits were filed jointly by Ibama and the Attorney General’s Office against deforestation and illegal burning cases.

Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a coalition of Brazilian civil-society groups, told The Associated Press the latest data show both progress and contradiction in Brazil’s climate policy.

“It’s great news — it shows the zero-deforestation target can be achieved if the government and society as a whole work together,” he said. “But it also exposes the government’s contradictions: while one part delivers solutions like reducing deforestation, another is delivering the problem, approving oil drilling projects in the Amazon River basin.”

Greenpeace Brazil called the results positive but said lasting progress will depend on permanent safeguards and stronger global co-operation.

“The result is encouraging, but there’s still room to improve,” said Ana Clis Ferreira, spokesperson for Greenpeace’s Zero Deforestation campaign in a statement. “It’s essential to institutionalize protections that don’t depend on political cycles and to implement robust action plans for periods of greater climate vulnerability.”

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Steven Grattan, The Associated Press