Deforestation drops 11% in the Amazon and the Cerrado, second consecutive annual decline

By Paula Ferreira, from Estadão Brasília, 10/30/2025 - Deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado has fallen for the second consecutive year. Data from the Legal Amazon Satellite Deforestation Monitoring Project (PRODES) indicate a decrease of about 11% in both biomes between August 2024 and July 2025. Despite the downward trend, the pace of reduction has slowed. The Amazon lost 5,796 km² of forest in the period, the smallest area cleared in ten years and 11.08% less than the previous cycle (6,518 km²). In the Cerrado, 7,235.27 km² were felled, a decrease of 11.49% compared to 8,174 km² in 2023-2024. Between 2022 and 2025, 1.3 million hectares in the Amazon and 564.3 thousand hectares in the Cerrado were no longer deforested. With this, the country avoided the emission of 733.9 million tons of CO2 - a volume equivalent to the total released by France and Spain in 2022. Commitment until 2030 The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has committed to zeroing deforestation ...