Brazil’s space agency, INPE, said on Friday that 3,335 square kilometres of forest were cleared in the Legal Amazon between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2026. That is the lowest annual rate since Prodes measurements began in 1988. The previous year stood at 5,731 square kilometres — a drop of almost 42%.

The figure does not mean the cutting has stopped. It means the pace has fallen below anything recorded in nearly four decades. The 2026 Prodes estimate relied mainly on Sentinel-2 images and 271 priority tiles; last year’s consolidated map used 516. Among Legal Amazon states, only Roraima posted a slight increase. Pará still accounts for the largest area lost in absolute terms.

The Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest; about 60% of it lies in Brazil, the rest in Peru, Colombia and other South American countries. Scientists have warned for years that clearing and illegal extraction are pushing it towards a threshold beyond which the forest could degrade for good. The BBC adds that the Cerrado, Brazil’s savanna, also fell by 23.8% — another series low.

In Brasília, Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco called the Amazon drop “absolutely stratospheric”, “like a dream”. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on X that the goal remains zero illegal deforestation by 2030. Marcio Astrini, of Observatório do Clima, called the result a historic achievement and tied it to the political will to stop the chainsaws and curb emissions.

Lula took office three years ago after Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency (2019–2022), when the Amazon lost nearly 60% more forest than in the previous four years, according to official data cited by AFP. The new government tightened monitoring and penalties for illegal logging. Observatório do Clima credits Friday’s low to that sustained effort.

The announcement lands just before the 25 October presidential run-off between Lula and conservative senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son. Polls have them neck and neck, and the forest’s future is a campaign issue. The BBC notes that Flávio is expected to follow his father’s line if he wins, though he has pledged to fight organised crime in the Amazon.

Image: lubasi, aerial view of the Amazon rainforest, 9 September 2009, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph shows forest canopy, not a Prodes 2026 survey plot.

Sources consulted: Brazil: Amazon deforestation lowest in nearly 40 years — Deutsche Welle; Brazil sees record fall in Amazon deforestation as key election looms — BBC; Estimativa de desmatamento na Amazônia Legal para 2026 — INPE / Prodes.