Brazilian Amazon deforestation hit a 10-year low in the first half of 2026, dropping 38 per cent from a year earlier, according to data released by the National Institute for Space Research, São Paulo.

An area almost twice the size of New York City was cleared in six months. Deforestation had peaked in 2022, the final year of Jair Bolsonaro's presidency, when land 13 times the size of New York City vanished in twelve months.

Lula's first year back in office cut that rate in half. It has kept falling since. Satellite images, politics and tradeNone of this progress happened in a vacuum. The improved figures come at a time when Brazil’s presidential elections are only months away, with Lula promising to end illegal deforestation by 2030. “They don't understand the work we are doing to bring deforestation down to zero by 2030," Lula said, emphasising that it was totally a domestic achievement. "It is a decision of our government," he said. 

There's also a trade fight tangled up in the forest canopy. The Trump administration proposed a new round of tariffs on Brazil, citing unfair trade practices and illegal deforestation as justification. The Lula government cited fresh data to rebut the US government's claims.

The two leaders' relationship has been further strained by Trump's public opposition to the prosecution of the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was ultimately sentenced to 27 years in prison for trying to dethrone the elected government.

However, the story of deforestation is uneven across the states. While Tocantins led reductions with a 62.5 per cent fall, Roraima, Rondônia and Acre have cut losses by 27–37 per cent. But Mato Grosso, Brazil's soy heartland, bucked the trend entirely with a 25 per cent increase, a sign that agribusiness pressure hasn't gone anywhere.

Not just the Amazon rainforest – its southern neighbour is also showing progress. The Cerrado savanna posted a second consecutive annual decline, down 11.49 per cent to its lowest reading in five years.Not his first rodeoLula's supporters were quick to point out that this isn't a fluke.

During his first two terms in office, from 2003 to 2011, deforestation in the Amazon fell dramatically from roughly 27,000 sq. km a year to around 4,500 sq. km – with his environment minister at the time, Marina Silva, driving much of that agenda. She's back in the same job now, and the parallel is doing a lot of political work for Lula's campaign.

The gap years tell the other half of the story. Deforestation crept back up after Lula left office the first time, first under Dilma Rousseff and then sharply under Bolsonaro, when annual clearing hit around 11,500 sq. km – its highest level since 2008. Restoring the Amazon Fund, the world's largest forest-protection fund, was one of the clearest signals of Lula's return to the old playbook.

The Amazon Fund, created in 2008 and managed by Brazil's national development bank BNDES, is the country's main financial engine for forest protection. It works on a simple premise: donor nations pay into the fund in exchange for demonstrable reductions in deforestation, rather than upfront pledges. Norway has long been its biggest backer, joined over the years by Germany, the UK, the US and Japan, pushing the fund's total past $1.3 billion.

Bolsonaro's government froze it as deforestation climbed; reactivating it on his first day back in office, January 1, 2023, was one of Lula's first acts. Uncertain future. However, the entire story is not green, and environmental groups point out the reasons to worry. Weeks after Brazil hosted COP30 in Belém in November 2025, the Brazilian Congress reaffirmed changes to the environmental licensing process that critics say could accelerate deforestation.

Officially called the General Environmental Licensing Law (Bill 2159/2021), critics nicknamed it the "devastation bill" because it removes rules that once made developers avoid or offset damage to sensitive land. Lawmakers established a fast-track licensing process for government-designated "strategic" projects on December 3.

Then they struck down 56 of Lula's 63 vetoes aimed at preserving environmental oversight in the bill. Environmental groups such as Instituto Socioambiental and the BR-319 Observatory warn that projects long stalled by licensing and legal hurdles could now proceed, opening untouched stretches of the Amazon to development. Lula's own coalition isn't unified behind the forest agenda: he faced criticism for staying publicly silent as the bill advanced, even as his energy, transportation and agriculture ministers backed it.