Amazon Deforestation Falls to Lowest Levels Since 2018

The number of deforested kilometers in the Brazilian Amazon between August 2025 and March 2026 fell by 36 percent compared to the previous year, according to a recent report published by the Brazilian Human and Environment Amazon Institute, also known as Imazon.

In total, 1,460 square kilometers (564 square miles) of land were cut down during that period, the lowest figure since 2018.

Paulo Brando, a researcher and associate professor at the Yale School of the Environment, said the deforestation numbers show how well national leaders are managing the region.

“In general, when you see not only a pattern, but a trend in reducing deforestation, it means that sort of the actions taken by the government usually are in the right direction,” he said.

Pará and Mato Grosso, states with historically high Amazon deforestation, saw sharp reductions in the most recent nine-month period compared to the previous one. In Pará, clearing dropped by 52 percent (467 square kilometers, or 180 square miles worth of land, less), while Mato Grosso, the country’s leading soybean producer, saw a 38 percent drop (163 square kilometers, or 63 square miles, less).

In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, the biggest Brazilian state, Amazonas, also saw a decline. In total, 219 square kilometers (85 square miles) were cleared, compared to 335 (129 square miles) in the previous nine-month period.

Ana Clis Ferreira, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil, said the rates of decline were uplifting news and could be attributed to the environment department under Minister Marina Silva. She said her restoration and strengthening of the First Action Plan for the Control of the Environment in the Amazon, how the government manages fire and the reinforcement of operations with Ibama, Brazil’s environment and renewables institute, among other things, were decisive actions that led to this decrease.

“History shows us that this decrease can be fragile, and that destruction occurs quicker than protection,” Clis Ferreira said. “We are in an election year and the dynamics of deforestation are highly sensitive to variations in enforcement and to the political context. In addition, Congress has been a threat to environmental protection.”

In 2019, the first year of President Jair Bolsonaro’s term, the country saw its deforestation numbers spike to the highest levels since satellite data became available. Deforestation in the biome has been declining since 2020.

The Amazon rainforest biome touches portions of nine of Brazil’s 26 states, and the report shows a sweeping reduction in deforestation in all but one. A separate report describes conditions in Roraima, where the Brazilian space agency, INPE, which tracks wildfires, recorded the most fire outbreaks from January to April of this year. Seven out of the 10 municipalities with the most fire outbreaks were located in the state, which saw a 21 percent increase in deforestation. The state lost 222 square kilometers (86 square miles) of its forest.

That report describes the climate in Roraima as generally drier than the rest of the region, which favors the activities that most harm the rainforest, such as fires and logging.

Caracaraí, a municipality in Roraima, has been the hotspot for fire outbreaks in the country for at least three years. More than a quarter of the fires in Roraima happened in the municipality, which had been under investigation by the federal police for illegal fires, as reported by CNN Brasil. The municipality also had the most deforestation in the country.

For the entire Amazon biome, despite the slowdown in deforestation, the number of wildfires increased by a third in the first months of 2026. Additionally, according to the Imazon report, March brought a 17 percent increase in deforestation compared to last year — from 167 square kilometers in 2025 to 196 square kilometers in 2026 (64 square miles to 76 square miles).

Larissa Amorim, a researcher at the Brazilian Human and Environment Amazon Institute, said the March numbers should serve as a sign for governments to further intensify the fight against illegal deforestation, with oversight and punishment for the offenders. She highlighted the need to strengthen bioeconomic initiatives in the region, such as the production of açaí, Brazil nuts and other produce, and to designate unused areas for conservation.

The report showed that designated conservation areas were not fully safeguarded from deforestation. The Triunfo do Xingu environmental protection area in Pará lost 35 square kilometers (14 square miles). The region was among the five most affected municipalities in the study.

Stephen Porder, a professor of ecology at Brown University, said he was encouraged to see the deforestation rates in the Amazon fall. However, he said the region has seen lower rates and “really the number needs to go to 0 very quickly.”

“We have to be aware that moving from cutting the size of Connecticut every year to cutting the size of my home state of Rhode Island every year is progress, but it’s still going to mow down the rest of the forest eventually,” he said.

Still, Brando and Porder emphasize the importance of remote sensing technologies used to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. The Brazilian Human and Environment Amazon Institute’s satellite-based system, developed in 2008, detects deforested areas through satellite images.

“I’m not going to claim that I have the solution to reduce deforestation here, because it’s such a multifaceted issue,” he said. “But it depends on the transparency. You can know the size of the problem and then you build the policies from there.”

Clis Ferreira said it is still early to affirm 2026 will be different from the previous years as, historically, deforestation in the Amazon and in other biomes showed significant increases in the second half of the year. The period is associated with the dry season and a greater accessibility for opening new areas.

But if patterns from the last year hold, she said, “the scenario points to a possible historic reduction in the annual deforestation rate in the Amazon.”