Climate News

Amazon deforestation falls 41.8% to the lowest level on record, nine days before Brazil votes

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1988, government data released on Friday, October 16, show. The Guardian said the Prodes satellite series, run by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, recorded 3,335 sq km of clearance over the past year, down 41.8%. That beats the previous record low by 1,236 sq km, an area the size of Rio de Janeiro.

Since 2022, the year before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office, the rate has fallen 71.2%, largely due to stronger enforcement and investment in environmental agencies. Pará accounted for 33.9% of this year's clearance, Mato Grosso 25.5% and Amazonas 15.7%. Only Roraima, a Bolsonaro stronghold, got worse, up 0.4%. The neighbouring Cerrado savannah recorded its lowest clearance since 2001, at 5,516 sq km.

Carbon Pulse led with record lows in both the Amazon and the Cerrado. Australia's Illawarra Mercury, carrying AAP copy, ran it as a record low, and Belgium's DH as the lowest in nearly 40 years.

How each outlet framed it

• The Guardian — a success for Lula, made fragile by the October 25 run-off against Flávio Bolsonaro.
• Carbon Pulse — the data: two biomes at record lows.
• Illawarra Mercury (AAP) — a short international brief on the record.
• DH — the long view: the lowest in almost four decades.

What we don't know yet: Whether the decline lasts. The Guardian said the result is on a knife edge, as the two candidates hold sharply different views on the rainforest's future.