Brazil's forests

By Rhett A. Butler [Last update August 14, 2020]

Brazil holds about one-third of the world's remaining primary tropical rainforests, including about 60% the Amazon rainforest. Terrestrially speaking, it is also the most biodiverse country on Earth, with more than 34,000 described species of plants, 1,813 species of birds, 1,022 amphibians, 648 mammals, and 814 reptiles.

About 80% of Brazil's tropical forest cover is found in the Amazon Basin, a mosaic of ecosystems and vegetation types including rainforests (the vast majority), seasonal forests, deciduous forests, flooded forests, and savannas, including the woody cerrado. This region has experienced an exceptional extent of forest loss over the past two generations—an area exceeding 760,000 square kilometers, or about 19 percent of its total surface area of 4 million square kilometers, has been cleared in the Amazon since 1970, when only 2.4 percent of the Amazon's forests had been lost. The increase in Amazon deforestation in the early 1970s coincided with the construction of the Trans-Amazonian Highway, which opened large forest areas to development by settlers and commercial interests. In more recent years, growing populations in the Amazon region, combined with increased viability of agricultural operations, have caused a further rise in deforestation rates.

This data excludes extensive areas degraded by fires and selective logging, nor forest regrowth, which by one Brazilian government estimate occurs on about 20% of deforested areas. The area of Amazon forest degraded each year in Brazil is thought to be roughly equivalent to the amount of forest cleared. Forest degradation is significant because degraded forests are more likely to be cleared in the future. Degraded forest is also more susceptible to fires.

Why is the Amazon rainforest disappearing?

Historically the majority of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was the product of subsistence farmers, but in recent decades this has changed, with a greater proportion of forest clearing driven by large landowners and corporations. The majority of deforestation in the region can be attributed to land clearing for pasture by commercial and speculative interests.

In the early phase of this transition, Brazilian deforestation was strongly correlated to the economic health of the country: the decline in deforestation from 1988-1991 nicely matched the economic slowdown during the same period, while the rocketing rate of deforestation from 1993-1998 paralleled Brazil's period of rapid economic growth. During lean times, ranchers and developers do not have the cash to expand their pasturelands and operations, while the government lacks the budget flexibility to underwrite highways and colonization programs and grant tax breaks and subsidies to agribusiness, logging, and mining interests.

But this dynamic shifted in the mid-2000s, when the link between deforestation and the broader Brazilian economy began to wane. Between 2004 and 2012 the annual rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell 80% to the lowest levels recorded since annual record keeping began in the late 1980s. This decline occurred at the same time that Brazil's economy expanded 40 percent and agricultural output surged.

Why did Amazon deforestation decline?

There are several reasons commonly cited for the decline in Brazil's deforestation rate between 2004 and 2012.

One of the most important active measures was the launch of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm) in 2004. PPCDAm aimed to reduce deforestation rates continuously and facilitate conditions that support a transition towards a sustainable economic development model in the region. PPCDAm had three main components: land tenure and spatial planning, environmental monitoring and control, and supporting sustainable production.

These components resulted in increased enforcement of environmental laws; improved forest monitoring by satellite, which enabled law enforcement to take action; new incentives for utilizing already deforested lands; and expanded protected areas and indigenous reserves. A byproduct of PPCDAm was heightened sensitivity to environmental criticism among private sector companies and emerging awareness of the values of ecosystem services afforded by the Amazon.

Other factors also played a part in the decline in deforestation, including macroeconomic trends like a stronger Brazilian currency, which reduced the profitability of export-driven agriculture; prioritization of non-rainforest areas like the adjacent cerrado ecosystem for agribusiness expansion; and increased diversification in the Brazilian economy as a whole.

Why has progress in reducing Amazon deforestation stalled?

Progress in reducing deforestation stalled after 2012 and forest loss has been trending upward since. There is debate over why this is the case, but some researchers argue that Brazil achieved about as much as it could through law enforcement and other punitive measures ("the stick" in the proverbial "the carrot and stick" approach). Reducing deforestation further requires sufficient economic incentives ("the carrot") to maintain forests as healthy and productive ecosystems. Put another way, standing forest needs to be made more valuable than clearing it for pasture or crops.

By that line of thought, the political impetus for reducing deforestation began to wane as ranchers, farmers, investors, and land speculators grew tried of fines, threats of legal action, and prohibitions against clearing. Political movements like the ruralistas pushed harder for relation of environmental laws and amnesty for past transgressions. These interests gained momentum when the Temer administration came to power in 2016 and won more clout with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in late 2018. Bolsonaro, who campaigned on the promise to open the Amazon to extractive industries and agribusiness while disparaging environmentalists and indigenous peoples, immediately set about dismantling protections for the Amazon when he took office in January 2019. Deforestation increased sharply thereafter.

Causes of deforestation in the Amazon

In evaluating deforestation in the Amazon, it is important to understand both direct and indirect drivers of forest loss.

Direct drivers of deforestation including conversion of forests for pasture, farmland, and plantations, as well as surface mining, dams that inundate forested areas, and intense fires.

Indirect drivers of deforestation include more subtle factors, like insecure land tenure, corruption, poor law enforcement, infrastructure projects, policies that favor conversion over conservation, and selective logging that create conditions or enable activities that facilitate forest clearing.

Cattle ranching

Conversion of rainforest for cattle pasture is the single largest driver of deforestation in Brazil. Clearing forest for pasture is the cheapest and easiest way to establish an informal claim to land, which can then be sold on to other parties at a profit. In some parts of the Brazilian Amazon, cleared rainforest land can be worth more than eight times that of land with standing forest. According, cattle ranching is often viewed as a way to speculate on appreciating land prices.

However since 2000, cattle ranching in the Amazon has become increasingly industrialized, meaning that more ranchers are producing cattle to sell commercially. Most of the beef ends up in the domestic market, but secondary products like hides and leather are often exported.

These exports left Brazilian cattle ranchers exposed in the late 2000s when Greenpeace launched a high profile campaign against companies that were sourcing leather and other products from major Brazilian cattle processors. That campaign led major companies to demand zero deforestation cattle. Combined with a crackdown by public prosecutors, the Brazilian cattle industry started to shift substantially toward less damaging practices in late 2009 by signing the "Cattle Agreement", which barred the sourcing of cattle from illegally deforested areas.

However by the mid-2010s investigations revealed that some major cattle producers were circumventing the safeguards established under the Cattle Agreement by laundering cattle through third party ranches. Unlike soy (see below), cattle are highly mobile, making it easy for ranchers to shift livestock clandestinely.

Soy

The model for the Brazilian cattle industry to move toward zero deforestation came from the country's soy industry, which underwent a similar transformation three years earlier. That shift was also initiative by a Greenpeace campaign, which targeted the soy-based chicken feed used by McDonald's in Europe. Within months of that campaign's launch, the largest soy crushers and traders in the Amazon had established a moratorium on buying soy produced via deforestation in the Amazon.

Timber

Logging in the Brazilian Amazon remains plagued by poor management, destructive practices, and outright fraud. Vast areas of rainforest are logged -- legally and illegally -- each year. According to government sources and NGOs, the vast majority of logging in the Brazilian Amazon is illegal.

Palm oil

At present, Amazon palm oil is not a major driver of deforestation in Brazil. While there are concerns that it could eventually exacerbate deforestation, there is also a chance that it could replace degraded cattle pasture, boosting economic productivity at a low environmental cost.

Dams, roads, and other infrastructure projects

Brazil's infrastructure spree from the late-2000s to mid-2010s was interrupted by the corruption scandals of the mid-2010s. Many of the scores of dams being built across the Amazon basin were put on hold following the Lava Jato scandal that ensnared senior politicians in several countries and executives at the infrastructure giant Odebrecht. Yet the scandals also helped usher in the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, which reinvigorated the push to build roads, dams, and mines in the Amazon.

Conservation in Brazil

While Brazil may be better known for losing its forests, during the 2000s it easily led the world in establishing new protected areas. Those gains were consolidated in 2014, when donors established a trust fund that will underwrite the country's protected areas system through 2039.

Beyond strict protected areas, more than a fifth of the Brazilian Amazon lies within indigenous reservations, which research has shown reduce deforestation even more effectively than national parks. Overall nearly half the Brazilian Amazon is under some form of protection.

Brazil's other forests

While the Amazon rainforest is Brazil's most famous forest, the country also has other types of forest.

The Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest is a drier tropical forest that lies along the coast and inland areas to the south of the Amazon. It has been greatly reduced by conversion to agriculture -- especially sugar cane and cattle pasture -- and urbanization. The Mata Atlântica is arguably Brazil's most threatened forest.

The Pantanal is an inland wetland that borders Paraguay and Bolivia and covers an area of 154,884 square kilometers. It includes a mosaic of forests and flooded grasslands.

The cerrado biome is a tropical grassland that covers 1.9 square kilometers, or approximately 22 percent of the country. It is being rapidly destroyed for agriculture.

The chaco biome is a dry forest ecosystem that extends into Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Brazil's tropical forests

Recent news on Brazil's tropical forests

Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary) (Nov 8 2025)
- Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, co-founder and president of the Igarapé Institute and of the Green Bridge Facility, argues that keeping global warming below 1.5 °C requires action on three simultaneous fronts: phasing out fossil fuels, ending deforestation, and scaling up natural carbon capture in forests and oceans.
- She contends that energy decarbonization alone is insufficient; protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and mangroves is essential for both emissions reduction and resilience, and must be backed by transparent finance and accountability.
- With COP30 approaching in Belém, her piece calls for an integrated, finance-backed plan that ties together clean-energy expansion, a time-bound zero-deforestation roadmap, and rigorous safeguards for community-led nature-based solutions.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

After 6 years, trial in Indigenous forest guardian killing pushed to 2026 (Nov 7 2025)
- The trial of the two suspects charged in the killing of Indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara and attempted killing of fellow guardian Laércio Guajajara in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019 was pushed to 2026, triggering outrage among the Guajajara people and Indigenous rights advocates.
- The trial over the crimes will be a legal landmark as the first Indigenous cases to go before a federal jury in Maranhão; usually, killings are considered crimes against individuals and are tried by a state jury, but these crimes were escalated to the federal level because prosecutors made the case that they represented an aggression against the entire Guajajara community and Indigenous culture.
- A long-awaited anthropological report on the collective damages to the Indigenous community as a result of the crimes was concluded and attached to the court case in August, but the trial is very likely to only happen in early 2026, “given that there is not enough time for it to be held by the end of this year,” the judge’s advisory staff in the case said.
- Paulo’s father, José Maria Paulino Guajajara, said he is “really angry” at white people for killing his son for no reason — and inside the Arariboia territory, where their entrance is forbidden. “We Indians are dying, and the white man won’t stop killing us.”

COP30 tropical forest fund may drive debt and deforestation, groups warn (Nov 7 2025)
A new global fund meant to reward tropical countries for protecting forests could instead drive deforestation and deepen debt in the developing world, civil society groups warn. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), launched Nov. 6 in Belém, Brazil, ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, aims to raise $125 billion and promises to pay […]

Climate finance must reach Indigenous communities at COP30 & beyond (commentary) (Nov 5 2025)
- Indigenous and local communities protect 36% of the world’s intact tropical forests, yet receive less than 1% of international climate finance — a contradiction that threatens global climate goals and leaves the most effective forest guardians without the resources they need.
- As the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon draws near, pressure is mounting to get funding directly into the hands of Indigenous and local community organizations who are the frontline defenders of the world’s rainforests.
- “As billions of dollars in climate finance will be discussed or even decided upon at COP30 in Brazil, the priority must be to get resources directly to Indigenous and local communities who have safeguarded forests for generations,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon (Nov 5 2025)
- Renata Piazzon, CEO of the Instituto Arapyaú, is one of Brazil’s leading voices for aligning conservation with economic development, arguing that protecting forests and improving livelihoods must go hand in hand.
- Under her leadership, Arapyaú has helped catalyze initiatives like MapBiomas and the Forest People Connection, which link data, finance, and connectivity to reduce deforestation and strengthen Amazonian communities.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30, Piazzon envisions the country shifting from negotiation to implementation—demonstrating global leadership through regenerative agriculture, forest restoration, and a low-carbon economy.
- Piazzon spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in November 2025.

Brazil charges 31 people in major carbon credit fraud investigation (Nov 4 2025)
Brazil’s Federal Police have indicted 31 suspects for fraud and land-grabbing in a massive criminal carbon credit scheme in the Brazilian Amazon, according to Brazilian national media outlet Folha de S.Paulo. It is the largest known criminal operation involving carbon credit fraud to date in the nation. The police probe, called Operation Greenwashing, was launched […]

Heading into COP, Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate is falling. What about fires? (Oct 30 2025)
- Brazil’s official data show deforestation in the Amazon fell 11% in the 12 months to July 2025, with independent monitoring by Imazon confirming a similar trend—evidence that policies under President Lula da Silva are reversing the sharp rise seen during Jair Bolsonaro’s administration.
- Even as land clearing slows, fires and forest degradation have become major drivers of loss. Exceptional drought in 2024, record heat, and the spread of roads and logging left large areas of the forest dry and flammable, causing 2.78 million hectares of primary forest loss—roughly 60% from fire.
- Burned areas have dropped by 45% over the past year, suggesting some recovery, yet scientists warn the Amazon is entering a more fragile state shaped by climate extremes and the lingering effects of past destruction.
- As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém, attention will center on sustaining recent gains and advancing initiatives like the proposed $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility, even as new roads, gold mining, and policy uncertainty—such as the wavering soy moratorium—continue to threaten progress.

Belém faces its social and natural demons as host to COP30 (Oct 28 2025)
- Deforestation and the city’s historic shift from rivers to roads led to a massive influx of people into low-lying baixadas, where 57% of residents lack services, such as sewage, and are highly prone to flooding.
- The lack of trees in one of the Amazon’s most revered cities, especially in poor neighborhoods, contributes to projections that Belém will face 222 days of extreme heat by 2050.
- Experts argue that the infrastructure projects being implemented don’t offer sustainable solutions, reflecting a long-term failure to address Belém’s water and sewage crises.

Report urges full protection of world’s 196 uncontacted Indigenous peoples (Oct 27 2025)
- A comprehensive global report on uncontacted Indigenous peoples, published Oct. 27 by Survival International, estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Asia and the Pacific region.
- About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon — especially in Brazil, home to 124 groups. Survival International says that, unless governments and private companies act, half of the groups could be wiped out within 10 years.
- Nine out of 10 of these Indigenous groups face the threat of unsolicited contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups.
- After contact, Indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International says that, if these peoples are to survive, they must be fully protected, requiring serious noncontact commitments by governments, companies and missionaries.

Amazon Rainforest hits record carbon emissions from 2024 forest fires (Oct 8 2025)
In 2024, the Amazon Rainforest underwent its most devastating forest fire season in more than two decades. According to a new study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the fire-driven forest degradation released an estimated 791 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, a sevenfold increase compared with the previous two years. The […]

New deal pushes Amazon’s controversial ‘tipping point road’ ahead (Sep 29 2025)
- Brazil’s President Lula has personally cemented his support for the project and set his cabinet to work out a deal to renew the BR-319 highway, which passes through one of the most preserved areas of the Amazon.
- Scientists warn the highway will create a “fishbone effect” of illegal side roads, fueling deforestation that could push the Amazon past a critical tipping point and trigger its irreversible conversion into a savanna.
- A recent congressional reform, labeled the “Devastation Bill” by activists, allows strategic projects like BR-319 to bypass full environmental reviews and shifts approval authority to a politically appointed council.

Setting the record straight on Jurisdictional REDD+: The case of Brazil (Sep 21 2025)
- Jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+) has been a climate finance mechanism under the UN for nearly two decades. In Brazil, JREDD+ is a public policy approach developed by Brazilian federal and state governments to promote large-scale forest conservation and climate mitigation.
- Emission reductions are measured at the jurisdictional level—not tied to individual properties or collective territories—and generate carbon credits based on verified drops in deforestation and degradation.
- Participation is voluntary and protected by safeguards and law, ensuring communities, farmers, and local actors can opt in or out while retaining land and resource rights. JREDD+ enables access to climate finance from private and public sources, with benefits distributed to rural sectors and credits issued only after independent verification.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

The mire of Brazil’s BR-319 highway: Deforestation, development, and the banality of evil (commentary) (Sep 19 2025)
- Brazil’s BR-319 highway project is moving inexorably forward toward approval and construction, with the individual actors in the different government agencies acting to fulfill their assigned duties despite the overall consequence being potentially disastrous for Brazil and for global climate.
- The bureaucratic system failure this represents was codified as the “banality of evil” by Hannah Arendt, a problem that applies to many bureaucracies around the world, resulting in major impacts for the environment.
- President Lula is in a position to act on behalf of the wider interests of Brazil, but so far, he has isolated himself in a “disinformation space” that excludes consideration of the overall impacts of BR-319 and other damaging proposals in the Amazon.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Forests on Indigenous lands help protect health in the Amazon (Sep 12 2025)
Healthy forests are more than climate shields; in the Amazon, they also serve as public-health infrastructure. A Communications Earth & Environment study spanning two decades across the biome links the extent and legal status of Indigenous Territories to 27 respiratory, cardiovascular, and zoonotic or vector-borne diseases. The findings are complex, but one pattern is clear: […]

Where life has found its richest expression – Amazon Rainforest Day (Sep 5 2025)
Amazon Rainforest Day, first celebrated in 2008, aims to raise awareness about the importance of Earth’s largest rainforest. There is a place where the Amazon meets the Andes, where forests climb the lower slopes of mountains before giving way to the mists of the cloud forests. To stand there is to feel the weight of […]

Brazil can green its environmental crime-fighting in the Amazon (commentary) (Sep 4 2025)
- Brazil’s special operations unit known as the Grupo de Especialização de Fiscalização (GEF) targets destructive criminal groups involved in illegal gold mining in the Amazon, which encroaches on territories inhabited by Indigenous communities and releases heavy metals such as mercury into the environment.
- While GEF’s strikes against such operations are often effective in disrupting them, their methods can also be destructive, as they typically rely on burning mining equipment and infrastructure.
- A new op-ed argues that GEF should add environmental stewardship to its operations: “Fighting illegal gold mining cannot rely on destruction alone. Protecting the rainforest can mean transforming enforcement into a tool for healing.”
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Why is rainfall declining in the Amazon? New research says deforestation is the leading driver (Sep 2 2025)
- Deforestation in the Amazon has been identified as the main driver of declining rainfall, responsible for nearly three-quarters of the drop in dry-season precipitation since the mid-1980s.
- Between 1985 and 2020, dry-season rainfall fell by about 21mm annually, with 15.8mm linked to forest loss, while maximum daily temperatures rose by 2°C, about one-sixth of which was caused by deforestation.
- Amazonian trees generate more than 40% of the region’s rainfall through transpiration, and their removal disrupts local and regional weather, influencing monsoons and increasing drought risk far beyond the basin.
- If current deforestation trends persist, by 2035 the region could lose another 7mm of rainfall in the dry season and heat up by 0.6°C, pushing the Amazon toward a drier climate like the Cerrado or Caatinga.

Brazil’s Atlantic Forest still losing ‘large amounts’ of mature forest, despite legal protection (Aug 28 2025)
- Despite a federal protection law, Brazil’s Atlantic Forest lost a Washington, D.C.-sized area of mature forest every year between 2010 and 2020, with most of the deforestation occurring illegally on private lands for agriculture.
- The Atlantic Forest is a critical biodiversity hotspot that supports 70% of Brazil’s GDP while serving nearly three-quarters of the country’s population.
- Major agribusiness companies, including COFCO, Bunge and Cargill, have been identified as exposed to deforestation in their soybean supply chains, with agriculture and livestock farming driving most forest loss.
- Conservation success stories like the black lion tamarin’s recovery from near-extinction demonstrate that restoration is possible, with one project planting millions of seedlings and generating significant local employment.

Brazilian court restores Amazon soy moratorium, for now (Aug 28 2025)
A federal court in Brazil has reinstated the Amazon soy moratorium, a private-sector antideforestation measure that helps protect the Amazon Rainforest against the expansion of soy farms in the biome. The Aug. 25 ruling overturns a suspension issued last week by Brazil’s antitrust regulator, CADE, which had opened an investigation into claims that the two-decade-old […]

In Brazil, invaders set fires in Karipuna Indigenous land, leaders say (Aug 26 2025)
Indigenous leaders say land-grabbers are setting fires inside the Karipuna Indigenous Territory in Brazil’s Rondônia state, in the northwest Amazon. The fires come less than one month after Indigenous leaders warned authorities about renewed invasions. Satellite monitoring detected more than 90 fire alerts in the territory between Aug. 14 and Aug. 25, according to an […]