Brazil's Amazon posts lowest deforestation in nine years

The Brazilian Amazon experienced its smallest amount of yearly deforestation in nearly a decade, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government reported Wednesday, in line with its promise to combat forest loss.

Deforestation fell by 30.6 percent in the year-to-year period beginning in August 2023, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

During that time, 6,288 square kilometers (2,427 square miles) of forest were destroyed, which INPE Director Gilvan Oliveira said was "the lowest result in the last nine years."

Over the last century, the Amazon rainforest -- which covers nearly 40 percent of South America -- has lost about 20 percent of its area to deforestation, due to the spread of agriculture and cattle ranching, logging and mining, and urban sprawl.

Scientists warn that continued deforestation will put the Amazon on track to reach a point where it will emit more carbon than it absorbs, accelerating climate change.

Lula has pledged to put a stop to illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 but faces an uphill battle against vested interests.

In addition to the Amazon, destruction of the Cerrado, the most species-rich savanna in the world, which is located in central Brazil, was reduced by 25.7 percent or 8,174 square kilometers, INPE reported.

The two different biomes were recently hit by historic drought and the subsequent spread of wildfires.

Mariana Napolitano, strategy director for the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, called the latest data "good news" but stressed there was more work to be done.

"We need to reforest part of what was destroyed in recent decades, especially in the Amazon's case, which is approaching the point of no return -- losing its capacity to regenerate," she warned.

Environment Minister Marina Silva welcomed the "significant drop" as a part of Brazil's push to reduce carbon emissions, just days before participating in the COP29 UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

"This reduction is the result of a new understanding that we are making in state politics... in the context that the problem of climate change is already an overwhelming reality in Brazil," she said.

Climate Observatory, a group of environmental NGOs, said in a release that "the numbers are a triumph for the country and a victory for Lula."

Deforestation dramatically worsened under Lula's far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration saw Amazon deforestation shoot up 75 percent compared to the average of the previous decade.