The chainsaws are quieter: Amazon deforestation falls to its lowest level since 1988

Brazil's space research institute Inpe has recorded the lowest Amazon deforestation since satellite monitoring began in 1988: 3,335 square kilometres lost in 2026, down 41.81% in a single year and 71.2% over four years. The Cerrado savanna — long the fastest-cleared landscape in the country — also hit a record low, at 5,516 square kilometres. The Observatório do Clima network credits sustained enforcement, satellite monitoring of illegal clearing, embargoes on illegally cleared land and Amazon Fund financing, and calculates that at least 2.238 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases were kept out of the atmosphere over four years. Just as notable: farm output kept growing while the forest loss fell — proof, in one country's numbers, that the two do not have to move together.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: policy reform