Deforestation in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest fell to its lowest level in 40 years in 2025 C.E., according to a new report from environmental NGO SOS Mata Atlântica — a milestone that scientists say could put the country on a path to zero deforestation in one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems within just a few years.
At a glance
- Atlantic Forest deforestation: Just 8,658 hectares were lost in 2025 C.E. — the first time the figure has fallen below 10,000 hectares since monitoring began in 1985 C.E.
- Year-on-year drop: The decline represents a 40% reduction compared to 2024 C.E., when 14,366 hectares were cleared, and a sharp fall from the Bolsonaro years, when annual losses exceeded 20,000 hectares.
- Forest cover crisis: Despite the progress, the Atlantic Forest retains only 24% of its original cover — far less than the Amazon at around 80% or the Cerrado at around 50%.
Why this record matters
The Atlantic Forest is not a remote wilderness. It is where most Brazilians live.
Home to roughly 80% of the country’s population and major cities including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the biome is Brazil’s most urbanized and degraded ecosystem. That makes every hectare recovered — or protected — directly relevant to the lives of tens of millions of people who depend on its water catchments, flood regulation, and biodiversity.
Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, executive director of SOS Mata Atlântica, says the milestone is the product of years of sustained effort. He attributes the downward trend to a combination of public pressure, civil society mobilization, environmental policy, and enforcement action under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration. If the trend holds, he believes the biome could reach zero deforestation within three years.
Decades of monitoring, one clear trend
The new data comes from two separate monitoring systems, both run in partnership with other organizations and released together in May 2026 C.E.
The longer-running dataset — based on four decades of satellite monitoring — shows the 40% drop from 2024 C.E. to 2025 C.E. A newer, more precise system tracking data since 2022 C.E. recorded a 28% decline over the same period, falling from 53,303 to 38,385 hectares. The difference between the two figures reflects the resolution of the satellites used, not a contradiction in the findings. Both point the same direction.
The Atlantic Forest is classified by conservation scientists as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Though it covers only a fraction of its original range, it is home to thousands of endemic species found nowhere else on Earth. In fragmented forests, even small losses can sever wildlife corridors and push species toward local extinction. “In the Atlantic forest, every fragment lost makes a huge difference,” Pinto said.
The risks that could reverse the gains
The record drop comes with an honest caveat: the legal and political environment in Brazil is becoming less protective of forests, not more.
Late in 2025 C.E., Brazil’s congress passed — and then overrode Lula’s partial veto of — what critics call the “devastation bill,” a sweeping reform to environmental licensing that removes the requirement for federal approval before states can authorize deforestation. The decision now rests with local authorities, who face far less external scrutiny. The law’s constitutionality is being challenged in Brazil’s supreme court.
Malu Ribeiro, director of public policy at SOS Mata Atlântica, called the law a “distortion” that puts Brazil at odds with the Paris Agreement and risks worsening climate disasters. “Weakening protection instruments now risks everything we have spent years building,” she said.
There is also a political dimension. Brazil’s October 2026 C.E. presidential election pits Lula against Flávio Bolsonaro, senator and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has pledged to follow his father’s governing approach. Under the elder Bolsonaro’s 2019–23 C.E. administration, Atlantic Forest deforestation exceeded 20,000 hectares in each of the final two years — nearly triple the 2025 C.E. figure. Pinto warned that a change in government along those lines could cost Brazil “the opportunity to be a global environmental leader.”
A milestone worth protecting
What the 2025 C.E. data shows, above all, is that forest loss is not inevitable. Policy works. Enforcement works. Civil society pressure works. The Atlantic Forest has been losing ground for centuries — first to sugar cane, then to coffee, then to cities — and what remains is a patchwork of fragments clinging to hillsides and river valleys between some of South America’s most densely populated urban areas.
That this patchwork is now being lost more slowly than at any point in the last 40 years is a genuine achievement. Whether the conditions that produced it — a federal government committed to enforcement, a functioning environmental agency, legally required impact assessments — survive the next election cycle is an open question.
For now, the number that matters is 8,658. It is the lowest it has ever been. And it is proof that a different trajectory is possible.
Read more
For more on this story, see: The Guardian
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Indigenous land rights and COP30: 160 million hectares
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- The Good News for Humankind archive on Brazil
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