Brazil’s space research institute counted 3,335 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest cleared in the 12 months through July, the smallest loss since its satellites began keeping the tally in 1988. The figure came from the same agency, INPE, whose director was fired in 2019 after President Jair Bolsonaro called its deforestation numbers lies. It landed nine days before his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, faces President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the Oct. 25 runoff.
The two men have filed government plans with very different goals for the forest. In the Amazon’s Pará state, people living near a protected Indigenous territory have sent its leaders audio messages saying ranchers are waiting for the vote to move in.
The number on Friday’s slides
INPE and the Environment Ministry presented the estimate in Brasília on Friday, Oct. 16. Their slides put it at 41.8% below last year’s 5,731 square kilometers and 71.2% below the level four years ago, when Bolsonaro left office. The previous record low was 4,571 square kilometers, in 2011-12, Al Jazeera and the Irish Times reported. In the mid-1990s, the yearly loss reached nearly 30,000.
The number is an estimate. INPE’s PRODES program measures each year from August to July, when cloud cover is thinner, and the slides say this figure rests on 271 of the 516 priority satellite images.
Pará cleared the most forest, 1,130 square kilometers, a third of the total and down 45% from a year earlier. Mato Grosso followed with 849 and Amazonas with 525. Roraima was the only one of the nine Amazon states that didn’t improve: it went from 285 square kilometers to 286. Clearing in the Cerrado savanna to the south also hit the lowest level in a series that starts in 2001.
“It’s an absolutely stratospheric drop,” Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco told reporters in Brasília, according to Al Jazeera. AFP credits the decline to more monitoring and stiffer penalties for illegal logging.
“Lies,” a firing and a report dated Oct. 27
INPE’s numbers were not always welcome in the presidential palace. In mid-2019, the institute’s alert system showed clearing in June running 88% above the year before. Bolsonaro called the findings “lies” and said they were hurting trade talks, according to Brazil’s state news agency, as reported by CNN. His environment minister, Ricardo Salles, said the government would hire a private company to take over the monitoring, Scientific American reported. On Aug. 2, 2019, the institute’s director, physicist Ricardo Galvão, said he had been dismissed after a meeting with Science Minister Marcos Pontes.
Two years later, the annual report itself was held back. INPE’s PRODES estimate for 2020-21 showed the worst loss in 15 years, 13,235 square kilometers, up 22%. The report was dated Oct. 27, 2021, but it wasn’t made public until Nov. 18, after the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow had ended. Three cabinet ministers told The Associated Press, on condition of anonymity, that the data was on the government’s system before the talks began on Oct. 31, and that Bolsonaro and several ministers had decided at a palace meeting not to release it until the conference was over. One of them said the aim was to highlight better monthly figures, not to lie. Environment Minister Joaquim Leite denied seeing the data before he led Brazil’s delegation. At that summit, Leite pledged that Brazil would end illegal deforestation by 2028.
Under Bolsonaro, from 2019 to 2022, the Amazon lost about 11,600 square kilometers a year on average, almost 60% more than in the four years before, according to Al Jazeera. Clearing has fallen every year since Lula took office in 2023.
Two plans for the same forest
Flávio Bolsonaro’s government plan sets a goal of ending illegal deforestation by 2029, a year later than the target his father’s government announced in Glasgow. The plan proposes to fight environmental crime, focus enforcement on organized crime rather than extractive workers and small farmers, and change environmental licensing, according to SBT News, Al Jazeera and the Irish Times. It would also eliminate what it calls overlaps among the environmental agency Ibama, the parks agency ICMBio and Funai, which handles Indigenous affairs, News Rondônia reported. Bolsonaro has also praised his father, who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for coup plotting, for resisting what he calls a radical environmental agenda, Al Jazeera reported.
Lula’s plan targets zero deforestation in all of Brazil’s biomes by 2030, News Rondônia reported. In his own post on X after Friday’s figures, Lula described the goal as zero illegal deforestation by 2030. The two descriptions don’t match. Polls show the race neck and neck, Al Jazeera reported. Bolsonaro finished first in the Oct. 4 first round, 47% to 45%.
Marina Silva, a former environment minister, has warned that Flávio Bolsonaro would try to finish what she called his father’s “perverse project” in the Amazon, the Irish Times reported.
Eight audio messages sent to Apyterewa
The Apyterewa Indigenous territory covers 773,000 hectares in São Félix do Xingu, in Pará. It is home to more than 1,000 Parakanã people, whom Brazil classifies as a people of recent contact with outsiders. Ranchers once built a small town, Vila Renascer, inside it.
On Oct. 12, the São Paulo newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that it had obtained eight audio messages sent to Parakanã leaders over WhatsApp by people living near the territory. The messages say farmers are waiting for election day to enter the land and build farms, expecting that Flávio Bolsonaro, if he wins, and Pará’s governor-elect, Dr. Daniel, will take the territory from the Parakanã. They tell the Parakanã to avoid areas where ranchers are already preparing pasture and suggest they leave. Folha withheld the recordings and the senders’ names for safety, and said it matched the audio metadata to addresses around Apyterewa with the help of investigators.
Folha did not link Flávio Bolsonaro himself to the messages. His campaign had not answered the newspaper’s questions, sent since Oct. 8, by publication. Dr. Daniel’s office said he would not comment.
The Federal Police, Ibama, Funai and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples all told Folha they are monitoring the situation. The ministry said a federal committee had decided to send more security forces to keep invaders out, and that investigating the audio messages is up to the police. A Federal Police officer, speaking anonymously, called the intelligence solid and worrying. Ibama said it also sees signs that people are mobilizing in other parts of the Amazon to restart illegal gold mining.
INPE’s own data shows how quickly clearing in Apyterewa has risen and fallen with the government in Brasília. It went from 18.9 square kilometers in 2018 to 85.3 in 2019, Jair Bolsonaro’s first year, and peaked at 102.2 in 2022. In 2023, Lula’s first year, it fell to 20.6. In 2020, Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso ordered the federal government to remove invaders from Indigenous lands, including Apyterewa. Folha says the Bolsonaro government didn’t carry out the order. Removals began in 2023 and met ambushes and destroyed bridges. A Funai employee was shot in late 2023, and an Ibama contractor was killed in 2025. Fire hotspots in the territory went from 41 in July to 626 in August and 1,007 in September, according to INPE data compiled by the Xingu Program, and investigators suspect some were set on purpose.
The runoff is on Sunday, Oct. 25. Our coverage of the first round is in Flávio Bolsonaro Edges Lula, Forcing Brazil Into a Runoff.
Sources
- INPE and Ministry of the Environment, “Taxas de desmatamento Prodes 2026” presentation (Oct. 16, 2026). Used for: the 3,335 sq km estimate, the 271 of 516 images, the 41.8% and 71.2% declines, last year’s figure and the state breakdown.
- Al Jazeera, AFP and Reuters, “Brazil’s Amazon deforestation hits lowest level on record” (Oct. 17, 2026). Used for: the previous record low, the mid-1990s peak, Capobianco’s remark, Lula’s post, the Bolsonaro-era average, Flávio Bolsonaro’s manifesto and remarks, the polls and the Cerrado.
- Reuters via the Irish Times, “Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon falls to all-time low ahead of pivotal election vote” (Oct. 17, 2026). Used for: the PRODES measuring period, the manifesto’s enforcement focus and Marina Silva’s remark.
- SBT News, “Meio ambiente e energia: veja propostas de Flávio na íntegra” (Oct. 16, 2026). Used for: the 2029 target and the licensing changes in Flávio Bolsonaro’s plan.
- News Rondônia, “Planos de governo de Lula e Flávio Bolsonaro apresentam abordagens opostas para o meio ambiente e a crise climática” (Oct. 13, 2026). Used for: Lula’s 2030 target and the proposed agency overlaps.
- Folha de S.Paulo via Diário de Cuiabá, “Indígenas recebem áudios com ameaça de invasão a território se Flávio Bolsonaro ganhar eleições” (Oct. 12, 2026). Used for: the audio messages, the agencies’ responses, Apyterewa’s history and the deforestation and fire figures for the territory.
- CNN via WTOP, “Scientist who called out Brazilian Pres. Bolsonaro on Amazon deforestation is fired” (Aug. 3, 2019). Used for: the 88% June figure, Bolsonaro’s “lies” remark and Galvão’s dismissal.
- Scientific American, “Brazil’s Sacked Space Director Speaks Out on Attacks on Science” (Aug. 7, 2019). Used for: Salles’ plan to hire a private company and the meeting with Pontes.
- The Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, “Sources: Brazil withheld deforestation data til COP26’s end” (Nov. 20, 2021). Used for: the ministers’ account, the Oct. 27 report date, Leite’s denial and the 2028 pledge.
- Reuters via Al Jazeera, “Amazon deforestation in Brazil surges to 15-year high” (Nov. 18, 2021). Used for: the 2021 PRODES figure and its release date.