{"id":781685,"date":"2026-07-24T11:19:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781685\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T11:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:19:35","slug":"brazils-low-deforestation-in-the-amazon-is-unlikely-to-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/781685\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s low deforestation in the Amazon is unlikely to last"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent report from Brazil\u2019s national space agency showed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is the lowest it\u2019s been in a decade. The news made<\/a> headlines<\/a> and was lauded as an example of the progress President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva had made toward his promise of eliminating illegal deforestation<\/a> there by 2030. Since taking office in 2023, Lula\u2019s administration has ramped up environmental policies aimed at making the country\u2019s beef industry more transparent, such as increasing policing<\/a> and remote monitoring<\/a> of forest lands.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some of that progress is at risk of being undone, say environmental experts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In January, a number of agrifood groups left a voluntary trade agreement<\/a> known as the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which had been highly effective at curbing deforestation for the sake of cultivating soybeans. The pact prohibited members from buying soy grown on lands deforested after July 2008. When the moratorium fell apart earlier this year, researchers and advocates expected it to usher in a rise in deforestation for soy cultivation. Now, thanks to a group of scientists working in both the U.S. and Brazil, we have an initial expectation of how much deforestation is likely to occur in the coming years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a new paper published last week in Science, researchers say that the Amazon forest is at risk of losing 1.4 million hectares \u2014 or the equivalent of about 2 million soccer fields \u2014\u00a0to deforestation over the next 10 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the moratorium was in place, soy cultivation was one of the main drivers of deforestation<\/a> in the Amazon; for example, in Mato Grosso, Brazil\u2019s leading soy producing state, a quarter of soy production from 2001 to 2005 came from clearing forested lands<\/a>. After a widespread public campaign led by Greenpeace<\/a>, public and private sector actors working in the Amazon forest came together to create the soy moratorium. \u201cPeople generally followed it,\u201d said Lisa Rausch, one of the authors of the Science paper. \u201cThere weren\u2019t many violations of it, especially in the early days and years. This created a situation where land deforested after 2008 was no longer valuable to soy traders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ane Alencar, a director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, or IPAM, agreed that the soy moratorium was a \u201cvery important private policy mechanism\u201d for curbing deforestation. She also argued that without it, lands deforested after 2008 that are currently used for things like raising cattle will now be converted to soybean production \u2014\u00a0and that the cattle ranching will move to \u201cnew frontiers,\u201d likely leading to deforestation elsewhere in the Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"aerialArea that has been cleared for soy cultivation in the Amazon rainforest near the Brazilian city of Bel\u00e9m.
\n Larissa Schwedes \/ picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The new research on soy-driven deforestation in the Amazon also comes at a time when private commitments from major food groups to clean up their supply chains have been flagging. This month, JBS, the world\u2019s largest meat producer, publicly walked back<\/a> its so-called promise<\/a> to reach net-zero deforestation by 2040. The news shouldn\u2019t necessarily come as a surprise, as last year, the company\u2019s chief sustainability officer admitted in an interview with Reuters that the pledge was always purely aspirational<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alencar believes that the private sector still has a role to play in disincentivizing deforestation, and that companies like JBS are still susceptible to consumer pressure to do the right thing. \u201cThey are very reactive to the public opinion,\u201d she said, \u201cso maybe there is a need for more campaigns asking for these companies to be more responsible in the Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other forest countries in Latin America are working on curbing deforestation. Colombia recently passed a first-of-its-kind law<\/a> aimed at increasing traceability within its beef industry. Over the next two years, government agencies must work with cattle ranchers to ensure they are not raising herds on illegally deforested lands \u2014\u00a0as well as bring in slaughterhouses, meat processors, cattle auctioneers, and exporters to make sure they are not moving or selling products from these areas. Rausch called this development a strong signal, but said much remains to be seen about how Colombian authorities will accomplish these goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there are still other agreements in place that aim to restrict deforestation in Brazil \u2014 such as the nation\u2019s Forest Code, which limits how much land can be cleared for any type of agricultural production. When lands are deforested outside of these limits, the owners receive a fine and then the land in question is placed under embargo, meaning it cannot be used for any commercial agricultural use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Rausch argued the Forest Code does not go far enough to protect forested land. Her paper found that 20 percent of soy farms in the Amazon have embargoes against them for illegal deforestation. \u201cThe economic incentives for deforestation are still there,\u201d she said, while adding that the latest deforestation update from Brazil\u2019s space agency is welcome news. \u201cBut unless there are new things brought to the table, this will be a temporary drop, and it will creep back up for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alencar also finds the future outlook of deforestation in the Amazon \u201cworrisome.\u201d With Lula up for reelection \u2014 and facing off against Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro \u2014\u00a0Alencar fears that progress could be undone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid that all of these results that we have achieved,\u201d she said, \u201cthey\u2019ll really be in danger if the government becomes more anti-environmental.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent report from Brazil\u2019s national space agency showed that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is the lowest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[245135,192,228630,2091,79,6383],"class_list":["post-781685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-climate-food-and-agriculture","tag-environment","tag-food-and-agriculture","tag-international","tag-science","tag-yahoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}