After years of accelerating forest loss, Brazil may finally be seeing signs of a slowdown. In 2024, the country lost 1.88 million hectares of native vegetation - an area larger than Puerto Rico - but the pace of destruction began to ease. Most notably, deforestation in the Amazon dropped by 32.4% compared to 2023, according to the 2024 Annual Deforestation Report released in May 2025 by MapBiomas.

The drop was even sharper in federally managed lands, where Amazon deforestation fell by 62%. Across all six of Brazil’s biomes — Amazon, Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest, Pantanal, and Pampa - forest loss continued, but the dramatic spike seen in 2023 has started to flatten. It’s the clearest signal yet that enforcement measures and political shifts may be starting to have an effect.

Still, the overall scale remains alarming - and almost entirely illegal. 97.1% of deforestation in 2024 occurred without required permits. The Cerrado biome now accounts for nearly 60% of all deforestation alerts, overtaking the Amazon as the new frontline. Maranhão, Tocantins, and Bahia led in total forest loss, with Maranhão clearing more than 290,000 hectares alone.

What’s even more concerning is the speed of clearing. Nearly 80% of all deforestation in 2024 happened in under 90 days — a sign of increasingly mechanized operations that make enforcement nearly impossible in real time. Even protected lands were not spared: over 44,000 hectares were cleared within conservation units and Indigenous territories.

MapBiomas concludes that Brazil already has the data and tools to curb illegal deforestation - what’s missing is political will and consistent enforcement. “The trajectory has started to bend,” the report states. “But we are far from reversing the trend.”