The Amazon rainforest is burning at an unprecedented rate, with smoke clouds thick enough to block out the sun across entire states. Indigenous communities are fleeing their ancestral lands. Rivers that have flowed for centuries are drying up completely. Yet in the corridors of power in Brasília, there’s a growing sense of optimism about Brazil’s environmental future. But can new policies really reverse decades of destruction, or are we watching the world’s most important ecosystem slip through our fingers while politicians make promises they can’t keep?
The Shocking Reality Behind Brazil’s Environmental Crisis
You might think you know how bad things have gotten in the Amazon, but the numbers from 2024 will leave you speechless. According to MapBiomas’ fire monitor, a staggering 30.8 million hectares (119,000 square miles) of land were consumed by fires, an area larger than Italy, marking a shocking 79 per cent increase from 2023. This isn’t just deforestation anymore—it’s environmental apocalypse happening in real time. In 2024, record-breaking blazes scorched millions of hectares of native vegetation in the Amazon Rainforest and other biodiversity-rich biomes. What makes this even more terrifying is that In August 2024, Rodrigo Agostinho, head of IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, said fire was being used as a new deforestation tool, replacing the traditional chainsaws and tractors. “Fire is much cheaper. Besides being cheaper, fire is more challenging to detect by environmental agents’ satellite imagery.” Criminal networks have discovered that burning the forest is not only cheaper than cutting it down—it’s also much harder for authorities to catch them doing it.
A Paradox That Confuses Everyone
Here’s where things get really weird. While the Amazon was literally going up in flames, Brazil’s deforestation rates were actually plummeting. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by 30.6% over the past year, reaching its lowest level since 2015, with 6,288 square kilometers cleared by July 31, 2024. It’s like watching someone’s house burn down while they’re installing new smoke detectors. That means rates have roughly halved since 2022. This disconnect between fires and deforestation tells us something crucial about what’s happening: the old methods of destruction are being replaced by something far more dangerous and unpredictable. Traditional deforestation involved clear-cutting for agriculture, but despite the drop in deforestation, fires surged nearly 18-fold in September due to severe drought, with fire hotspots up 70% from the previous year.
The Emergency Declaration That Changes Everything
Brazil’s government finally woke up to the scale of the crisis when they took an unprecedented step in early 2025. Brazil has declared a nationwide environmental emergency to prevent another devastating fire season in 2025. This isn’t just paperwork—it’s a complete shift in how the country approaches environmental protection. The measure, decreed by environment minister Marina Silva on Feb. 27, gives authorities extra powers and resources to nip wildfires in the bud before they spread uncontrollably. Brazil’s federal government will hire an additional 250 federal firefighters and give six of the eight Amazonian states 45 million reais ($8 million) to bolster state-level fire brigades. The emergency status will last until at least August 2025, possibly extending into 2026 depending on conditions. What’s fascinating is that this represents a complete reversal from the Bolsonaro era, when environmental agencies were systematically weakened and their budgets slashed.
Politicians Playing With Fire While Rome Burns
The political landscape in the Amazon is absolutely mind-boggling when you look at who voters are actually choosing to lead them. The 2024 elections happen during the Amazon’s worst drought ever. Candidates from Amazon’s traditional communities or sustainable programs have been organizing to face such financial power: this year’s municipal elections saw the highest number of Indigenous candidates in Amazon’s history (1,274), according to InfoAmazônia. Only 8% (107) were elected in the first round. In total, Amazon voters elected three Indigenous mayors, 96 councilors, and eight deputy mayors. Meanwhile, Even Belém, Pará’s capital, which will hold COP30 in 2025, may elect a mayor who is unconcerned about climate change. It’s like watching people vote for arsonists while their neighborhood is already on fire. The disconnect between environmental reality and political choices reveals just how complex and challenging Brazil’s environmental policies really are—you can’t save the Amazon if the people who live there don’t want it saved.
Lula’s Environmental Agenda Versus Economic Reality
President Lula came back to power promising to be Brazil’s environmental savior, but his actual policies reveal some pretty uncomfortable contradictions. Brazil’s “Transversal Environmental Agenda,” released on 25 January 2024, contains many good things for the government to be doing, but it misses the opportunity to implant what a transversal agenda should be, namely a way of ensuring that the actions of the various federal agencies, at the very least, avoid provoking environmental disasters. The problem isn’t what’s in the agenda—it’s what’s glaringly absent from it. Neither the Transversal Environmental Agenda nor the PPA contain any hint of foregoing plans for expanding gas and oil, including the disastrous Solimões Sedimentary Area project in the critical Trans-Purus area of the state of Amazonas. Adding to these concerns are the Brazilian government’s plans to develop new oil drilling sites in the Amazon and to pave a stretch of the BR-319 highway, topics likely to spark discussions in 2025 about rainforest conservation. State oil company Petrobras is pushing to explore an offshore oil site at the mouth of the Amazon. This project contradicts President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign pledges to prioritize renewable energy and could severely impact Amazonian ecosystems.
The Success Story That Actually Works
Despite all the contradictions and challenges, some of Brazil’s environmental policies are producing remarkable results. Deforestation rates in the country dropped by 30.6% over the past year, hitting the lowest level since 2015. This decline is attributed, in part, to heavier enforcement of environmental regulations. The numbers are genuinely impressive when you compare them to the Bolsonaro years. Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest in 2023 halved from the previous year to its lowest level since 2018, government data showed on Friday, a major win for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his first year in office. According to preliminary satellite data from space research agency INPE, 5,153 square kilometers (1,989.6 square miles) of the Amazon were cleared in 2023, a 49.9% drop from 2022. But here’s what’s really interesting: As a result, deforestation linked to garimpos, small-scale gold miners (often illegal), in the Amazon plummeted by 30% in 2023 compared to 2022. The enforcement strategies are working, at least for traditional deforestation methods.
The Corporate Giants That Keep Destroying Everything
No discussion of Amazon destruction is complete without talking about the massive corporations that profit from it. Despite pledges to eliminate deforestation from its supply chains, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, has been repeatedly accused of sourcing beef from illegally deforested areas. The scale of corporate involvement is staggering. JBS, the world’s largest beef exporter and second-largest beef producer, employs over 250,000 people globally and generated an estimated $77 billion in revenue in 2024, contributing about 2.1 per cent of Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP). Yet, the company’s profits are built on a foundation of environmental degradation, deforestation, and exploitation. JBS has been accused of greenwashing, promoting unsustainable practices, and violating human rights, including child labour at meatpacking plants in the US. JBS, Marfrig, and Minerva sourced cattle from a farmer accused of illegally clearing 81,200 hectares of land, an area nearly four times the size of Amsterdam. This farmer was also linked to the use of a toxic chemical, 2,4-D (a component of Agent Orange), to deforest his land, marking the largest deforestation case ever recorded in Mato Grosso.
COP30: Brazil’s Make-or-Break Moment
The United Nations has chosen Brazil to host the international climate meeting, COP30, in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará in 2025. This isn’t just another international conference—it’s Brazil’s chance to prove that its environmental policies can actually work on a global stage. As the most recent host of the G20, a witness to devastating natural disasters, and home to the world’s largest carbon sink, Brazil is well positioned to lead the climate negotiations this year. Nevertheless, as the world begins to prepare for COP30, the full weight of climate leadership is sinking in. The pressure is enormous. But he warned that COP30 “must be about delivering action, not just having discussions and announcing commitments without clear ways for them to be implemented”. What makes this particularly challenging is that Belem, a city of 1.3 million in northern Brazil that will host the COP30 climate meeting in 2025, was put to the test during a summit of rainforest nations this week. But the city expects more than 70,000 for COP30. The logistics alone are mind-boggling.
The Oil Drilling Elephant in the Room
Here’s where Brazil’s environmental credibility completely falls apart. While preparing to host the world’s most important climate summit, Lula is simultaneously pushing for more oil drilling in some of the most environmentally sensitive areas on Earth. “But even as Brazil faces extreme heat and flooding, its government has signalled it wants to extract more climate-warming oil. “I dream of a day when we no longer need fossil fuels, but that day is still far away. Humanity will depend on them for a long time,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said last week during a speech in Belém, the capital of Pará and the host city for November’s COP30.” The hypocrisy is breathtaking. If Brazil were to maintain only the oil wells it currently has in operation, the country’s production would decline by 64% by 2035. However, with new exploration projects set to be licensed, Brazil’s oil production is expected to increase by 36% in the next decade, according to analysis by 350.org based on International Energy Agency (IEA) data. In 2024, state-owned oil giant Petrobrás reached a staggering production level of 2.4 million barrels of oil per day. Having Lula’s full support, the company is moving forward with controversial plans to expand oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River, an ecologically fragile region.
The Indigenous Communities Fighting Back
While politicians debate and corporations profit, Indigenous communities are literally putting their lives on the line to protect the forest. The president of the Federation of Kakataibo Indigenous Communities (FENACOKA, by the original Spanish acronym) in Peru left his territory in July of last year after receiving death threats. Illegal economic activities such as logging, coca farming, drug trafficking and irregular land occupation – with land titles irresponsibly attributed to the settlers by local authorities – make this territory in the western reaches of the Amazon, nearing the Andes, particularly dangerous. Between April of 2020 and July of 2021, four individuals of the Kakataibo and three of the Ashaninka indigenous peoples were killed in conflicts in their territories. The violence is escalating, but so is the resistance. Despite external pressures, deforestation rates are comparatively lower in indigenous territories due to legal land titling initiatives that have reduced deforestation by 75% in Peru. In September 2024, Sawré Muybu, an indigenous land, belonging to the Munduruku people got an official recognition, which is considered as a significant step in fighting deforestation. These communities understand something that politicians seem to miss: you can’t negotiate with a forest that’s already gone.
Money Talks: Following the Financial Trail
Environmental policy ultimately comes down to money, and the financial incentives in Brazil are still completely backwards. These challenges arise directly from the global appetite for commodities like gold, soy and beef. The demand for these commodities creates economic incentives that often outweigh environmental concerns, posing a significant obstacle to conservation efforts. The global market is literally paying Brazil to destroy the Amazon. International demand for beef and soy incentivizes ranchers to clear the land for cattle ranching and soybean production. Brazil is currently the world’s top exporter of beef and soy, exporting more than $35 billion worth of those products in 2020. Meanwhile, Germany and Norway gave billions of dollars to Brazil’s Amazon Fund, created in 2008 to promote sustainable use of the rain forest, but those countries have frozen that support. The math is simple: destruction pays better than conservation, at least in the short term. Of these, 48 municipalities joined the Federal Government’s “Union with Municipalities” [União com Municípios] program, which provides BRL 785 million in funding for environmental actions if deforestation is reduced. In addition to combating deforestation, the program promotes sustainable development in these 70 municipalities, which accounted for 78% of the biome’s deforestation in 2022. The funds are allocated to municipalities based on a “payment for performance” model: the larger the annual reduction in deforestation and degradation, the greater the investment.
Climate Change Is Making Everything Worse
Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get more complicated, climate change is making all of Brazil’s environmental challenges exponentially worse. For the past two years, the Amazon experienced consecutive extreme droughts, with 2024 being exceptionally severe, leaving major rivers at record lows. These phenomena reflect a combination of factors, including deforestation, climate change, and natural variability. The drought creates perfect conditions for fires to spread out of control. The outbreaks were fueled by an extreme drought that hit the Amazon in 2023 and 2024. Rainfall in the biome started diminishing in 2023 due to El Niño, the abnormal warming of the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The two intense dry seasons saw water levels in the Amazonian rivers drop to record lows and created the perfect conditions for burning. Studies show that once the rainforest has burned, it becomes more susceptible to fire in the future. This creates a terrifying feedback loop where each fire makes the next one more likely and more destructive.
The Technology Revolution That Could Change Everything
Brazil’s approach to environmental monitoring has undergone a technological revolution that’s actually quite impressive. The Real-Time Deforestation Detection System [Sistema de Detecção de Desmatamento em Tempo Real/DETER] is a rapid survey of signs of change in forest cover. It was developed to support monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation. The satellite technology allows authorities to detect deforestation within hours instead of months. Prodes uses more precise satellite images than those used by Deter, which issues daily alerts to support field inspections carried out by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources [Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis/IBAMA] and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation [Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade/ICMBio]. But technology is only as good as the people using it, and In 2024, Brazil announced a war on criminal arsonists, and the Federal Police opened several investigations into criminal fires. However, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that only 25% of the inquiries opened since
Jan loves Wildlife and Animals and is one of the founders of Animals Around The Globe. He holds an MSc in Finance & Economics and is a passionate PADI Open Water Diver. His favorite animals are Mountain Gorillas, Tigers, and Great White Sharks. He lived in South Africa, Germany, the USA, Ireland, Italy, China, and Australia. Before AATG, Jan worked for Google, Axel Springer, BMW and others.
