In the year to July 2026, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped by nearly 42%, according the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)—the steepest decline since monitoring began in 1988—while losses in the Cerrado, Brazil's vast tropical savanna, fell by nearly 24%. Deforestation surged to its highest level in more than a decade in 2021 under far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. His successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pledged to reverse the trend when he took office in 2022. Lula and Bolsonaro's son, Flávio, faced each other in a tight presidential contest, with the left-wing incumbent achieving a surprise victory in the Oct. 25 run-off. (TNH, PRI)