The areas under deforestation alert registered a significant drop in the Legal Amazon and the Cerrado between August 2025 and January this year, according to data from the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (Deter), from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe).
Alerts in the Amazon totaled 1,324 km², a 35% reduction compared to the previous period, when 2,050 km² were identified. In the Cerrado, alerts totaled 1,905 km², compared to 2,025 km². Drop of 6%.
The numbers were released this Thursday (12), after the 6th ordinary meeting of the Permanent Interministerial Commission for the Prevention and Combat of Deforestation, held at Palácio do Planalto. Reactivated in 2023, the collegiate brings together 19 ministries, under the presidency of the Civil House.
Forest degradation indicators in the Amazon indicate a decline from 44,555 km² to 2,923 km², a decrease of 93%.
Deter operates as a daily alert system aimed at supporting environmental inspection actions. It differs from the Satellite Monitoring Project for Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (Prodes), also by Inpe, which measures the consolidated annual rate of deforestation.
According to Prodes, in the comparison between 2022 and 2025, deforestation accumulated a drop of 50% in the Amazon and 32.3% in the Cerrado.
“There is an expectation that we will reach the lowest deforestation rate in the historical series in the Amazon in 2026 if we continue with these efforts,” said the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva.
The minister also highlighted that the results reflect public policies based on scientific data and reinforced that environmental performance did not compromise economic growth.
“Deforestation fell and agribusiness continues to grow, we opened 500 new markets for Brazilian agriculture, we closed an agreement with the European Union with Mercosur in a demonstration that consistent, well-designed and implemented public policies give good results”, highlighted Marina.
The situation is different in the Pantanal, a biome in which deforestation alerts grew by 45.5% between August 2025 and January this year, from 202 km² to 294 km². Despite the recent increase, in the comparison between 2023 and 2024 there was a drop of 65.2%.
Oversight
According to the Ministry of the Environment, strengthening control actions appears as one of the main factors for reducing alerts. In this sense, the ministry indicates that, compared to 2022, inspection actions by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (Ibama) grew 59%.
ICMBio operations increased by 24%, embargoed areas increased by 51% (Ibama) and 44% (ICMBio), the number of environmental inspection operations in the Amazon increased by almost 148%, while registered occurrences increased from 932 to 1,754. There was also a significant increase in the seizures of minerals (170%) and wood (65%).
The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Luciana Santos, highlighted the role of scientific monitoring. “Our entire technological infrastructure chain gives us the necessary precision to support public policies assertively, proving that there is no preservation without investment in knowledge. We are showing the world that Brazil not only monitors its biomes, but uses science as a tool of care and sovereignty.”
