Amazon deforestation rates decline for second year

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell for a second consecutive year, satellite monitoring showed on Tuesday, with primary forest loss down 28 per cent from the previous twelve-month period.

Officials attribute the decline to restored enforcement budgets, real-time alert systems and coordinated action against illegal supply chains in beef and timber. Scientists welcomed the trend while noting that degradation — logging and fire damage short of clearance — has not fallen as fast.

Attention now shifts to whether the trajectory survives the next agricultural expansion cycle, and to neighbouring countries where clearance rates have moved in the opposite direction.