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Latin America Correspondent
Independent commentary & analysis from Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio, featured on The Times, talkRADIO, LBC, ABC, & more.
Latin America Correspondent
Dramatic Drop in Amazon Deforestation
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On LBC, Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio breaks down the reasons for the historic slowing of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
Latin American correspondent based in Mexico City. John, um really good to have you with us. Is this a good news story in the way that it seems? Good morning.
Jon BonfiglioNo, I think good morning. Um yeah, I know I think it is a pretty good news story. We've sort of um it's been trailed for for a bit. I mean, it is all about political will. This is the administration of um President Lula da Silva in um in Brazil, and he's made environmental protection a priority to the extent that he said that um the target for Brazil is zero deforestation by by 2030. And um last year, so 2025, saw 3.1 million hectares of Brazil's Amazon burnt. Now, of course, that's still significant, but it is the lowest that we have um that we have seen now for for a generation and also includes the lowest numbers of total recorded fires in in 40 41 years, which when you um see the fact that 2024 was the highest that we've seen um in history at 15.8 million, completely record-breaking, is um is an incredible sort of level of of success. Of course, the burn is still new burn, but still, you know, it is it has come down significantly, and it is all to do with yeah, these these policies that the the Brazilian government under Lula de Silva have have brought in in terms of prioritizing the sort of the custodianship of the Amazon.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean uh this is just wonderful news, isn't it? Um and I noticed just looking at the the graph here that in 2024, I think as you may have pointed up there, there was a yeah, the the the the highest amount I think was can you just bring that down a bit so I can see the the top bit of text on it. Um an enormous amount, I think, uh was was burned, was it not, in 2024? Um and it way higher than any time since 2011. So it was almost like there was a massive peak, and then that enormous drop to 2025.
Jon BonfiglioYeah, it was I mean, largely it's just because of the the previous government of jail Bolsonaro. He left office in 2023, but of course, you know, policies don't just end one year to the next. There's a kind of a lag. And under Bolsonaro, basically Bolsonaro saw the Amazon as a resource and he sort of encouraged agribusiness uh mining, both legal and illegal, um and and so on. And actually, if you look at the sort of the clearing of land, of course, because when we think about fires in the Amazon, it's important to contextualize that fires don't just happen, it's basically to clear land, which all over 80% of which ends up as cattle pasture. So it is, as you said, right at the beginning of the of the piece, Richard, it's entirely to do with, I guess, an appetite for for meat in particular and uh to a lesser extent um timber. So it was it was it was that um sort of political narrative up until 2023, which then reached into 2024, but which has now changed completely under Lula da Silva. His his Lula de Silva's policies are interesting because it's been both stick and carrot. On the one hand, um he's reinstated a uh uh a multi-billion dollar Amazon fund, so-called Amazon fund, which finances conservation. So it sort of financially incentivizes because a lot of this issue is to do with poverty in in these in these communities, so it sort of financially incentivizes people to care for and look after and preserve uh land. And then at the same time, the stick relates to his beefing up of environmental enforcement, which includes seizing these illegal, illegally grazing cattle or log timber uh and added punitive punishments, um, etc. And then just on the last one, it's a slightly perhaps less um obvious uh initiative which Ludwig Silver's brought in as well, is to sort of empower and give license and agency to indigenous communities, because it is important to remember that the the Amazon is is full of um native, both contacted and uncontacted communities. And and so that the Brazilian government in the last few years has assisted these groups in practice um and legally as well in clearing uh wildcat miners, illegal loggers, um, and taking uh and allow them to sort of take control of their land once again?
SPEAKER_01Well, um I think you know that it's great that uh Bolsonaro is gone for all sorts of reasons, in my view. But is it just because perhaps the people are across the world now eating less meat or realizing they've got to eat less meat and turning to meat-free alternatives or being vegetarian or or vegan that you know there isn't perhaps a demand for the cattle ranches? Or or is it because of the uh decline in the arable um cultivation uh replacement of rainforests? Because I know that you know a lot of places were a lot of the rainforests had a very, very diverse vegetation and canopy, which was great for all the different wildlife species that needed to exist in that ecosystem. And what they were doing was just to flatten them, replacing them with a monoculture, usually um for palm oil, and that was almost as pernicious for the rainforest as the clearing for ranching or timber.
Jon BonfiglioYeah, you you're absolutely right. I mean that that is still that is still in in place. It just doesn't have quite the the sort of the um the sort of almost apocalyptic capacity as as cattle do. The the big change with cattle has actually been that um the good practice, the best practice as regards a lot of these um these companies has actually improved significantly, even in the last ten years. So um and it's notoriously difficult to do to to because because uh uh a a local producer say will not necessarily um sell their cattle to market. They will probably sell it to another cattle producer and then another cattle producer and so on. So the provenance of the cattle is really difficult to trace down that food chain. But actually, um the industry has increasingly um taken taken this uh very seriously over a um the sort of the short and and the medium term. So um it it's uh almost certain now that whatever uh whatever uh meat ends up at your supermarket, your local supermarket in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in in Europe will um will almost certainly I don't want to say entirely 100% that this is this is fact, but will um uh almost certainly now be a product of good practice which does not um relate to the sort of uh does not in any way sort of feed into the deforestation of the Amazon.
SPEAKER_01Well, listen, it's great to hear that. It really is, and it's so rare we get a good um a good climate story, isn't it? Thanks uh very much indeed, John. John Bonville there, uh Latin American correspondent uh there in Mexico.