A record fire season in Brazil last year led to an acceleration in the rate of deforestation, official data shows. This is a blow to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's promise to protect the Amazon rainforest.

Data published by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover via satellite, shows that the rate of deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 increased by 9.1% compared to the same period in 2023-2024.

They also show a shocking 92% increase in deforestation in the Amazon in May compared to the same period last year, AFP reported.

This development risks erasing the results achieved by Brazil in 2024, when for the first time in six years deforestation slowed in all of the country's ecological biomes.

The report showed that outside the Amazon, the picture is less alarming in other biomes in Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference.

In the Pantanal wetlands, for example, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77% compared to the same period in 2023-2024.

When presenting the results, the executive secretary of the Ministry of the Environment, João Paulo Capobianco, blamed mainly the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, fueled by severe drought.

Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or livestock and then got out of control. | BGNES