Over the past three years, Brazil has cut deforestation in the Amazon by half. In 2025, there was an 11.08% drop. These figures stem from the commitment made by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration and Environment Minister Marina Silva to eliminate deforestation nationwide by 2030. All of this is now at risk due to Flávio Bolsonaro's victory in the first round of the 2026 presidential election. If Bolsonaro wins, Brazil will almost certainly revert to the kind of environmental destruction seen during the administration of his father Jair Bolsonaro — who is currently imprisoned for attempting a coup d'état.
It is crucial to point out that the Amazon lost 690,000 more trees per day under Bolsonaro than under Lula. The current PT administration, with Marina Silva heading the Ministry of the Environment, has driven a drastic drop in deforestation figures. According to the website O Eco, the rate of deforestation fell by 62% during Lula’s first two terms, rose by 54% during the Bolsonaro administration, and dropped by 51% during Lula’s third term compared to 2022.
The PT administration has restored environmental governance by reviving the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon and creating similar plans for the Cerrado and other Brazilian biomes. All these plans face criticism from Bolsonaro supporters. Consequently, all these protection mechanisms would likely be dismantled under a Flávio Bolsonaro administration.
Other services expected to be severely impacted include enforcement and monitoring operations carried out by Ibama and ICMBio, with support from agencies such as INPE, the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, and Funai. During the first Bolsonaro administration, there was a concerted effort to dismantle these services and bolster support for illegal logging and illegal mining activities that reached record levels under his government, which ended its term with historic highs in deforestation within protected areas and a surge of up to 90% in illegal mining operations in those same regions.
The current government has stepped up enforcement and monitoring efforts through Ibama and ICMBio, with the support of other agencies such as INPE, the Federal Police (PF), the Federal Highway Police (PRF), and Funai.
In addition to command-and-control measures, the ministry led by Marina Silva has reactivated financial mechanisms, such as the Amazon Fund, that strengthen federal, state, and municipal agencies and drive sustainable development in the Amazon biome.
Paradoxically, the agribusiness sector, which largely supports Bolsonarism, will be the most affected by further deforestation in the Amazon. According to environmental activist Bruno Brezenski, 85% of Brazilian agricultural production currently depends on Amazonian rainfall.
Soybeans in the Center-West, cotton in São Paulo, and corn in the South rely on standing trees in the Amazon.
According to the journal Nature, every square meter of intact forest releases 300 liters of water into the atmosphere annually. This creates the famous "flying rivers" that irrigate the entire country.
Therefore, a far-right government would harm the economic sector that most strongly supports it and would effectively give the green light to countless illegal activities in the Amazon rainforest, such as wildcat mining and illegal deforestation. It is worth recalling that Ricardo Salles, Jair Bolsonaro’s then-Minister of the Environment, became a defendant in a case involving the illegal export of timber.
The election of Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) could therefore cause Amazon deforestation to return, in the coming years, to the worst levels observed since monitoring began in 1988 — exactly as happened during Jair Bolsonaro's administration.
