A new study warns that the Brazilian Amazon could lose 1.4 million hectares of forest over the next decade as the Amazon Soy Moratorium collapses. The drop in deforestation reported this month is unlikely to last without stronger measures.
A recent report from Brazil’s national space agency found deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon at its lowest level in a decade. The decline follows policies introduced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva since he took office in 2023.
In January several agrifood groups withdrew from the Amazon Soy Moratorium. The voluntary agreement had barred purchases of soy grown on land cleared after July 2008.
A paper published last week in Science projects that 1.4 million hectares, equal to about two million soccer fields, could be lost to soy-driven deforestation in the coming ten years. Researcher Lisa Rausch noted that land deforested after 2008 is now open to soy traders.
Ane Alencar of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute said the end of the moratorium will push cattle ranching into new areas. She added that private companies remain responsive to public pressure for stronger action.