Deforestation alerts in the Amazon plunge 35% in June
In June 2026, Brazil’s real-time deforestation detection system recorded a 35 percent drop in deforestation alerts in the Amazon compared to the same month last year.
In that month alone, 1,233 alerts were recorded, covering an area of 297.26 km². In June 2025, alerts totaled 1,238 but covered 457.61 km².
The area affected by the clearing of native vegetation in the Amazon is the smallest in 20 years, with a steady decline since 2023, when alerts totaled 663 km² compared to the 1,120.2 km² of alerts in 2022.
June is the 11th month of the 2025–2026 monitoring period, which has recorded 11,554 alerts covering an area of 2,485.9 km². The affected area also represents a 37.2 percent decrease compared to the same 11 months of the 2024–2025 monitoring period, when deforestation reached 3,959.98 km².
Cerrado
The cerrado also saw a decrease in the areas with deforestation alerts in June. Last month, 2,880 alerts were recorded, covering 481.52 km². The Amazon and the cerrado are the only two of Brazil’s six biomes monitored by the real-time deforestation detection system.
In June 2025, even though the number of alerts was lower in the cerrado (1,444), the detected area was larger, reaching 508.69 km², down 5.3 percent.
In a technical note, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) – which manages the detection system – reported that the cerrado experienced heavy cloud cover in June, which may have made mapping difficult in certain regions.
From August 2025 through June 2026, the total number of alerts was 22,256, covering an area of 4,689.40 km². This area represents a 7.9 percent decrease compared to the same time span in the previous monitoring cycle, when deforestation alerts were recorded over 5,091.00 km².
