The Amazon is the world’s largest and most important tropical rainforest. Yet, this irreplaceable ecosystem is being ravaged by deforestation. In 2022 alone, 2.9 million acres of forest were destroyed in Brazil, mostly for large-scale beef production and soya farms for cattle feed. With approximately 18% of the original forest already lost, the Amazon could soon reach a tipping point, degrading to dry forest and savannah and altering the climate across South America and beyond.

Lula’s return as Brazil’s president gives a narrow window of opportunity to expand protection and halt deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Around 29% of the original forest is substantially intact, government-controlled, but currently unprotected — by far the largest area of intact, unprotected tropical rainforest in the world. Rainforest Trust’s goal in the Brazilian Amazon is to permanently safeguard 20 million acres of intact forest as new protected areas and Indigenous territories.