Agriculture encroaches on recovered areas of Brazil’s Atlantic forest
Over the past 41 years, the Atlantic forest has lost nearly 10 million hectares, while the area devoted to agriculture has gained 11 million hectares, as per data in a MapBiomas survey released Monday (Sep. 21), when Arbor Day is celebrated in Brazil. The survey also shows that one in every four hectares of native vegetation currently found in the Atlantic forest consists of areas that have…
Between 1985 and 2025, Brazil's Atlantic forest lost nearly 10 million hectares of mature vegetation, while agricultural land expanded by 11 million hectares. According to a MapBiomas survey released on September 21, one in four hectares of the forest now consists of regrown native vegetation after deforestation since 1985. The Atlantic forest, covering 1.3 million square kilometers, has a low proportion of native vegetation, with 32% of its territory now covered by it.
Much of the agricultural expansion occurred at the cost of grasslands, which lost around 11 million hectares during the period, converting to agricultural land. Soybean cultivation expanded by 8.7 million hectares, covering 11.11 million hectares in 2025, while sugarcane increased by 5 million hectares, reaching 6.15 million hectares.
In 2025, half of Brazil's forestry area was located in the Atlantic forest, with Paraná and Santa Catarina accounting for 46% of it. Urbanized areas grew 2.5 times during the same period, reaching 2.3 million hectares by 2025, with over half of all urbanized areas in Brazil located in this biome.
Written by urgent.news from Agencia Brasil's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
