The Challenge:  Stop Deforestation

Approximately 18% of the Amazon has been deforested, with 2.9 million acres of forest in Brazil destroyed in 2022 alone. Within the Brazilian Amazon, 141 million acres of land are government controlled but not yet designated for a particular purpose. Each and every one of these acres—the irreplaceable home of myriad, exquisite species found nowhere else on Earth—could be preserved forever as part of a protected area such as a national park, or could be safeguarded as an Indigenous reserve. Or vast areas could be chain-sawed and burned to the ground for beef or soy. The stakes are huge for all life on Earth.

The Opportunity:  Create Protected Areas and Safeguard Indigenous Territories

Lula’s return in 2023 as Brazil’s president provides an extraordinary second chance to expand protected areas and halt deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Approximately 29% of the original forest is substantially intact, owned by the government, but currently unprotected—by far the largest area of intact, unprotected tropical rainforest in the world. The window of opportunity is extremely narrow: Lula’s term is four years and it can take several years to create protected areas and safeguard Indigenous territories.

Critical Neighbors

As momentum has grown to save the Brazilian Amazon, land-grabbers, agribusiness, deforestation and fires have been displaced to neighboring regions, including Brazil’s Pantanal and Cerrado and the bordering Amazonian regions of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Guyana and Suriname. To save the Amazon ecosystem, it is critical that we protect and conserve these regions as well.

Goals and Objectives:  Save 20 million acres of intact forest

Rainforest Trust’s goal is to permanently safeguard 20 million acres of intact forest as new protected areas and Indigenous territories and safely lock up 6 billion metric tons of CO₂ equivalents (more than the U.S.’s annual total CO₂ emissions).

View the Brazil Strategy