What Does "Illegal" Mean in the Amazon?
Written by Lea Nierlich and Tatum Kennedy
Both candidates in Brazil's runoff promise to end illegal deforestation. The law behind that word may matter more than the promise.
Is it going to be Bolsonaro again? On October 4, Flávio Bolsonaro, senator and son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, won 47 percent of the vote in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, ahead of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Neither reached the majority needed to avoid a runoff on October 25. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup, and his son has pledged to fight for a reduction of that sentence.
The economy, public security, and the Bolsonaro family's legacy shaped the campaign far more than the forest. Yet the outcome reaches well beyond Brazil. The country holds about 60 percent of the Amazon, which stores vast amounts of carbon and drives rainfall across the region. Scientists have warned for years that the forest could tip into degraded forest or savanna once about 20 to 25 percent of it is cleared, a threshold set out in Science Advances in 2018. A 2026 study in Nature, led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, puts it at roughly 22 to 28 percent combined with 1.5 to 1.9 degrees of global warming, and finds that without new clearing such a shift becomes likely only at far higher temperatures. About 17 to 18 percent of the Amazon is already deforested according to that study, and the mapping network MapBiomas counts about 52 million hectares of native vegetation lost in Brazil's Amazon since 1985, an area larger than Spain.
Both candidates say illegal deforestation must end. Experts who follow Brazilian environmental policy keep returning to one word in that promise. The word is "illegal."
The same promise, two meanings
Lula's goal is zero net deforestation by 2030, so any forest loss, legal or illegal, would have to be offset. Flávio Bolsonaro has pledged to end illegal deforestation by 2029, while promising to modernize environmental laws and make licensing easier for farming, ranching, and mining. According to researchers at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, he told agribusiness representatives in Altamira that he would legalize irregular land titles and ease environmental oversight.
That worries analysts, because "illegal" is not a fixed category. It is whatever the law says it is. Activities that are illegal today could simply be legalized, so that clearing rises while the pledge is technically kept. Ending illegal clearing is not the same as ending clearing.
A forest watched by satellites
Brazil can see its forest disappear almost as it happens. A satellite system run by the national space research institute INPE has flagged suspicious clearing since 2004 and has sent more than 120,000 alerts to enforcement agencies since 2015.
What happens after an alert is a political choice. Under Jair Bolsonaro, from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation rose by almost 60 percent compared with the previous four years, according to the Brazilian Climate Observatory, while fines issued by the environmental agency Ibama fell by roughly 40 percent. Under Lula, who returned in 2023, deforestation has fallen by 45 percent to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to official data reported by the Associated Press. The same satellites and the same laws produced opposite results, depending on who ran the agencies.
What can be undone quickly
The tools behind that decline are exposed. The power to sanction illegal clearing based on satellite images alone was suspended under Jair Bolsonaro and restored by Lula in 2023. A bill backed by the agribusiness caucus in Congress would weaken it again, and Flávio Bolsonaro has not said whether he would keep it.
Even under Lula, Congress has shown how fast protections can be rewritten. A sweeping licensing law that critics call the "devastation bill" passed in 2025. Lula vetoed key parts, but days after the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém, Congress overturned most of those vetoes. The Climate Observatory described it as the biggest setback for Brazilian environmental law since 1981.
Indigenous land, mining, and organized crime
The question of definition is sharpest on Indigenous land, among the best-preserved parts of the Amazon. Flávio Bolsonaro has said Indigenous communities would be free to farm, lease, or authorize mining on their territories, and Amazon Watch reports that he has promised not to demarcate any new Indigenous land. Under current law, mining there requires approval from Congress and consultation with the communities. The Congress that takes office in February 2027 will have to write those rules, and it is moving to the right. Bolsonaro's Liberal Party will hold about a third of the Senate, the former environment minister lost her Senate bid, and only two of 57 Indigenous candidates won seats, the Guardian reports. A leader of the Indigenous umbrella organization APIB called the result bleak and said the Senate would act against Indigenous rights whoever wins the presidency. Replacing the president is only part of the question.
The pressure is already there. Gold mining in Indigenous territories grew nearly sevenfold between 2016 and 2024, according to the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. Organized crime was also one of the campaign's central themes, with both candidates promising action against the Red Command and the PCC, though by very different means. In the Amazon, a report by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety found that these gangs were present in 260 of the region's 772 municipalities in 2024, up from 178 a year earlier. It lists land grabbing among the illegal activities that need a coordinated response, and it notes that Lula's government has made little progress against the gangs even as deforestation fell. Here the problem is less a loophole than the reach of the state.
The brakes, and their limits
Some forces may restrain a more aggressive course. Export-oriented agribusiness fears losing markets that are wary of deforestation. In 2019, Flávio Bolsonaro co-sponsored a bill to end the rule requiring Amazon landowners to preserve 80 percent of their native vegetation, but it was dropped after farm leaders feared damage to the reputation of Brazilian soy and beef.
The strongest brake may come from outside. The EU's deforestation regulation is scheduled to apply to large and medium-sized companies from December 30, 2026, after repeated delays. It sets two separate conditions: products must come from land that was not deforested after the end of 2020, and they must be produced in line with the law of the producing country. In principle, legalizing clearing in Brazil would not by itself make the resulting soy or beef acceptable on the European market.
But brakes like these protect markets, not forests. They work less well for producers who sell at home and for operators who depend on opacity. Researchers at the institute Imazon say resistance to mandatory cattle traceability comes mainly from those acting illegally, because a calf from an illegal pasture can be moved to a legal farm before it is sold.
Pressure for looser rules also comes from inside the region. In 2022, Jair Bolsonaro won five of the nine states of the Legal Amazon. After the first round, according to the Amazon outlet Sumaúma as cited by the Guardian, Bolsonaro-aligned politicians control seven of them. The forest brought Lula little electoral reward, even after deforestation fell.
Lula is no simple counterweight either, and oil shows why. In October 2025, shortly before COP30, Ibama licensed Petrobras to drill exploratory wells in the Foz do Amazonas basin, about 500 kilometres from the mouth of the Amazon, after rejecting the application in 2023. In August 2026, Petrobras confirmed that its first well had found oil, though the volume and commercial viability are still unknown. Lula defends the drilling on economic grounds. Oil brought Brazil about 44.7 billion dollars in exports in 2025, and he argues that the revenue and jobs are needed and can help finance the energy transition. Greenpeace Brazil and the Climate Observatory criticize the licensing. APIB supports his re-election but says he fell short on demarcating Indigenous land, and a Lula victory would still meet a Congress in which agribusiness holds great influence.
Why this matters beyond one election
The runoff will decide who leads Brazil's environmental agencies, but the deeper lesson is about how protection works. A forest can be watched by satellites and still be lost if no one acts on what the data shows. A ban can stay on the books while the incentives around it are dismantled, and a promise to enforce the law can be kept by changing the law.
Whoever wins on October 25, the protection of the Amazon will depend less on what is promised than on whether evidence of harm can be turned into enforceable accountability. That means cases that test what "illegal" actually covers, from land grabbing to illegal mining to finance that flows to cleared land. It also means evidence reaching courts, regulators, and supply chains from those who see the damage first, through satellite data, litigation, or whistleblowers. Laws can be rewritten after an election, but a ruling or a documented supply chain violation is much harder to wave away. That is the gap AllRise is built to close.
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Disclaimer: This article was developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which were used to support research, fact-checking, and editorial review. All content has been reviewed and approved by the author(s), who remain responsible for the accuracy, interpretation, and conclusions presented.