Atlantic Forest land use shifts as agriculture expands 11 million hectares

A report by MapBiomas reveals significant land-use changes in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) between 1985 and 2025. Over this 41-year period, agricultural areas expanded by approximately 11 million hectares, while the biome lost nearly 10 million hectares of mature vegetation.

Despite these losses, the study highlights a trend of environmental recovery, noting that more than 8 million hectares of secondary vegetation have regrown in areas previously deforested. Currently, about one in four hectares of existing native vegetation in the biome consists of these regenerated areas. However, recent data shows that deforestation is increasingly targeting these secondary growth zones; between 2021 and 2025, 60% of suppressed vegetation was secondary growth.

Specific agricultural shifts include soybean cultivation increasing by 8.7 million hectares and sugarcane advancing by 5 million hectares. Notably, the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were the only ones to show no net loss of native vegetation over the 41-year period. Additionally, Arauco reported its own sustainable management practices in Mato Grosso do Sul, where it maintains over 84,000 hectares of preserved Cerrado vegetation, exceeding legal requirements.