The Brazilian government said Thursday that forest loss in its Amazon region fell more than 30 percent compared to the year earlier, the lowest amount of destruction in the last nine years. In the 12 months ending July 30, the Amazon rainforest lost 2,428 square miles, roughly the size of Delaware, the Associated Press calculated.

The government also reported that deforestation in Brazil’s vast savannah, known as the Cerrado, decreased by 26%, the first decline in five years. The area destroyed reached 3,156 square miles. Located in central Brazil, it is the world’s most biodiverse savannah but has fewer legal protections than the Amazon, AP reported.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office in 2023, has sought to reverse the policies of his predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. Deforestation hit a 15-year high during his term.

“What was presented here today is the fruit of our labor,” Reuters quoted Environment Minister Marina Silva as saying. “It is possible for us to confront climate change.”

Phys.org reported that Mariana Napolitano, strategy director for the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil, called the latest data “good news” but stressed there was more work to be done.

“We need to reforest part of what was destroyed in recent decades, especially in the Amazon’s case, which is approaching the point of no return — losing its capacity to regenerate,” she warned.

Despite the success in curbing Amazon deforestation, Lula’s government has been criticized by environmentalists for backing projects that could harm the region, such as the pavement of a highway that cuts from an old-growth area, oil drilling in the mouth of the Amazon River and building a railway to transport soy to Amazonian ports, the AP wrote.

Brazil’s deforestation monitoring system tracks Aug. 1 to July 30, so Wednesday’s report doesn’t capture the destruction from the past few months, as a historic drought opened the way to a surge in forest fires that burned an area larger than Switzerland.

According to AP, much of the damage from fires is classified as degradation, not clearcutting deforestation, as the fire in the Amazon rainforest spreads mostly through leaves on the ground, and not through treetops. But the full impact will be assessed in the following months through further satellite monitoring. Government officials already fear that the deforestation rate may increase next year as the Amazonian city of Belem prepares to host the annual U.N. climate talks, known as COP30.

The Amazon, an area twice the size of India, holds the world’s largest rainforest, about two-thirds of it within Brazil. It stores vast amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. The Amazon thus prevents the climate from warming even faster than it would otherwise. The basin also holds about 20% of the world’s fresh water and biodiversity includes 16,000 known tree species.

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