An area of Amazon wetlands the size of Belgium has been cleared in 40 years, study finds

More than 6% of the Brazilian Amazon's floodplain forests and other wetlands have been cleared over the past four decades, and nearly a third of that loss came from 2015 to 2024, according to a study reported Monday by Shanna Hanbury for Mongabay.

"The converted area is basically the size of Belgium," said Guilherme Lobo, a researcher at the State University of Campinas in Brazil who led the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports. The seasonally flooded forests cover about 30% of the Brazilian Amazon and support riverside families who fish and farm in step with the river's annual cycle.

Comparing 13 types of land designation, the researchers found the most clearing on public land not yet assigned to any use, with a median of nearly 14% deforested. Lobo said people burn such land to signal occupation and later seek a title, a land-grabbing practice known in Brazil as grilagem.

Agrarian reform settlements, which give plots to farming families, cleared wetlands fastest. Fifteen years after they were created, 24% of their wetlands had been converted, compared with 8.5% before settlement. The study said these programs require families to use the land productively but offer little environmental monitoring or support for other livelihoods.

Indigenous territories had conversion rates of 0.2% to 0.3%, and military-controlled areas less than 0.01%. "What separates the categories that conserve from those that don't isn't only having an owner, it's having rules," Lobo said.

This brief is based on an article published Oct. 19, 2026, by Shanna Hanbury on Mongabay. Read the original: https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/10/a-belgium-sized-area-of-amazon-wetland-has-been-converted-and-losses-are-climbing/