Illegal Logging Shifts Into Brazil’s Protected Amazon, Even As Totals Decline

Key Points

• Total logging across the Amazon biome fell 10.5%, but illegal logging inside Conservation Units jumped 184%.
• Logging also rose in Indigenous Territories and rural settlements, putting pressure on people and places meant to be shielded.
• Falling legal extraction can distort markets, making it easier for illicit wood to undercut compliant operators.

The newest Amazon timber map offers misleading comfort. SIMEX reports that logging across the biome dropped to 327,600 hectares in the August 2023 to July 2024 cycle.

But the same mapping shows the problem moving into harder-to-protect ground. Inside Conservation Units, illegal logging rose to 8,100 hectares, up from 2,800 in the prior cycle, a 184% jump.

In Indigenous Territories, logging reached 25,200 hectares, up 24%. In rural settlements, it rose to 6,700 hectares, up 66%.

The story behind the story is not just “more” or “less” logging, but where it is happening and what that says about enforcement. SIMEX classified 225,100 hectares as authorized and 102,500 as unauthorized.

Illegal Logging Shifts Into Protected Areas

Private rural properties still accounted for the largest slice of illegal activity: 54,400 hectares, or 53% of the unauthorized total. That private-land illegal footprint fell 39% from the previous cycle, which helps explain the overall decline.

Yet the surge inside protected areas suggests criminal networks are probing zones where oversight is harder and profits are high. The hotspots are concentrated.

Mato Grosso led total logged area with 190,000 hectares, or 58% of the total, followed by Amazonas with 46,100 and Pará with 43,000.

Ten municipalities accounted for 51% of all mapped illegal logging. Aripuanã, in Mato Grosso, stood out as the single largest hotspot, with 12,700 hectares logged illegally.

SIMEX is run by Instituto Centro de Vida, Imaflora, and Imazon. It detects logging with satellite imagery and cross-checks mapped polygons against official permits. Abroad, trade and finance often depend on those paper trails.

When illegal extraction grows inside protected zones, confidence in “legal wood” claims weakens, due diligence becomes costlier, and honest businesses face a tougher market.