The area of Amazon rainforest lost to fires in Brazil in July fell 65 percent compared to a year ago, the MapBiomas monitoring platform said Wednesday, boosting the government as it prepares to host the UN climate change conference.

Satellite images showed that 143,000 hectares (353,360 acres) of the world's biggest tropical forest were razed by fires last month, down dramatically from the same month last year, when a historic drought whipped up record numbers of fires.

The figure -- the smallest since MapBiomas began monthly satellite mapping of fire damage in 2019 -- comes three months before President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hosts the COP30 UN conference in the Amazon city of Belem.

Across Brazil, 748,000 hectares of land were consumed by fire in July, down 40 percent on last year.

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