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Recent Forestry Sector The analysis uses a broad definition of forest loss that

Developments includes not just deforestation for agriculture but also timber
harvesting and natural disturbances to forests.
At the COP26 climate summit in 2021, more than 100
Global forest loss drops drastically in 2025 after countries pledged to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030.
peaking The world remains far from that goal as agricultural expansion

Tropical forest loss declined significantly last year, falling 36 and fires continue to destroy important biodiversity hotspots
percent after reaching a record level in 2024. and carbon sinks.
Still, the world lost 10.6 million acres of rainforest—an Forest loss in 2025 was still about 70 percent too high
area roughly the size of Denmark, or more than 11 soccer for countries to be on track for the deadline, according to
fields every minute, according to latimes.com. the World Resources Institute (WRI).
New data from the University of Maryland, published “Achieving this goal in the coming years will not be easy
through the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch, as forests become more vulnerable to climate change, and as
shows that the loss of mature and largely undisturbed humid humanity’s demand for food, fuel and materials from forests
tropical forests slowed down in 2025. and the lands they stand on continues to grow,” said Elizabeth

But it was still 46 percent higher than a decade earlier, and Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch at WRI, during
last year saw a relative lull in wildfires after an exceptionally a press briefing.
bad fire year in 2024. Blazes are increasing in the tropics due Agriculture—both large-scale commodity production and
to warmer temperatures and more severe droughts. subsistence farming—was the biggest driver of tree-cover
Outside the tropics, the climate signal was starker. Wildfires loss across the tropics in 2025.
burned 13 million acres in Canada, making 2025 the country’s In countries Brazil and Bolivia, cattle ranching and soy
second-worst fire year on record. In France, fire-driven tree- cultivation were major pressures, while coca, oil palms and

cover loss was the most severe on record, seven times higher other crops drove losses in Peru, Laos and elsewhere.
than in the previous year. In much of the Congo Basin, forest clearing was tied more
European Wilderness Society