Deforestation Rate Has Slowed, UN Says, But Not Enough to Meet Targets

Global deforestation is not as bad as it was, but countries are still not addressing it as well as they say they will, concludes a recent assessment by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), released ahead of this year’s UN climate summit, COP30, in Belém, Brazil.

The FAO releases its Global Forest Resources Assessments every five years. It calls the reports “the most comprehensive and transparent global evaluations of the state, management, and uses of forest resources, covering all the thematic elements of sustainable forest management.”

Forest protection and regrowth have important implications for the fight against climate change because of forests’ potential to store carbon. The FAO reports that today, global forests store just over 700 billion tonnes of carbon, an amount that is about the same as it was in 1990. Losing forest means losing some of that stored carbon, while gaining forest could increase the amount of carbon locked in from entering the atmosphere.

But forests are at risk from pressures like clearing for agriculture and resource extraction. Fires and damage from insects and disease also reduce forested land, and both have been worsening because of climate change.

This week, the Canadian Tree Nursery Association estimated that Canada lost 8% of its forest cover to wildfires between 2023 and 2025.

According to the FAO, the global rate of total net forest loss—which accounts for both deforestation and reforestation—has declined from an average of 10.7 million hectares in 1990–2000 to 4.12 million hectares in 2015–2025. Forest area in some regions has increased since 1990, notably in Asia and Europe and to a lesser extent in North and Central America. Forest area has declined substantially in Africa and South America in that time.

During that same period, an estimated 489 million hectares of forest have been lost because of deforestation worldwide, though the rate of loss has slowed. While 10.9 million hectares per year were deforested in 2015–2025, that’s down from 13.6 million hectares per year in 2000–2015 and 17.6 million hectares per year in 1990–2000.

There have been some important gains with respect to forest policy and regulation. A fifth of the world’s forests are now in legally established protected areas, the assessment notes. And more than half of all forests have management plans. About 482 million hectares—around 12% of all forest—are designated primarily for biodiversity conservation, while 1.2 billion hectares of forest—29% of the total forest area—are managed primarily to produce wood and non-wood forest products. Another 616 million hectares of forest are managed for multiple uses, often including production of wood and non-wood forest products. Another 9% of global forests are designated for soil and water protection.

Still, in the assessment’s foreword, FAO Director General Dr. Qu Dongyu states that the “world is not on track to meet important global forest targets.”

Reporting from other organizations shows that pledges from more than 100 countries in 2021 aimed to halt and reverse global deforestation by 2030, but as of 2024 deforestation rates remained 63% higher than the trajectory needed to achieve that goal, writes Carbon Brief.

The assessment was released ahead of the COP30 summit in Brazil, where deforestation rates have fallen for the fourth straight year, reports AFP.

Cover photo:  Dikshajhingan/Wikimedia Commons