Aarhus, Denmark | Muser NewsDesk
The world’s forests continue to face extensive ecological damage from logging, fragmentation and other human pressures, even as global deforestation recorded a significant one-year decline, according to a new international assessment of forest conditions and protection efforts.
The Forest Declaration Assessment 2026, released on 13 October, reports that global deforestation fell by 15% between 2024 and 2025, the sharpest annual decline since the 2018–2020 baseline. Nevertheless, just over 7 million hectares of forest were cleared, associated with an estimated 3.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in emissions.
The assessment also documents extensive deterioration in forests that remain standing. In 2024, the latest year with available data, a net 65.4 million hectares of forest worldwide moved into lower ecological-integrity categories, reflecting pressures associated with infrastructure development, logging, habitat fragmentation and other human activities.
These indicators measure different processes and cannot be treated as equivalent forms of forest loss. Together, they show why a reduction in deforestation does not necessarily indicate an improvement in the condition of surviving forests.
Prepared by the Forest Declaration Assessment Partners, with Climate Focus as coordinator and editor, the 2026 assessment evaluates global progress toward commitments to halt and reverse forest loss and degradation by 2030.
Damage to forests that remain standing
Forest degradation can reduce carbon storage, affect biodiversity and disrupt ecological processes without completely removing tree cover.
Using the Forest Landscape Integrity Index, researchers estimated that approximately 84.2 million hectares of forest moved into lower integrity categories in 2024, while 18.8 million hectares improved, resulting in a net deterioration of 65.4 million hectares.
The index evaluates pressures associated with human infrastructure, nearby land use and declining connectivity between forest habitats. It measures changes in ecological integrity rather than the total area of degraded forest, and does not fully capture fire-related damage, particularly in ecosystems where burning was historically uncommon.
A separate 2026 meta-analysis of 146 studies, examined in the assessment, provides evidence of how different disturbances affect forest carbon stocks. Fires were associated with an average 49% reduction in above-ground carbon compared with undisturbed tropical moist forests, while selective logging and forest-edge effects were associated with reductions of 34% and 31%, respectively.
These estimates describe different types of disturbance and should not be combined. They demonstrate that substantial carbon losses can occur even where forest cover persists.
Read also: Young forests aged 20–40 years are top carbon removers, study finds
Global deforestation trends conceal regional differences
The worldwide decline in deforestation masks contrasting developments across tropical regions.
In tropical Latin America and the Caribbean, deforestation fell to 33% below the 2018–2020 baseline, partly reflecting stronger enforcement and satellite monitoring in countries including Brazil.
Tropical Africa followed a different trajectory, recording approximately 2.4 million hectares of deforestation in 2025, almost matching the 2.5 million hectares lost across tropical Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Congo Basin, home to the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, faces many of the pressures contributing to forest loss across the region. However, the assessment’s regional figures cover Tropical Africa as a whole, not the Congo Basin alone.
Across Tropical Africa, degradation of tropical moist forests increased by 25% between 2024 and 2025, reaching approximately 1.1 million hectares. The report associates this trend with smallholder agriculture, informal timber extraction, fuelwood collection, infrastructure expansion and limitations in forest governance.
By contrast, degradation across tropical moist forests globally fell by 34% in 2025 to approximately 3.5 million hectares. The decline partly reflected the end of exceptionally severe fire-related damage in 2024, particularly in the Amazon, rather than clear evidence of sustained ecological recovery.
Mining’s forest footprint extends beyond extraction sites
Mining contributes to forest destruction through direct clearing and by facilitating roads, settlements and agricultural expansion in previously less accessible landscapes.
Research cited in the assessment suggests that mining-related deforestation is two to three times greater than earlier estimates, partly because unrecorded extraction activities were missing from existing inventories.
Another study referenced in the report estimates that each hectare of direct mining-related deforestation is associated with approximately 34 additional hectares of nearby indirect and cumulative forest loss.
This estimate illustrates the potentially extensive effects of mining-related development, although it should not be interpreted as a universal relationship applying to every mining operation.
Gold and coal account for the largest shares of recorded mining-related forest loss. Growing demand for copper, cobalt and nickel is also placing additional pressure on forest landscapes, particularly where extraction expands into relatively undisturbed ecosystems.
These minerals are used in infrastructure, electronics and clean energy technologies, making the environmental consequences of extraction increasingly relevant to decisions about future resource development.
Read also: Critical minerals race risks injustice in the energy transition
Agricultural expansion remains a major driver of forest loss
Commodity production continues to account for most global deforestation.
The assessment estimates that agricultural and mined commodity production caused approximately 6.01 million hectares of deforestation in 2025, compared with an annual average of 7.24 million hectares during 2018–2020.
A global attribution study covering 2001–2022 identified pasture expansion for beef cattle as responsible for 42% of commodity-driven deforestation, while oil palm and soy plantations together accounted for another 16%.
Rice, maize and cassava contributed approximately 11% of global deforestation in the same analysis, exceeding the combined share attributed to cocoa, coffee and rubber. These proportions describe the historical study period rather than deforestation specifically recorded in 2025.
Agricultural expansion also threatens ecosystems beyond forests. Research discussed in the assessment estimates that between 9 million and 13 million hectares of natural non-forest ecosystems were converted annually for crop production over historical periods ending in 2020.
Grasslands, savannahs and other natural habitats contain substantial carbon stocks and support biodiversity, yet often receive less regulatory protection than forests.
Forest finance remains far below conservation needs
Financial support for forest protection has increased substantially, but remains small compared with subsidies that can contribute to environmental damage.
According to the assessment, annual international public forest finance more than tripled, rising from an average of US$1.8 billion in 2018–2020 to approximately US$6.1 billion in 2022–2025.
Despite this growth, forestry received just 0.3% of global climate finance in 2024, equivalent to approximately US$6 billion out of US$2 trillion.
Meanwhile, governments provided an annual average of US$410 billion in potentially harmful agricultural subsidies between 2022 and 2024, including support linked to production levels and the unrestricted use of agricultural inputs.
The annual international public forest finance figure therefore represented only about 1.5% of the potentially harmful agricultural subsidies recorded over the overlapping period. The two figures measure different forms of public expenditure, but their scale illustrates the imbalance identified by the assessment.
Separately, subsidies for fossil fuel production and consumption reached US$921 billion in 2024, with additional emergency measures introduced in 2026 expected to push the global total above US$1 trillion.
Not all these subsidies directly cause deforestation, but agricultural and energy incentives can reinforce economic activities associated with forest loss and environmental degradation.
Read also: Natural regeneration is a cheaper way to restore tropical forests
A separate assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated global forest finance at US$84 billion in 2023, compared with the US$300 billion annually needed by 2030 to meet international climate, biodiversity and land restoration goals. This represents an estimated annual financing gap of US$216 billion, according to UNEP’s State of Finance for Forests 2025.
Private financial institutions provided at least US$429 billion in credit to companies operating in six forest-risk commodity supply chains between 2016 and 2025. Among the 150 financial institutions most exposed to these sectors, 89 lacked a deforestation policy in 2025.
Corporate progress remains uneven. Only 19 of the 500 companies examined by the Forest 500 initiative qualified as leaders in addressing deforestation and ecosystem conversion. Another 168 had no relevant commitments, while 14 weakened existing pledges during 2025.
Forest restoration remains difficult to measure
Restoration efforts are expanding, although available monitoring remains insufficient to establish how much damaged forest has successfully recovered.
The assessment identifies approximately 11.8 million hectares covered by restoration activities as of July 2026, compared with 10.6 million hectares in September 2025. The documented area represents roughly 6% of the estimated 195 million hectares of global reforestation potential.
However, the increase partly reflects better recording of existing projects, while international databases do not capture all restoration activities. These estimates therefore provide only a partial picture of global progress.
Project coverage also does not establish ecological success. Forests recovering from severe disturbance or clearance may require decades to rebuild carbon stocks, habitat complexity and ecological functions.
Separate monitoring identified approximately 37 million hectares of tropical moist forest regrowth between 2015 and 2023. The assessment cautions that regrowth does not necessarily indicate successful restoration, particularly where the recorded recovery follows fires or other disturbances.
Global forest protection goals remain off track for 2030
Despite the improvement recorded in 2025, global deforestation remains approximately 70% off the pathway required to halt forest clearance by 2030.
Since 2021, cumulative deforestation has exceeded the area expected under that pathway by 10.7 million hectares.
The assessment also examines what different rates of progress would mean over the remainder of the decade.
If the 15% annual reduction recorded between 2024 and 2025 were repeated each year through 2030, another 22.5 million hectares of forest would still be lost between 2026 and 2030, an area approaching the size of the United Kingdom.
If annual deforestation instead declined at the average rate of approximately 3% recorded since the beginning of the decade, cumulative additional losses would reach 32 million hectares over the same period.
These are conditional scenarios rather than forecasts, but they demonstrate why a single year of improvement cannot compensate for several years of limited progress.
The assessment identifies sustained enforcement, stronger forest governance, changes in financial incentives and more effective restoration as important elements of long-term progress.
Reducing deforestation remains essential, but the evidence points to a broader challenge. Protecting forests also requires maintaining their ecological integrity, carbon storage and biodiversity while addressing the economic pressures that continue to drive their destruction.
Report:
Forest Declaration Assessment Partners, ‘Forest Declaration Assessment 2026‘ (13 October 2026), Climate Focus (coordinator and editor). Forest Declaration Assessment (.pdf file)
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Climate Focus | Forest Declaration Assessment
Featured image credit: Annie Spratt | Unsplash
