Deforestation statistics vary depending on which dataset you use, what definition of “forest” is applied, and whether the numbers measure gross loss or net change. This matters because the gap between different sources can be enormous: Global Forest Watch reports 25.5 million hectares of tree cover loss in 2025, while the FAO’s net forest loss figure for 2015-2025 is about 4 million hectares a year. Both numbers are correct; they measure different things.
This article compiles the most current deforestation statistics from the main global datasets, including the FAO FRA 2025 released in October 2025 and Global Forest Watch’s 2025 tree cover loss data released in April 2026, and breaks down the data by region, country, and commodity.
Key Deforestation Statistics [2025-2026]
These are the headline figures from the most recent data releases:
4.14 billion hectares of forest remain globally, covering 32% of the world’s land area (FAO FRA 2025).
4.3 million hectares of tropical primary forest lost in 2025, down 36% from the record 6.7 million hectares in 2024 but still 46% higher than a decade ago (Global Forest Watch / WRI).
25.5 million hectares of total tree cover loss globally in 2025, including temperate and boreal regions, 42% of it caused by fire (Global Forest Watch / University of Maryland).
10.9 million hectares/year gross deforestation for 2015-2025, down from 17.6 million in the 1990s (FAO FRA 2025).
489 million hectares of forest lost since 1990, an area larger than the EU (FAO FRA 2025).
Almost half of 2024’s record tropical primary forest loss was caused by fire. For the first time, fires surpassed agriculture as the leading cause, and fires burned five times more tropical primary forest than in 2023 (WRI).
3.1 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases released by tropical primary forest loss in 2024, slightly more than India’s annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (Global Forest Watch).
11% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 came from net land use and land-use change, mostly deforestation (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report).
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Global Deforestation Rate
The global deforestation rate has slowed in net terms. Gross tropical primary forest loss hit a record in 2024 and fell in 2025. The FAO’s FRA 2025, released in October 2025, reports that gross deforestation dropped from 17.6 million hectares/year in the 1990s to 10.9 million hectares/year in 2015-2025. Net annual forest loss fell to 4.12 million hectares/year over the same period, down from 10.7 million in 1990-2000. “Net” means new forest (reforestation and natural regrowth) is subtracted from gross loss.
However, forest expansion is slowing. New forest area added fell from 9.88 million hectares/year in 2000-2015 to 6.78 million hectares/year in 2015-2025, according to FRA 2025. As expansion slows and fires intensify, the gap between gross loss and net recovery may widen.
The Global Forest Watch data tells a different story for the tropics. Gross tropical primary forest loss trended upward to a record 6.7 million hectares in 2024. It fell to 4.3 million hectares in 2025, still 46% higher than a decade earlier. Primary forest, the old-growth forest that stores the most carbon and supports the greatest biodiversity, cannot be replaced by planting new trees. A 30-year-old plantation is not ecologically equivalent to a 300-year-old primary forest.
The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment found that the 8.1 million hectares of forest lost in 2024 was 63% higher than the trajectory needed to halt deforestation by 2030. At the halfway point to 2030, it said, “the global deforestation curve has not begun to bend.”
Fire-Driven Loss: A Structural Shift
2024 marked a turning point. Fires burned five times more tropical primary forest than in 2023. For the first time on record, fires surpassed agriculture as the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, accounting for almost half of all loss. Drought conditions linked to the El Nino cycle dried out forests across the Amazon, Bolivia, and Central Africa, leading to burns in areas that do not normally experience fire.
Fire stayed a major driver in 2025, causing 42% of global tree cover loss. Climate models project more frequent and severe fire seasons as global temperatures rise, which may push deforestation statistics higher even in countries where enforcement is strong.
Deforestation by Region and Country
Latin America
Latin America accounts for the largest share of global tropical deforestation. Brazil leads in absolute terms despite ongoing reductions. Bolivia overtook the Democratic Republic of Congo as the world’s second-largest source of tropical primary forest loss in 2024, and stayed second in 2025.
Key country statistics:
- Brazil: 5,731 km2 Amazon deforestation in 2024-25 (INPE PRODES, consolidated), down 12% year over year. DETER alerts for August 2025 to July 2026 totaled 2,874 km2, the lowest since that series began in 2016. The official PRODES rate for 2026 is due later in the year. In 2024, primary forest loss in the Amazon biome jumped 110%, and fire caused 60% of it. In 2025, Brazil’s primary forest loss fell 42% (GFW).
- Bolivia: primary forest loss rose 200% in 2024 (GFW), and almost 12% of the country burned. Loss in 2025 was the second-highest on record. Bolivia ranked second for tropical primary forest loss in both years.
- Colombia: 119,483 hectares deforested in 2025, up from 113,608 hectares in 2024 (IDEAM). Global Forest Watch recorded a 17% fall in primary forest loss in 2025, after a jump of almost 50% in 2024.
- Peru: 135% increase in fire-driven primary forest loss in 2024, followed by an 8% fall in total primary forest loss in 2025 (GFW).
- Nicaragua: 4.7% of its primary forest lost in 2024, the highest proportional loss of any country. 78% of loss occurred inside the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve.
Central Africa
The Democratic Republic of Congo holds the world’s second-largest area of tropical primary forest. Together with Brazil and Indonesia, it accounts for 62% of the humid tropical primary forest lost since 2001, and it ranked third for primary forest loss in 2025.
- DRC: about half a million hectares of primary forest lost each year (GFW), with record loss in 2024 and record non-fire loss in 2025
- Republic of Congo: 150% increase in primary forest loss in 2024, 45% of it from fire (GFW)
- Drivers: smallholder agriculture, charcoal production, logging, and increasingly fire
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian primary forest loss has declined from its mid-2010s peak, supported by Indonesia’s permanent moratorium on new permits in primary forests and peatlands.
- Indonesia: primary forest loss fell 11% in 2024, then rose 14% in 2025, and remains well below the mid-2010s peak (GFW). Nickel mining is a growing driver of forest loss in Sulawesi.
- Malaysia: primary forest loss fell 13% in 2024, and the country has lost nearly a fifth of its primary forest since 2001 (GFW)
- Primary driver: oil palm, followed by pulp and paper plantations
Deforestation by Commodity
Expansion of cropland, pasture and tree plantations for commodity production caused 26% of global tree cover loss between 2001 and 2022, according to the DeDuCE study published in Nature Food in 2026. The rest includes fires not followed by farming, rotational clearing in managed forests and plantations, and other loss. The commodity share is much higher in tropical countries: 42%, compared with 9% elsewhere.
Share of commodity-driven deforestation worldwide, 2001-2022 (DeDuCE):
- Pasture, mainly for beef cattle: about 42%
- Oilseeds, mainly oil palm and soy: 16%
- Forest plantations: 14%
- Staple crops (maize, rice and cassava): about 11%
- Stimulant crops, mainly cocoa and coffee: 3%
- Fiber crops, mainly rubber: 2%
Cattle, oil palm, soy, cocoa, coffee, rubber and wood are the seven commodities regulated under the EU Deforestation Regulation. From December 30, 2026, it requires plot-level geolocation and conclusive, verifiable evidence of deforestation-free sourcing for EU market access. Satellite analysis is the common way to produce that evidence. Maize, rice and cassava are outside its scope.
Explore Global Deforestation Data
The map below plots commodity-driven deforestation across 15,000 grid cells for five crop commodities tracked by the EU Deforestation Regulation: coffee, cocoa, oil palm, soy, and rubber. Filter by commodity or region and drag the timeline to see how deforestation patterns shifted between 2001 and 2022. The charts above cover all 184 commodities in the DeDuCE dataset, including cattle ranching and forest plantations, which account for the majority of deforestation but lack spatial crop data.
Climate Change Impact
Deforestation and climate change form a two-way relationship. Clearing tropical forest releases stored carbon (the world’s forests hold an average of 172 tonnes of carbon per hectare, according to FRA 2025), and the resulting climate warming increases drought and fire risk, which in turn drives more forest loss.
The 2024 fire season illustrated this cycle: drought dried out tropical forests, the tropics lost a record 6.7 million hectares of primary forest with fire causing almost half, and that loss released 3.1 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases. That is slightly more than India’s annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
Global forests still hold an estimated 714 gigatonnes of carbon in living biomass, dead wood, litter, and soil (FAO FRA 2025). A 2021 study in Nature found that southeastern Amazonia already acts as a net carbon source to the atmosphere.
Data Sources and How They Differ
Deforestation statistics from different sources often appear to contradict each other. The reason is methodological: each dataset measures different things using different satellite data and different definitions of “forest.”
FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA 2025)
The FAO FRA collects data from national governments every five years. The FRA 2025, released October 2025, is the most recent edition and covers data through 2025. Countries report against a common FAO definition of forest, and FRA reports both deforestation and net change (gross loss minus gains). The FAO definition counts some tree plantations as forest, such as timber and rubber-wood plantations, so a rubber plantation replacing natural forest may not count as deforestation in FAO data. Oil palm and fruit tree plantations are excluded from FAO forest, so converting forest to oil palm does count as deforestation.
Hansen Global Forest Change (University of Maryland)
The Hansen dataset uses Landsat satellite imagery to detect tree cover loss globally at 30-meter resolution. It measures loss of tree cover, meaning vegetation taller than 5 meters, regardless of cause. Global Forest Watch’s headline figures count loss where canopy cover exceeded 30%. The latest version (v1.13) runs from 2000 to 2025. This includes commercial forestry (planned harvesting followed by replanting), fire, and conversion to agriculture. The Hansen dataset reports higher numbers than FAO because it counts all tree removal, including areas that are later replanted or regrow.
Global Forest Watch (WRI)
Global Forest Watch builds on the Hansen data and adds layers for primary forest, fire, commodity-driven deforestation, and country-level trends. Its headline metric, “tropical primary forest loss,” is the most ecologically meaningful because primary forest is irreplaceable on human timescales. GFW also provides land cover context that helps distinguish permanent conversion from temporary disturbance.
Forest Declaration Assessment
The Forest Declaration Assessment is an annual independent review tracking progress against the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests and the 2021 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration. Its 2025 edition found that 8.1 million hectares of forest were lost in 2024, 63% above the trajectory needed to halt deforestation by 2030. It also reported that harmful subsidies outweigh green subsidies by more than 200 to 1.
When citing deforestation statistics, always specify the data source and the metric being used. “Tree cover loss” (Hansen) is not the same as “net deforestation” (FAO), and conflating them produces misleading comparisons.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much deforestation happens each year?
The tropics lost 4.3 million hectares of primary forest in 2025, down from a record 6.7 million hectares in 2024, according to Global Forest Watch. Total global tree cover loss was 25.5 million hectares in 2025. The FAO FRA 2025 reports gross deforestation of 10.9 million hectares per year for 2015-2025. The difference reflects different measurement methods and definitions.
Which country has the most deforestation?
Brazil has the highest absolute tropical primary forest loss, followed by Bolivia. The Democratic Republic of Congo ranked third in 2025. Bolivia’s primary forest loss surged 200% in 2024. Brazil recorded 5,731 km2 of Amazon deforestation in 2024-25, down 56% from 2021, and DETER alerts for August 2025 to July 2026 were the lowest since 2016.
What percentage of the world’s forests have been destroyed?
About 489 million hectares of forest have been lost to deforestation since 1990 according to the FAO FRA 2025, equal to about 11% of the world’s forest area in 1990. New forest offset part of that loss, so net loss over the period was about 200 million hectares. A 2015 study in Nature estimated that the number of trees worldwide has fallen by about 46% since the start of human civilization. About 4.14 billion hectares of forest remain today.
Why do deforestation statistics differ between sources?
Different sources use different definitions and methods. The FAO reports deforestation and net change (loss minus gains) using government data. It counts timber and rubber-wood plantations as forest and excludes oil palm plantations. The Hansen dataset detects all tree canopy loss from Landsat satellites, including planned forestry. Global Forest Watch focuses on primary forest loss. The metric, data source, and forest definition all affect the numbers.
How much CO2 does deforestation release?
Net CO2 emissions from land use and land-use change, mostly from deforestation, made up about 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the IPCC. Tropical primary forest loss released 3.1 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases in 2024, slightly more than India’s annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Global forests hold 714 gigatonnes of carbon, an average of 172 tonnes per hectare (FAO FRA 2025).
Is the deforestation rate increasing or decreasing?
The net global rate of forest loss has slowed, from 10.7 million hectares per year in 1990-2000 to 4.12 million hectares per year in 2015-2025 (FAO FRA 2025). Tropical primary forest loss hit a record 6.7 million hectares in 2024, driven by fire, then fell 36% to 4.3 million hectares in 2025. It remains 46% higher than a decade ago. The net figure improves because new forest offsets some losses.
What is the difference between deforestation and forest degradation?
Deforestation is the complete removal of forest cover, converting land to another use. Forest degradation is a reduction in forest quality (canopy density, biodiversity, carbon stock) while the area still technically qualifies as forest. The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment reported that 8.8 million hectares of tropical moist forest were degraded in 2024, more than double the annual level compatible with halting degradation by 2030. Degradation often precedes full deforestation and is harder to detect by satellite.
Deforestation statistics require context. The headline number depends entirely on which dataset, definition, and time period you choose. For EUDR compliance and supply chain verification, the relevant data is land cover change at specific coordinates relative to December 31, 2020, which in practice comes from satellite analysis. Global statistics set the context; parcel-level evidence determines compliance.
