Data from the Drivers of Tropical Forest Loss (2008 to 2019) Geo-Wiki Campaign
Experts welcomed the data with hope — and caution. Tropical forest loss is still 46% higher than ten years ago. Today’s newsletter looks at how Brazil’s 2023 anti-deforestation plan is starting to bear fruit. We also bring you the latest on how climate change impacted Europe’s temperatures, glaciers and oceans last year.
Deforestation win
Tropical forest loss declined significantly last year, falling 36% after reaching a record level in 2024. Still, the world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of rainforest — an area roughly the size of Denmark, or more than 11 soccer fields every minute.
New data from the University of Maryland, published through the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch, shows that the loss of primary — or mature and largely undisturbed — humid tropical forests slowed down in 2025. But it was still 46% higher than a decade earlier, and last year saw a relative lull in wildfires after an exceptionally bad fire year in 2024. Blazes are increasing in the tropics due to warmer temperatures and more severe droughts
Outside the tropics, the climate signal was starker. Wildfires burned 5.3 million hectares in Canada, making 2025 the country’s second-worst fire year on record. In France, fire-driven tree-cover loss was the most severe on record, seven times higher than in the previous year.
The analysis uses a broad definition of forest loss that 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 countries pledged to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. The world remains far from that goal as agricultural expansion and fires continue to destroy important biodiversity hotspots and carbon sinks. Forest loss in 2025 was still about 70% too high for countries to be on track for the deadline, according to the World Resources Institute, or WRI.
“Achieving this goal in the coming years will not be easy as forests become more vulnerable to climate change, and as humanity’s demand for food, fuel and materials from forests and the lands they stand on continues to grow,” said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch at WRI.
Brazil, which encompasses two-thirds of the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, recorded the largest absolute area of primary forest loss. But it cut that loss by 42% from the previous year. The report attributes the decline to stronger environmental policy and enforcement under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The improvement stands in stark contrast to 2024, when Brazil’s Amazon suffered its worst drought on record, fueling unprecedented forest fires.
André Lima, Brazil’s secretary for deforestation control, said in a phone interview that the country’s forest policy rests on “two agendas that are intertwined” — curbing deforestation and controlling fires. He said the government relaunched the federal anti-deforestation plan in 2023 under Lula and is now beginning to see results. Citing Brazil’s official data, Lima said Amazon deforestation fell 50% in 2025 compared with 2022.
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