Agricultural expansion, illegal logging, mining and urbanization continue to drive deforestation around the world.
Globally, forests are under threat — large-scale efforts are needed to protect these ecosystems and the many benefits they provide.
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Globally, forests are under threat — large-scale efforts are needed to protect these ecosystems and the many benefits they provide.
According to satellite data1,2, from 2002 through 2019, global tropical forest loss averaged 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres) a year — an area larger than Belgium.
More than half the world’s tropical forests have been destroyed since the 1960s3, and tropical forests lost 10 percent more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021.4
In 2022, the world lost 11 soccer fields worth of primary rainforest every minute.4
Between 2001 and 2022, Brazil lost 661,000 square kilometers (255,214 square miles) of tree cover — an area as big as the state of Texas — to deforestation.5
With little primary forest remaining, Ghana saw a 71 percent rise in forest loss in 2022 — the highest proportion of any tropical country.4 Other countries with the largest loss of primary forests were Bolivia, Angola, Cameroon and Colombia.
Agricultural expansion — such as cattle ranching, soy cultivation and oil palm plantations — drives 90 percent of deforestation worldwide.6
Deforestation impacts 1.6 billion rural people worldwide who rely on forests for their livelihoods3 — most live in extreme poverty.
33 million people (about twice the population of New York) rely on the forest sector, both formal and informal, for their jobs. Each year, the forest sector generates more than US$ 1.5 trillion in global GDP.6
Forests release carbon dioxide when they are cleared or burnt. About 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from deforestation7 — roughly equivalent to emissions from all the cars and trucks on Earth.
By 2050, the global demand for food could double. Using existing farmland more efficiently could feed more people without clearing additional forests and wetlands.8