Global tropical forests lost 4.3 million hectares in 2025, down 36% from previous year
Global tropical forest loss fell 36% in 2025 to 4.3 million hectares, thanks largely to Brazil's stronger anti-deforestation policies. However, researchers warn that climate-driven wildfires and the returning El Nino threaten to reverse progress, and losses remain far above the 2030 target level.
The rate of global tropical forest destruction in 2025 decreased from the record high of the previous year, but remains at an alarming level, according to a new study that praises 'decisive government action'.
The world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of primary tropical forest in 2025, down 36% from 2024, researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland said on Wednesday.
'This decline in one year is encouraging – it shows what decisive government action can achieve,' said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of WRI's Global Forest Watch platform. 'But part of the drop reflects a respite after a year of extreme wildfires.'
The researchers also warned that climate change-induced fires have become a 'dangerous new normal', threatening to reverse recent gains from government efforts to address deforestation.
The warming El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to return by mid-year, raising the risk of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.
The researchers, using satellite data for their report, noted that last year's forest loss was still significant because it was 46% higher than a decade earlier.
Despite the progress in 2025, global forest loss remains more than 70% above the level needed to meet the 2030 goal of halting and reversing deforestation, the researchers said.
Most of last year's slowdown came from a sharp decline in Brazil, the country with the world's largest rainforest. Forest loss in Brazil, excluding fires, was 41% lower than in 2024, the lowest on record.
'Brazil's decline is linked to stronger environmental policies and enforcement since President Lula took office in 2023,' Goldman said in a press briefing, referring to Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula restarted the anti-deforestation action plan and increased penalties for environmental crimes, she said. However, the country's forests remain threatened by agricultural expansion for soybean production and cattle ranching, as well as local efforts to weaken environmental protections.
Other countries also made progress. Forest loss in Colombia fell 17%, the second-lowest year since 2016, thanks to government policies and agreements that limit deforestation.
Tropical forest loss remained high in other parts of the world, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Cameroon, the researchers said.
Total global tree cover loss decreased by 14% last year. Wildfires also played a major role in tropical forest loss worldwide, accounting for 42% of the damage.
While humans cause most fires in the tropics, climate change is intensifying natural fire cycles in northern and temperate regions, the researchers said.
Canada experienced its second-worst wildfire year in history last year as fires scorched 5.3 million hectares (13 million acres) of forest.
Rod Taylor, global director of forests at WRI, said that although forests continue to be powerful carbon sinks that help slow climate change, fires and droughts on a warming planet are increasingly turning these ecosystems into sources of greenhouse gas emissions. 'We are on a knife's edge,' he added.
