Overview
- An annual satellite-based assessment found 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary rainforest were lost in 2025, a sharp drop from 2024.
- Brazil drove much of the improvement as primary forest loss excluding fires fell 41% after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tightened environmental enforcement.
- Even with the one-year dip, researchers said global losses remain about 70% above the pace needed to meet the 2030 pledge to halt and reverse forest loss.
- Fires were a major factor, accounting for 42% of global tree-cover loss in 2025, and Canada recorded its second-worst wildfire season with 5.3 million hectares burned.
- Agriculture stayed the main driver, with commodity expansion in places like Brazil and Bolivia and subsistence farming in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Indonesia’s losses rose in part due to an expanded food-estate program.