Forestry and Deforestation

How much forest the world is losing

Two kinds of numbers get quoted, and it helps to keep them apart. Tree cover loss counts any removal of trees, including fire and logging where the forest may grow back. Deforestation means forest converted permanently to another use, such as cropland, pasture or towns.

On tree cover loss, 2024 was a record year: about 30 million hectares worldwide, with fire the leading cause, and tropical primary forest loss of 6.7 million hectares, nearly half of it from fire (World Resources Institute and Global Forest Watch, May 2025). On deforestation, FAO’s satellite survey found that agricultural expansion drove almost 90% of it between 2000 and 2018, with cropland responsible for nearly half and livestock grazing for 38.5%. The same survey found the annual rate had fallen from 11 million hectares a year in 2000–2010 to 7.8 million hectares in 2010–2018 (FAO, November 2021).

The cons of deforestation

Clearing forest brings short-term gains, usually farmland or timber income, which is why it keeps happening. Our article on the advantages people cite for deforestation sets those against the harm. The costs tend to be larger and longer-lasting:

• Loss of habitat, which is the biggest single threat to many forest species.
• Carbon released from trees and soil, adding to greenhouse-gas emissions.
• Soil erosion and landslides on cleared slopes, and silt in rivers and reservoirs.
• Changes to local rainfall and river flow, since forests return a great deal of water to the air.
• Harm to people who depend on the forest for food, fuel, medicine and income.

Farmers feel some of these directly. Cleared hillsides lose topsoil quickly, and farms downstream of cleared catchments see more floods in the wet season and less water in the dry one. Our pieces on how logging affects wildlife and on the causes of deforestation in Zimbabwe show how this plays out on the ground.

Deforestation laws and supply chains

Because most deforestation is driven by farming, recent laws target the products that come from cleared land. The best known is the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). It covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and products made from them. Companies placing these goods on the EU market must show the geolocation of the plots where they were produced and that the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020. As amended, it applies from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and from 30 June 2027 for micro and small ones (European Commission). Check the Commission’s latest guidance, since details have changed more than once.

The geolocation rule is more practical than it sounds. For plots larger than 4 hectares the regulation asks for a polygon of the boundary, while a single GPS point is enough for smaller plots. For a cooperative with thousands of smallholders, collecting and checking those points and polygons is usually the biggest job.

In practice, suppliers need plot boundaries, satellite evidence of land use since 2020, and records that follow each lot from farm to shipment. Our agricultural traceability software supports that with farm-level product identity, QR codes and EUDR compliance reports. For one commodity in detail, see deforestation-free palm oil.

Sustainable forestry and agroforestry

Forestry and conservation are not opposites. Well-managed production forests are harvested at a rate they can regrow, with buffer strips along streams, protected old-growth patches and replanting after harvest. Certification schemes such as FSC and PEFC audit those practices. Our article on sustainable forest management techniques describes what foresters actually do.

Growers and gardeners can help in small ways too: buying FSC- or PEFC-certified timber, charcoal and garden furniture, choosing coffee, cocoa and palm oil with credible deforestation-free certification, and planting native trees and hedges on spare land. None of this offsets large-scale clearing, but buyer demand is what drives the supply-chain rules above.

Agroforestry brings trees back onto farms: shade trees over coffee and cocoa, windbreaks, fruit and timber trees along field edges, or trees mixed with pasture. Done well, it gives farmers a second income and protects soil and water, and it can take pressure off nearby forest. The article on agriculture and agroforestry in Kenya has examples.

Monitoring forests by satellite

Most of what we know about forest loss comes from satellites. Landsat and Sentinel imagery let researchers map tree cover across the whole planet every year, and platforms such as Global Forest Watch publish near-real-time clearing alerts. The same data now underpins deforestation-free claims in supply chains.

Fire is the other big threat. Our wildfire monitoring system watches areas you define, combining MODIS, VIIRS and Sentinel feeds and scanning every 2.5 minutes. It can detect fires as small as 1 hectare, sends alerts by SMS, email and app, and forecasts how a fire may spread over the next 1, 3 and 6 hours.