Deforestation and Forest Loss

Which countries are gainingand which are losing forests?

Before we look specifically at trends in deforestation across the worldit's useful to understand the net change in forest cover. The net change in forest cover measures any gains in forest cover — either through natural forest expansion or afforestation through tree planting — minus deforestation.

This map shows the net change in forest cover across the world. Countries with a positive change (shown in green) are gaining forests faster than they're losing them. Countries with a negative change (shown in red) are losing more than they're able to restore.

How much deforestation occurs each year?

Net forest loss is not the same as deforestation — it measures deforestation plus any gains in forest over a given period.

Between 2010 and 2020the net loss in forests globally was 4.7 million hectares per year.¹ Howeverdeforestation rates were much higher.

The UN FAO estimates that 10 million hectares of forest are cut down each year.

This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world.

Read more about historical deforestation here:

Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Can we bring it to an end?

Since the end of the last ice age — 10,000 years ago — the world has lost one-third of its forests.² Two billion hectares of forest — an area twice the size of the United States — has been cleared to grow cropsraise livestockand for use as fuelwood.

Previouslywe looked at this change in global forests over the long run. What this showed was that although humans have been deforesting the planet for millenniathe rate of forest loss accelerated rapidly in the last few centuries. Half of the global forest loss occurred between 8,000 BCE and 1900; the other half was lost in the last century alone.

To understand this more recent loss of forestlet’s zoom in on the last 300 years. The world lost 1.5 billion hectares of forest over that period. That’s an area 1.5 times the size of the United States.

In the chartwe see the decadal losses and gains in global forest cover. On the horizontal axiswe have timespanning from 1700 to 2020; on the vertical axiswe have the decadal change in forest cover. The taller the barthe larger the change in forest area. This is measured in hectares; one hectare is equivalent to 10,000 m².

Forest loss measures the net change in forest cover: the loss in forests due to deforestation plus any increase in forest through afforestation or natural expansion.³

Unfortunatelythere is no single source that provides consistent and transparent data on deforestation rates over this period of time. Methodologies change over timeand estimates — especially in earlier periods — are highly uncertain. This means I’ve had to use two separate datasets to show this change over time. As we’ll seethey produce different estimates of deforestation for an overlapping decade — the 1980s — which suggests that these are not directly comparable. I do not recommend combining them into a single seriesbut the overall trends are still applicable and tell us an important story about deforestation over the last three centuries.

The first series of data comes from Williams (2006)who estimates deforestation rates from 1700 to 1995.⁴ Due to poor data resolutionthese are often given as average rates over longer periods — for exampleannual average rates are given over the period from 1700 to 1849 and 1920 to 1949. That’s why these rates look strangely consistent over a long period of time.

The second series comes from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It produces a new assessment of global forests every five years.⁵

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The rate and location of forest loss changed a lot. From 1700 to 185019 million hectares were being cleared every decade. That’s around half the size of Germany.

Most temperate forests across Europe and North America were being lost at this time. Population growth meant that today’s rich countries needed more and more resources such as land for agriculturewood for energyand construction.⁶

Moving into the 20th centurythere was a stepwise change in demand for agricultural land and energy from wood. Deforestation rates accelerated. This increase was mostly driven by tropical deforestation in countries across Asia and Latin America.

Global forest loss appears to have reached its peak in the 1980s. The two sources do not agree on the magnitude of this loss: Williams (2006) estimates a loss of 150 million hectares — an area half the size of India — during that decade.

Interestinglythe UN FAO 1990 report also estimated that deforestation in tropical ‘developing’ countries was 154 million hectares. Howeverit was estimated that the regrowth of forests offset some of these lossesleading to a net loss of 102 million hectares.⁷

The latest UN Forest Resources Assessment estimates that the net loss in forests has declined in the last three decadesfrom 78 million hectares in the 1990s to 47 million hectares in the 2010s.

This data maps an expected pathway based on what we know from how human-forest interactions evolve.

As we explore in more detail later oncountries tend to follow a predictable development in forest covera U-shaped curve.⁸ They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increasesbut eventuallythey reach the so-called ‘forest transition point’ where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose. This can include both natural restorationand forest plantationswhich can have very different impacts from a biodiversity perspective.

That is what has happened in temperate regions: they have gone through a period of high deforestation rates before slowing and reversing this trend.

Howevermany countries — particularly in the tropics and sub-tropics — are still moving through this transition. Deforestation rates are still very high.

Deforestation rates are still high across the tropics

Large areas of forest are still being lost in the tropics today. This is particularly tragic because these are regions with the highest levels of biodiversity.

Let’s look at estimates of deforestation from the latest UN Forest report. This shows us raw deforestation rates without any adjustment for the regrowth or plantation of forestswhich is arguably not as good for ecosystems or carbon storage.

This is shown in the chart below.

We can see that the UN does estimate that deforestation rates have fallen since the 1990s. Howeverthere was very little progress from the 1990s to the 2000s and an estimated 26% drop in rates in the 2010s. In 2022the FAO published a separate assessment based on remote sensing methods; it did not report data for the 1990sbut it also estimated a 29% reduction in deforestation rates from the early 2000s to the 2010s.

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This is progressbut it needs to happen much faster. The world is still losing large amounts of primary forests every year. To put these numbers in contextduring the 1990s and first decade of the 2000san area almost the size of India was deforested.⁹ Even with the ‘improved’ rates in the 2010sthis still amounted to an area around twice the size of Spain.¹⁰

The regrowth of forests is a positive development. In the chart belowwe see how this affects the net change in global forests. Forest recovery and plantation ‘offsets’ a lot of deforestation such that the net losses are around half the rates of deforestation alone.

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But we should be cautious here: it’s often not the case that the ‘positives’ of regrowing on planting one hectare of forest offset the ‘losses’ of one hectare of deforestation. Cutting down one hectare of rich tropical rainforest cannot be completely offset by the creation of on hectare of plantation forest in a temperate country.

This is especially true when we consider how that forest is grown or used. In some temperate countries — such as in the United Kingdom — a large part of forested area is in the form of single and non-native species plantationswhich doesn’t have the same biodiversity benefits as natural regrowth.

Forest expansion is generally positive but does not negate the need to end deforestation.

The history of deforestation is a tragic onein which we have lost not only wild and beautiful landscapes but also the wildlife within them. Butthe fact that forest transitions are possible should give us confidence that a positive future is possible. Many countries have not only ended deforestation but have actually achieved substantial reforestation. It will be possible for our generation to achieve the same on a global scale and bring the 10,000-year history of forest loss to an end.

If we want to end deforestationwe need to understand where and why it’s happeningwhere countries are within their transitionand what can be done to accelerate their progress through it. We need to pass the transition point as soon as possible while minimizing the amount of forest we lose along the way.

In this articleI look at what drives deforestationwhich helps us understand what we need to do to solve it.

Forest definitions and comparisons to other datasets

There is no universal definition of what a ‘forest’ is. That means there are a range of estimates of forest area and how this has changed over time.

In this articlein the recent periodI have used data from the UN’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (2020). The UN carries out these global forest stocktakes every five years. These forest figures are widely used in researchpolicyand international targetssuch as the Sustainable Development Goals.

The UN FAO has a very specific definition of a forest. It’s “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 0.5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ.”

In other wordsit has criteria for the area that must be covered (0.5 hectares)the minimum height of trees (0.5 meters)and a density of at least 10%.

Compare this to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)which uses forest estimates to calculate land use carbon emissionsand its REDD+ Programmewhere low-to-middle-income countries can receive finance for verified projects that prevent or reduce deforestation. It defines a forest as having a density of more than 10%a minimum tree height of 2-5 metersand a smaller area of at least 0.05 hectares.

It’s not just forest definitions that vary between sources. What is measured (and not measured) differstoo. Global Forest Watch is an interactive online dashboard that tracks ‘tree loss’ and ‘forest loss’ across the world. It measures this in real time and can provide better estimates of year-to-year variations in rates of tree loss.

Howeverthe UN FAO and Global Forest Watch do not measure the same thing.

The UN FAO measures deforestation based on how land is used. It measures the permanent conversion of forested land to another usesuch as pasturecroplandsor urbanization. Temporary changes in forest coversuch as losses through wildfire or small-scale shifting agricultureare not included in deforestation figures because it is assumed that they will regrow. If the use of land has not changedit is not considered deforestation.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) measures temporary changes in forests. It can detect changes in land cover but does not differentiate the underlying land use. All deforestation would be considered tree lossbut a lot of tree loss would not be considered as deforestation.

As GFW defines ‘forest loss’“Loss” indicates the removal or mortality of tree cover and can be due to a variety of factorsincluding mechanical harvestingfirediseaseor storm damage. As such“loss” does not equate to deforestation.”

Thereforewe cannot directly compare these sources. This article from Global Forest Watch gives a good overview of the differences between the UN FAO's and GFW's methods.

Since GFW uses satellite imageryits methods continually improve. This makes its ability to detect changes in forest cover even stronger. But it also means that comparisons over time are more difficult. It currently warns against comparing pre-2015 and post-2015 data since there was a significant methodological change at that time. Note that this is also a problem in UN FAO reportsas I’ll soon explain.

What data from GFW makes clear is that forest loss across the tropics is still very highand in the last few yearslittle progress has been made. Since UN FAO reports are only published in 5-year intervalsthey miss these shorter-term fluctuations in forest loss. The GFW’s shorter-interval stocktakes of how countries are doing will become increasingly valuable.

One final point to note is that UN FAO estimates have also changed over timewith improved methods and better access to data.

I looked at how net forest losses in the 1990s were reported across five UN reports: 2000200520102015and 2020.

Estimated losses changed in each successive report:

• 2000 report: Net losses of 92 million hectares
• 2005 report: 89 million hectares
• 2010 report: 83 million hectares
• 2015 report: 72 million hectares
• 2020 report: 78 million hectares

This should not affect the overall trends reported in the latest report: the UN FAO should — as far as is possible — apply the same methodology to its 1990s2000sand 2010s estimates. Howeverit does mean we should be cautious about comparing absolute magnitudes across different reports.

This is one challenge in presenting 1980 figures in the main visualization in this article. Later reports have not updated 1980 figuresso we have to rely on estimates from earlier reports. We don’t know whether 1980s losses would also be lower with the UN FAO’s most recent adjustments. If sothis would mean the reductions in net forest loss from the 1980s to 1990s were lower than is shown from available data.

Forest transitions: why do we lose then regain forests?

Globallywe deforest around ten million hectares of forest every year.¹¹ That’s an area the size of Portugal every year. Around half of this deforestation is offset by regrowing forestsso overallwe lose around five million hectares each year.

Nearly all — 95% — of this deforestation occurs in the tropics. But not all of it is to produce products for local markets. 14% of deforestation is driven by consumers in the world’s richest countries — we import beefvegetable oilscocoacoffeeand paper that has been produced on deforested land.¹²

The scale of deforestation today might give us little hope for protecting our diverse forests. But by studying how forests have changed over timethere’s good reason to think that a way forward is possible.

Many countries have lost and then regained forests over millennia.

Time and time againwe see examples of countries that have lost massive amounts of forests before reaching a turning point where deforestation not only slows but forests return. In the chartwe see historical reconstructions of country-level data on the share of land covered by forest (over decadescenturiesor even millenniadepending on the country). I have reconstructed long-term data using various studieswhich I’ve documented here.

Many countries have much less forest today than they did in the past. Nearly half (47%) of France was forested 1000 years ago; today that’s just under one-third (31.4%). The same is true of the United States; back in 163046% of the area of today’s USA was covered by forest. Todaythat’s just 34%.

One thousand years ago20% of Scotland’s land was covered by forest. By the mid-18th centuryonly 4% of the country was forested. But then the trend turnedand it moved from deforestation to reforestation. For the last two centuriesforests have been growing and are almost back to where they were 1000 years ago.¹³

One thing to note here is that we’re looking only at the total area of the country covered by forest. This does not account for the type of forestor what it’s used for. Much of the return in forests in the United Kingdom has come in the form of plantations; specifically the tree species Sitka Spruce. Sitka Spruce is a non-nativeproductive conifer species used for commercial forestry. While this has some benefitsit doesn’t provide the same biodiversity as natural ecosystems thousands of years agoand less diverse than ecosystems formed through natural reforestation.

Forest Transitions: the U-shaped curve of forest change

What’s surprising is how consistent the pattern of change is across so many countries; as we’ve seenthey all seem to follow a ‘U-shaped curve.’ They first lose lots of forest but reach a turning point and begin to regain it again.

We can illustrate this through the so-called ‘Forest Transition Model.’ ¹⁴ This is shown in the chart. It breaks the change in forests into four stagesexplained by two variables: the amount of forest cover a region has and the annual change in cover (how quickly it is losing or gaining forest).¹⁵

Stage 1 – The Pre-Transition phase is defined as having high levels of forest cover and no or only very slow losses over time. Countries may lose some forest each yearbut this is at a very slow rate. Mather refers to an annual loss of less than 0.25% as a small loss.

Stage 2 – The Early Transition phase is when countries start to lose forests very rapidly. Forest cover falls quicklyand the annual loss of forest is high.

Stage 3 – The Late Transition phase is when deforestation rates start to slow down again. At this stagecountries are still losing forest each yearbut at a lower rate than before. At the end of this stagecountries are approaching the ‘transition point.’

Stage 4 – The Post-Transition phase is when countries have passed the ‘transition point’ and are now gaining forest again. At the beginning of this phasethe forest area is at its lowest point. But forest cover increases through reforestation. The annual change is now positive.

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Why do countries lose and then regain forests?

Many countries have followed this classic U-shaped pattern. What explains this?

There are two reasons that we cut down forests:

• Forest resources: we want the resources that they provide — the wood for fuelbuilding materialsor paper;
• Land: We want to use the land they occupy for something elsesuch as farmland to grow cropspasture to raise livestock or land to build roads and cities.

Our demand for both of these initially increases as populations grow and poor people get richer. We need more fuelwood to cookmore houses to live inandimportantlymore food to eat.

Butas countries continue to get richerthis demand slows. The rate of population growth tends to slow down. Instead of using wood for fuelwe switch to fossil fuelsor hopefullymore renewables and nuclear energy. Our crop yields improveso we need less land for agriculture.

This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. As I mentioned earlier14% of deforestation today is driven by consumers in rich countries.

The Forest Transitionthereforetends to follow a ‘development’ pathway.¹⁶ As a country achieves economic growthit moves through each of the four stages. This explains the historical trends we see in countries across the world today. Rich countries — such as the USAFranceand the United Kingdom — have had a long history of deforestation but have now passed the transition point. Most deforestation today occurs in low-to-middle-income countries.

Where are countries in the transition today?

If we look at where countries are in their transition todaywe can understand where we expect to lose and gain forest in the coming decades. Most of our future deforestation is going to come from countries in the pre-or early-transition phase.

Several studies have assessed the stage of countries across the world.¹⁷ The most recent analysis to date was published by Florence Pendrill and colleagues (2019)which looked at each country’s stage in the transitionthe drivers of deforestationand the role of international trade.¹⁸ To do thisthey used the standard metrics discussed in our theory of forest transitions earlier: the share of land that is forested and the annual change in forest cover.

In the mapwe see their assessment of each country’s stage in the transition. Most of today’s richest countries — all of EuropeNorth AmericaJapanand South Korea — have passed the turning point and are now regaining forests. This is also true for major economies such as China and India. The fact that these countries have recently regained forests is also visible in the long-term forest trends above.

Across tropical and sub-tropical countrieswe have a mix: many upper-middle-income countries are now in the late transition phase. Brazilfor examplewent through a period of very rapid deforestation in the 1980s and 90s (its ‘early transition’ phase)but its losses have slowedmeaning it is now in the late transition. Countries such as IndonesiaMyanmarand the Democratic Republic of Congo are in the early transition phase and are losing forests quickly. Some of the world’s poorest countries are still in the pre-transition phase. In the coming decadeswe might expect to see the most rapid loss of forests unless these countries take action to prevent it and the world supports them in their goal.

Not all forest loss is equal: what is the difference between deforestation and forest degradation?

Fifteen billion trees are cut down every year.¹⁹ The Global Forest Watch project — using satellite imagery — estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom.

These are big numbers and important ones to track: forest loss creates a number of negative impactsranging from carbon emissions to species extinctions and biodiversity loss. But distilling changes to this single metric — tree or forest loss — comes with its own issues.

The problem is that it treats all forest loss as equal. It assumes the impact of clearing primary rainforest in the Amazon to produce soybeans is the same as logging plantation forests in the UK. The latter will experience short-term environmental impacts but will ultimately regrow. When we cut down primary rainforestwe transform this ecosystem forever.

When we treat these impacts equallywe make it difficult to prioritize our efforts in the fight against deforestation. Decision makers could give as much of our attention to European logging as to the destruction of the Amazon. As we will see laterthis would be a distraction from our primary concern: ending tropical deforestation. The other issue that arises is that ‘tree loss’ or ‘forest loss’ data collected by satellite imagery often doesn’t match the official statistics reported by governments in their land use inventories. This is because the latter only captures deforestation — the replacement of forest with another land use (such as cropland). It doesn’t capture trees that are cut down in planted forests; the land is still forested; it’s now just regrowing forests.

In the articlewe will look at the reasons we lose forestshow these can be differentiated in a useful wayand what this means for understanding our priorities in tackling forest loss.

Understanding and seeing the drivers of forest loss

‘Forest loss’ or ‘tree loss’ captures two fundamental impacts on forest cover: deforestation and forest degradation.

Deforestation is the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use such as agricultureminingor towns and cities. It results in a permanent conversion of forest into an alternative land use. The trees are not expected to regrow. Forest degradation measures a thinning of the canopy — a reduction in the density of trees in the area — but without a change in land use. The changes to the forest are often temporaryand it’s expected that they will regrow.

From this understandingwe can define five reasons why we lose forests:

• Commodity-driven deforestation is the long-termpermanent conversion of forests to other land uses such as agriculture (including oil palm and cattle ranching)miningor energy infrastructure.
• Urbanization is the long-termpermanent conversion of forests to townscitiesand urban infrastructure such as roads.
• Shifting agriculture is the small- to medium-scale conversion of forest for farmingwhich is later abandoned so that forests regrow. This is common in local subsistence farming systems where populations will clear forestuse it to grow cropsand then move on to another plot of land.
• Forestry production is the logging of managedplanted forests for products such as timberpaperand pulp. These forests are logged periodically and allowed to regrow.
• Wildfires destroy forests temporarily. When the land is not converted to a new useforests can regrow in the following years.

Thanks to satellite imagerywe can get a birds-eye view of what these drivers look like from above. In the figurewe see visual examples from the study of forest loss classification by Philip Curtis et al. (2018)published in Science.²⁰

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Commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization are deforestation: the forested land is completely cleared and converted into another land use — a farmmining siteor city. The change is permanent. There is little forest left. Forestry production and wildfires usually result in forest degradation — the forest experiences short-term disturbance butif left aloneis likely to regrow. The change is temporary. This is nearly always true of planted forests in temperate regions — thereplanted forests are long-established and do not replace primary existing forests. In the tropicssome forestry production can be classified as deforestation when primary rainforests are cut down to make room for managed tree plantations.¹⁸

'Shifting agriculture’ is usually classified as degradation because the land is often abandonedand the forests regrow naturally. But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices.

One-quarter of forest loss comes from tropical deforestation

We’ve seen the five key drivers of forest loss. Let’s put some numbers on them.

In their analysis of global forest lossPhilip Curtis and colleagues used satellite images to assess where and why the world lost forests between 2001 and 2015. The breakdown of forest loss globally and by region is shown in the chart.²⁰

Just over one-quarter of global forest loss is driven by deforestation. The remaining 73% came from the three drivers of forest degradation: logging of forestry products from plantations (26%)shiftinglocal agriculture (24%)and wildfires (23%).

We see massive differences in how important each driver is across the world. 95% of the world’s deforestation occurs in the tropics [we look at this breakdown again later]. In Latin America and Southeast Asiain particularcommodity-driven deforestation — mainly the clearance of forests to grow crops such as palm oil and soy and pasture for beef production — accounts for almost two-thirds of forest loss.

In contrastmost forest degradation — two-thirds of it — occurs in temperate countries. Centuries agoit was mainly temperate regions that were driving global deforestation [we take a look at this longer history of deforestation in a related article]. They cut down their forests and replaced them with agricultural land long ago. But this is no longer the case: forest loss across North America and Europe is now the result of harvesting forestry products from tree plantations or tree loss in wildfires.

Africa is also different here. Forests are mainly cut and burned to make space for local subsistence agriculture or fuelwood for energy. This ‘shifting agriculture’ category can be difficult to allocate between deforestation and degradation: it often requires close monitoring over time to understand how permanent these agricultural practices are.

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Africa is also an outlier as a result of how many people still rely on wood as their primary energy source. Noriko Hosonuma et al. (2010) looked at the primary drivers of deforestation and degradation across tropical and subtropical countries specifically.²¹  The breakdown of forest degradation drivers is shown in the following chart. Note that in this studythe category of subsistence agriculture was classified as a deforestation driverso it is not included. In Latin America and Asiathe dominant driver of degradation was logging for products such as timberpaperand pulp — this accounted for more than 70%. Across Africafuelwood and charcoal played a much larger role — it accounted for more than half (52%).

This highlights an important point: around one in five people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to clean fuels for cookingmeaning they still rely on wood and charcoal. With increasing developmenturbanizationand access to other energy resourcesAfrica will shift from local subsistence activities into commercial commodity production — both in agricultural products and timber extraction. This follows the classic ‘forest transition’ model with developmentwhich we look at in more detail in a related article.

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Tropical deforestation should be our primary concern

The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. That’s like losing an area the size of Portugal every two years. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. The breakdown of deforestation by region is shown in the chart. 59% occurs in Latin Americawith a further 28% from Southeast Asia. In a related articlewe look in much more detail at which agricultural products and which countries are driving this.

As we saw previouslythis deforestation accounts for around one-quarter of global forest loss. 27% of forest loss results from ‘commodity-driven deforestation’ — cutting down forests to grow crops such as soypalm oiland cocoaraising livestock on pastureand mining operations. Urbanizationthe other driver of deforestationaccounts for just 0.6%. It’s the foods and products we buynot where we livethat have the biggest impact on global land use.

It might seem odd to argue that we should focus our efforts on tackling this quarter of forest loss (rather than the other 73%). But there is good reason to make this our primary concern.

Philipp Curtis and colleagues make this point clear. On their Global Forest Watch platformthey were already presenting maps of forest loss across the world. Howeverthey wanted to contribute to a more informed discussion about where to focus forest conservation efforts by understanding why forests were being lost. To quote themthey wanted to prevent “a common misperception that any tree cover loss shown on the map represents deforestation.” And to “identify where deforestation is occurring; perhaps as importantshow where forest loss is not deforestation.”

Why should we care most about tropical deforestation? There is a geographical argument (why the tropics?) and an argument for why deforestation is worse than degradation.

Tropical forests are home to some of the richest and most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Over half of the world’s species reside in tropical forests.²² Endemic species are those which only naturally occur in a single country. Whether we look at the distribution of endemic mammal speciesbird speciesor amphibian speciesthe map is the same: tropical and subtropical countries are packed with unique wildlife. Habitat loss is the leading driver of global biodiversity loss.²³ When we cut down rainforestswe are destroying the habitats of many unique species and reshaping these ecosystems permanently. Tropical forests are also large carbon sinks and can store a lot of carbon per unit area.²⁴

Deforestation also results in larger losses of biodiversity and carbon relative to degradation. Degradation driversincluding logging and especially wildfirescan definitely have major impacts on forest health: animal populations declinetrees can dieand CO₂ is emitted. Howeverthe magnitude of these impacts is often less than the complete conversion of forests. They are smaller and more temporary. When deforestation happensalmost all of the carbon stored in the trees and vegetation — called the ‘aboveground carbon loss’ —  is lost. Estimates varybut on averageonly 10-20% of carbon is lost during logging and 10-30% from fires.²⁵ In a study of logging practices in the Amazon and Congoforests retained 76% of their carbon stocks shortly after logging.²⁶ Logged forests recover their carbon over timeas long as the land is not converted to other uses (which is what happens in the case of deforestation).

Deforestation tends to occur in forests that have been around for centuries if not millennia. Cutting them down disrupts or destroys establishedspecies-rich ecosystems. The biodiversity of managed tree plantationswhich are periodically cutregrowncut againand then regrownis not the same.

That is why we should be focusing on tropical deforestation. Since agriculture is responsible for 60 to 80% of itwhat we eatwhere it’s sourced fromand how it is produced are our strongest levers to bring deforestation to an end.

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Carbon emissions from deforestation: are they driven by domestic demand or international trade?

95% of global deforestation occurs in the tropics. Brazil and Indonesia alone account for almost half. After long periods of forest clearance in the pastmost of today’s richest countries are increasing tree cover through afforestation.

This might put the responsibility for ending deforestation solely on tropical countries. Butsupply chains are international. What if this deforestation is being driven by consumers elsewhere?

Many consumers are concerned that their food choices are linked to deforestation in some of these hotspots. Since three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by agriculturethat’s a valid concern. It feeds into the popular idea that ‘eating local’ is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. In a previous articleI showed that the types of food you eat matter much more for your carbon footprint than where it comes from — this is because transport usually makes up a small percentage of your food’s emissionseven if it comes from the other side of the world. If you want to reduce your carbon footprintreducing meat and dairy intake — particularly beef and lamb — has the largest impact.

But understanding the role of deforestation in the products we buy is important. If we can identify the producing and importing countries and the specific products responsiblewe can direct our efforts towards interventions that will really make a difference.

Read more about the imported deforestation here:

One-third of CO₂ emissions from deforestation are embedded in international trade

In a study published in Global Environmental ChangeFlorence Pendrill and colleagues investigated where tropical deforestation was occurring and what products were driving this. Using global trade modelsthey traced where these products were going in international supply chains.²⁷

They found that tropical deforestation — given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 — was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year. That was 6.5% of global CO₂ emissions.²⁸

International trade was responsible for around one-third (29%) of these emissions. This is probably less than many people would expect. Most emissions — 71% — came from foods consumed in the country where they were produced. It’s domestic demandnot international tradethat is the main driver of deforestation.

In the chartwe see how emissions from tropical deforestation are distributed through international supply chains. On the left-hand sidewe have the countries (grouped by region) where deforestation occursand on the rightwe have the countries and regions where these products are consumed. The paths between these end boxes indicate where emissions are being traded — the wider the barthe more emissions are embedded in these products.

Latin America exports around 23% of its emissions; that means more than three-quarters are generated for products that are consumed within domestic markets. The Asia-Pacific region — predominantly Indonesia and Malaysia — exports a higher share: 44%. As we will see laterthis is dominated by palm oil exports to EuropeChinaIndiaNorth Americaand the Middle East. Deforestation in Africa is mainly driven by local populations and markets; only 9% of its emissions are exported.

Since international demand is driving one-third of deforestation emissionswe have some opportunity to reduce emissions through global consumers and supply chains. Howevermost emissions are driven by domestic marketswhich means that policies in major producer countries will be key to tackling this problem.

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How much deforestation emissions is each country responsible for?

Let’s now focus on the consumers of products driving deforestation. After we adjust for imports and exportshow much CO₂ from deforestation is each country responsible for?

Rather than looking at total figures by country (if you’re interestedwe have mapped them here)we have calculated the per capita footprint. This gives us an indication of the impact of the average person’s diet. Note that this only measures the emissions from tropical deforestation — it doesn’t include any other emissions from agricultural productionsuch as methane from livestock or rice or the use of fertilizers.

In the chartwe see deforestation emissions per personmeasured in tonnes of CO₂ per year. For examplethe average German generated half a tonne (510 kilograms) of CO₂ per person from domestic and imported foods.

Towards the top of the listwe see Brazil and Indonesiawhich are some of the major producer countries. The fact that the per capita emissions after trade are very high means that a lot of their food products are consumed by people in Brazil and Indonesia. The diet of the average Brazilian creates 2.7 tonnes of CO₂ from deforestation alone. That’s more than the country’s CO₂ emissions from fossil fuelswhich are around 2.2 tonnes per person.

But we also see that some countries which import a lot of food have high emissions. Luxembourg has the largest footprint at nearly three tonnes per person. Imported emissions are also high for TaiwanBelgiumand the Netherlands at around one tonne.

In the underlying paperPendrill et al. report that the average across the EU was 0.3 tonnes of CO₂ per person. To put this in perspectivethat would be around one-sixth of the total carbon footprint of the average EU diet.²⁹

Beefsoybeansand palm oil are the key drivers of deforestation

We know where deforestation emissions are occurring and where this demand is coming from. But we also need to know what products are driving this. This helps consumers understand what products they should be concerned about and allows us to target specific supply chains.

As we covered in a previous article60% of tropical deforestation is driven by beefsoybeanand palm oil production. We should look not only at where these foods are produced but also at where the consumer demand is coming from.

In the chart herewe see the breakdown of deforestation emissions by product for each consumer country. The default is shown for Brazilbut you can explore the data for a range of countries using the “Change country or region” button.

We see very clearly that the large Brazilian footprint is driven by its domestic demand for beef. In Chinathe biggest driver is demand for ‘oilseeds’ — which is the combination of soy imported from Latin America and palm oil imported from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Across the US and Europethe breakdown of products is more varied. Butoveralloilseeds and beef tend to top the list for most countries.

Bringing all of these elements togetherwe can focus on a few points that should help us prioritize our efforts to end deforestation. Firstlyinternational trade does play a role in deforestation — it’s responsible for almost one-third of emissions. By combining our earlier Sankey diagram and breakdown of emissions by-productwe can see that we can tackle a large share of these emissions through only a few key trade flows. Most traded emissions are embedded in soy and palm oil exports to China and Indiaas well as beefsoyand palm oil exports to Europe. The story of both soy and palm oil is complex — and it’s not obvious that eliminating these products will fix the problem. Thereforewe look at them both individually in more detail to better understand what we can do about it.

Howeverinternational markets alone cannot fix this problem. Most tropical deforestation is driven by the demand for products in domestic markets. Brazil’s emissions are high because Brazilians eat a lot of beef. Africa’s emissions are high because people are clearing forests to produce more food. This means interventions at the national level will be key: this can include a range of solutionsincluding policies such as Brazil’s soy moratoriumthe REDD+ Programme to compensate for the opportunity costs of preserving these forestsand improvements in agricultural productivity so countries can continue to produce more food on less land.

Hannah Ritchie (2021) - “Deforestation and Forest Loss” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20251212-112521/deforestation.html' [Online Resource] (archived on December 122025).

@article{owid-deforestation,
    author = {Hannah Ritchie},
    title = {Deforestation and Forest Loss},
    journal = {Our World in Data},
    year = {2021},
    note = {https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20251212-112521/deforestation.html}
}

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