The Forest Pulse draws on the most recent data and analysis to reveal the latest trends in global forest loss and deforestation.

How much forest was lost in 2022?
This section of the Forest Pulse is updated annually using annual tree cover loss data to provide a comprehensive overview on where forests have been lost around the world. Annual updates are released each year and cover the previous year’s trends.

Tropical Primary Forest Loss Worsened in 2022, Despite International Commitments to End Deforestation
By Mikaela Weisse, Elizabeth Goldman and Sarah Carter

The tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, according to new data from the University of Maryland and available on WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform.

Explore the data on GFW
Tropical primary forest loss in 2022 totaled 4.1 million hectares, the equivalent of losing 11 football (soccer) fields of forest per minute. All this forest loss produced 2.7 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to India's annual fossil fuel emissions.

Tropical primary forest loss, 2002-2022
This increased forest loss comes in the first year after heads of 145 countries vowed in the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use to halt and reverse forest loss by the end of the decade, recognizing the important role of forests in combating climate change and biodiversity loss. Instead of consistent declines in primary forest loss to meet that goal, the trend is moving in the wrong direction.

Indeed, humanity is not on track to meet major forest-related commitments. Read more in our Targets Tracker.

Why Do Forests Matter?

Forests are critical ecosystems for fighting climate change, supporting livelihoods and protecting biodiversity.

Climate: As the world faces a “final warning” on the climate crisis, reducing deforestation is one of the most cost-effective land-based measures to mitigate climate change. Forests are both a source and a sink for carbon, removing carbon dioxide from the air when standing or regrowing and emitting it when cleared or degraded.

Human well-being: Some 1.6 billion people, including nearly 70 million Indigenous Peoples, rely on forest resources for their livelihoods. Deforestation, especially in the tropics, also impacts local temperatures and rainfall in ways that can compound the local effects of global climate change, with consequences for human health and agricultural productivity.

Biodiversity: Forests harbor the most biodiversity of any ecosystem on Earth. The Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in 2022 emphasizes the need to halt and reverse the loss of natural ecosystems, including forests.

At the national level, while primary forest loss ticked up in the two countries with the most tropical forest, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it rapidly increased in other nations like Ghana and Bolivia. Meanwhile, Indonesia and Malaysia have managed to keep rates of primary forest loss near record-low levels.

Top countries for primary forest loss

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