The overarching forest goals that we assess are:

1. Ending the loss and degradation of natural forests by 2030, and

2. Restoring 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2030.

In 2022, global progress on protecting and restoring forests moved too slowly and, in some cases, progress was reversed. Each year that passes without sufficient progress, it becomes more and more challenging to meet global forest goals by 2030. Progress in 2021 was already insufficient, and the world needed to make up that lost ground (and more) in 2022.

This theme provides a summary of global progress on halting deforestation and degradation and advancing forest restoration. We estimate progress using several quantitative indicators. The Technical Annex provides the full list of indicators, which are divided among core and supplemental indicators. Core indicators pertain to the overarching targets on protecting and restoring forests. Supplemental indicators provide additional context on the state of forests through an estimate of forest carbon stocks and biodiversity within forests.

Core indicators:

• Deforestation, which uses estimates of global and regional deforestation, humid tropical primary forest loss, and emissions from deforestation;
• Forest degradation, estimated as Forest Landscape Integrity Index (FLII) units lost per year;
• Forest regrowth and restoration, including estimates of tropical moist forest regrowth and areas under restoration from multiple sources;

Supplemental indicators:

• Forests’ carbon storage, both regionally and globally; and
• Biodiversity within forests, assessed through tree cover loss within key biodiversity areas (KBAs), forest degradation within KBAs, and the Forest Specialists Index.