Berlin, Germany//Washington, DC (14 October 2025) — World leaders are missing their own goal to end deforestation by 63% (two-thirds off track), according to a new study released today. In 2024, 8.1 million hectares of forest were permanently lost — an area roughly half the size of England. Total forest loss in 2024 exceeded the maximum loss consistent with the 2030 goal by 3.1 million hectares and was even higher than the rate of loss recorded in 2021, when world leaders renewed bold commitments to end deforestation — first made in 2014. The findings are being released as a wake-up call ahead of international climate talks in Belém, Brazil, where the role of forests in climate action will be a key focus.

“Every year, the gap between commitments and reality grows wider, with devastating impacts on people, the climate and our economies. Forests are non-negotiable infrastructure for a livable planet. Continued failure to protect them puts our collective prosperity at risk,” said Erin Matson, a lead author of this year’s Forest Declaration Assessment. “We already know what works to stop forest loss, but countries, companies, and investors are only scratching the surface. And even those initial efforts are facing strong pushback from the standard bearers of an economic system built on forest destruction.”

A coalition of civil society and research organizations annually releases the Forest Declaration Assessment, which tracks progress of pledges by countries, companies and investors to eliminate deforestation and restore 350 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. It tracks the implementation or lack thereof of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use (2021) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022). To do so, it measures reductions in forest loss against a 2018-2020 baseline and determines how far off regions are from achieving zero loss by 2030.

Fires take toll

The study alarmingly finds that remote and pristine tropical forests fared particularly badly in 2024. Devastating fires were the leading driver of this loss in 2024, as 6.73 million hectares of tropical primary forest were cleared across Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania.  All told, world leaders were 190% off track from achieving goals to protect these carbon-rich forests, releasing 3.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — nearly 150% of the annual emissions from the United States energy sector.

Fires, most of which are intentionally set to clear land and are therefore preventable, were also a major factor in soaring degradation in 2024, which together with logging, road construction and the collection of firewood, damaged – but did not fully clear –8.8 million hectares of moist tropical forests in 2024. This gradual and incremental decline in a forest’s health is not as stark as outright deforestation, but it still yields significant carbon emissions and other impacts. Degradation also often opens land up to being completely cleared of forest in the future. Leaders are 234% off track from reaching the goal of halting this degradation.

Forest fire-linked degradation was particularly alarming in the eight countries of the Amazon region. Emissions linked to these blazes reached an estimated 791 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (Mt CO2e), seven times the average of emissions by fires in the previous two years (117 Mt CO2e) and more than the total GHG emissions of an industrialized country like Germany.

“Degradation — including the devastating impacts of forest fires — is pushing forests closer to dangerous tipping points by undermining the very ecological functions they depend on for survival.” said Ivan Palmegiani, biodiversity and land use consultant at Climate Focus. “Research shows that degraded forests are more likely to be deforested, providing a hint of the losses to come. Yet, because forest degradation is harder to track than outright forest clearance, its dynamics often go undetected or poorly reported. Policymakers must bring degradation into focus to truly safeguard forests and the vital services they provide.”

The report also tracks progress on the other side of the spectrum — reforestation. It found there are active restoration initiatives underway on at least 10.6 million hectares of deforested and degraded land. This represents about 5.4% of global reforestation potential (a measure of areas that can be reforested after being completely deforested) and only 0.3% of the global biophysical forest restoration potential (a measure of degraded or deforested area), falling far short of the 30% target set in Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Roughly two-thirds of this area (about seven million hectares) is in tropical regions, 3.3 million hectares are in temperate zones, and 250 thousand hectares are in boreal forests.

Call for transformative change

While forest fires have become a significant driver of deforestation in recent years, the clearing of land for agriculture to produce crops, timber and livestock accounts for 85% of forest loss over the last decade. The study, however, argues that one of the biggest roadblocks to forest protection is an overarching economic system that funnels finance to forest-destroying industries like agriculture, mining and logging — at the expense of efforts to keep forests standing.

For example, the study finds that international public finance for forest protection and restoration averaged just USD 5.9 billion per year — far below the estimated USD 117-299 billion needed annually by 2030 to achieve zero deforestation goals. At the same time, large-scale industrial agriculture — harmful to forests, nature and biodiversity — benefits from USD 409 billion in subsidies per year. The money flowing to forest protection is just 1.4% of these harmful subsidies.

“Efforts to protect forests don’t stand a chance as long as our economic system keeps rewarding quick profits from forest destruction,” said Franziska Haupt, partner at Climate Focus. “Too often we see only surface-level solutions — such as tree-planting campaigns or voluntary commitments with no follow-through — that look good on paper but do nothing to change the underlying system.”

“When leaders do make genuine efforts to stop forest loss, whether through supply chain engagement or passing a new regulation, they often do so in isolation. Progress can unravel with the next political or economic shift. To truly tackle deforestation, leaders must work collectively to implement bold, binding reforms that will transform the system that still generously rewards forest loss. Isolated successes won’t be enough; we need lasting, systemic change.”

Darkness before the dawn

New initiatives to be discussed at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, however, show significant promise in addressing the funding gap undermining forest protection efforts and could help unleash the transformative change needed. Brazil’s proposed Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which is designed to make private investments in tropical forests easier and less risky, could provide a reliable long-term source of billions in funding.

"Thirty-four countries have shown leadership by recently launching a Forest Finance Roadmap for Action, which echoes a similar call from civil society to align finance and forest goals by targeting structural barriers, like harmful subsidies and sovereign debt," said Jillian Gladstone, lead consultant at Climate Focus. "A renewal of the Forest Tenure Funding Pledge would also signal a sustained commitment to direct crucial funding to the Indigenous and local communities who manage most of the world’s intact forests."

Across tropical regions, governments and communities are also stepping up with approaches that connect local action to systemic reform.

• Brazil has rolled out national cattle traceability systems, using technology to support supply-chain accountability and helping producers access markets such as the EU, which will regulate the import of deforestation-linked commodities.
• In 2025, the Democratic Republic of Congo adopted its first national land-use planning law. This law recognizes community customary land rights and adopts broad environmental safeguards across the majority of the Congo Basin rainforest, the world's largest terrestrial carbon sink.
• The Escazú agreement has been ratified by 18 Latin American countries, and Uruguay and Chile have recently advanced national implementation plans to ensure environmental transparency, participatory decision-making, and access to justice and protections for environmental defenders.
• New Indigenous- and community-led funds are scaling up and channeling much needed resources into the hands of local decision-makers and forest guardians.

“Brazil’s recent progress in rolling back deforestation under the leadership of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva shows how determined leadership can deliver rapid results,” said Kerstin Canby, senior director of Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative. "As the host of COP30, Brazil is also pushing other countries to focus on implementing existing pledges instead of announcing new commitments they will not deliver on in time to stabilize the climate."

'The overall numbers are dismal, but the future of forests doesn’t have to be,” said Matson. “This year's report makes it clear that isolated solutions are never going to be enough. But new finance initiatives such as the Tropical Forest Forever Facility offer a path to transformative change. If COP30 delivers on its promise, we could be reporting a very different story next year — one of real progress."

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Correction 21 October: A previous version of this article implied that fires were the sole driver of 6.73 million hectares of humid tropical primary forest loss. The article has been corrected to clarify that fires were the largest, but not only, driver of this loss.