
Seven million hectares of forests have been permanently destroyed, according to a study by the Forest Declaration Assessment collective.
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Publication of an annual study by the Forest Declaration Assessment collective on the state of global deforestation.
Deforestation has slowed around the world.
Last year, seven million hectares of forests were permanently destroyed around the world, a decline of 15% compared to 2024, according to a reference study published Wednesday October 14 by the Forest Declaration Assessment collective, which brings together scientists, NGOs and think tanks.
An “encouraging” figure which “shows that progress is possible”, welcomed Erin Matson, Climate Focus expert and co-author of the report.
“But for now 2025 represents an exception, not a new trajectory,” she put things into perspective.
The exploitation of agricultural or mining raw materials remains the primary cause of deforestation or forest degradation.
The relative improvement in the situation last year, however, is the result of a limitation in the expansion of agricultural land and pastures in the Brazilian Amazon and, more generally, of a more favorable situation in Latin America.
The current Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has indeed encouraged the protection of forests.
His opponent Flavio Bolsonaro is, however, the favorite in the presidential election for the second round on October 25.
Fears about the consequences of El Niño
Despite the general improvement in the world, the situation deteriorated last year in the Congo Basin, where deforestation reached 2.4 million hectares, a level for the first time comparable to that of Latin America.
Sam Nguiffo, lawyer and founder of the Center for Environment and Development in Cameroon, deplores "a disaster".
“The economic aspect always seems to take over in the management of forests in Central Africa,” he regrets.
“The erosion of the forest, in size and number of species, reduces the space available for communities and fuels conflicts,” also warns the lawyer.
The authors of the study also remain cautious for the future, warning that the ongoing El Niño phenomenon, of exceptional power, could intensify the "risks of drought and fires" in tropical forests.
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