Berlin/Washington. Large-scale deforestation should actually end in 2030 - at least that's what a broad alliance of states has decided. But according to a current evaluation, the world is far from this course, as the consulting agency Climate Focus has analyzed. Using data and information from more than two dozen civil society and research organizations, Climate Focus created an inventory called the Forest Declaration Assessment.
The authors write that there was a decline in deforestation last year. However, that was far from sufficient. At the World Climate Summit in Glasgow in 2021, more than 100 countries committed to stopping the destruction of forests and other landscapes by 2030. Forests are considered the lungs of our planet; they absorb around a third of the CO2 emissions emitted by humans each year.
Between 2021 and 2024, deforestation hardly deviated from the levels of previous years. From this point on, a million fewer hectares of forest would actually have had to be cut down every year in order to reach zero by 2030. A maximum of 5 million hectares would have been allowed to be deforested in 2024 - instead there were still 8. In 2025 there would only have been 4.2 million hectares - much less than the actual 7.
“It's good news that we lost 15 percent less forest in 2025 than in 2024, but that only looks so good in part because previous years were so bad,” said the report's lead author, Erin Matson, senior advisor at Climate Focus.
For the first time since records began, deforestation in tropical Africa (2.4 million hectares in the Congo Basin) was at a similar level to that in the tropics of Latin America (2.5 million hectares). The two regions have recently developed in different directions. While Brazil's measures under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have resulted in a 33 percent decline in the region, there has been no sign of a reduction in deforestation in the Congo Basin. This is mainly due to the expansion of agriculture, timber production and mining.
“The facts show us that the underlying forces destroying the world’s forests – distorted economic incentives, weak governance and inadequate protections for indigenous peoples and local communities – remain pervasive,” says co-author Ivan Palmegiani. “Ultimately, the crisis we are witnessing in our forests is actually the consequence of a broader crisis in the economic and governance systems that enable and even encourage their destruction.”
This connection is also a reason why the team of authors is cautious about making predictions. Given the progress made so far, it is by no means clear that it will continue. The protection of forests that are so important for the global climate depends on the decisions of a few governments - and their policies can change quickly.
This is particularly relevant with regard to Brazil. The currently incumbent left-wing Lula will have to face his right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro – son of former President Jair Bolsonaro – in a runoff election on October 25th. During his term in office, the area annually deforested in Brazil increased significantly; it was only with Lula that the turnaround came.
As host of the World Climate Conference last year, Lula drummed up a so-called tropical forest fund called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) for another new approach that is intended to make forest protection more attractive: countries that preserve their forests should be rewarded according to the new model. Conversely, they should pay a fine for every hectare of forest destroyed. This will be checked using satellite images. Germany pledged a total of one billion euros over a period of ten years. It is questionable what will happen to the fund if Bolsonaro wins the election.
The authors of the forest report also point out that the term of office of the next Brazilian president lies in a critical time window. In the next few years, the world could officially break the 1.5 degree mark at which global warming was actually intended to be stopped.
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, explained at the climate conference on the edge of the Amazon last year that if the rainforest is put under too much pressure, it could irreversibly transform into a savannah. “If we exceed 1.5 degrees, which we will most likely do in the next 5 to 10 years, and if we continue to lose forest cover, we cannot rule out that we will reach this tipping point in the next few decades,” said the renowned climate researcher. “We all depend on the Amazon rainforest to ensure a stable climate.”
