A Turning Point for the World’s Forests

Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2025 shows that net forest loss fell to 4.12 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2025.

Story highlights

In many parts of the world, efforts to protect, restore, and sustainably manage forests are gaining ground, FAO’s latest Global Forest Resources Assessment shows.

Thanks to global collaboration, satellite technology, and digital tools, we know more today about what is happening in the world’s forests than we ever did before.

Net forest loss – the difference between deforestation and forest expansion – estimated at 10.7 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2000, fell to 4.12 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2025.

Forests cover a third of all land

Forests stretch across more than 4 billion hectares of the planet – covering about a third of all land on Earth. They regulate our climate, are home to countless plants and animals, and support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people.

Each year, we still lose around 10.9 million hectares of forest to deforestation as forests are converted to other land uses. Wildfires, pests, disease, and extreme weather affect even more, damaging about 170 million hectares annually. With such threats escalating, it can feel that the odds are stacked against forests.

FRA 2025

But that’s not the full picture. In many parts of the world, efforts to protect, restore, and sustainably manage forests are gaining ground, as the latest Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) – published every five years by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) – shows.

Thanks to global collaboration, satellite technology, and digital tools, we know more today about what is happening in the world’s forests than we ever did before. Experts in 194 countries and areas reported their national data to the latest edition of FRA, almost double the number of countries that replied to a survey for the first assessment published in 1948. And improved satellite imagery at our current disposal allows for large-scale, detailed monitoring of forest cover changes, facilitating timely detection of deforestation and other disturbances.

At the same time, the information gathered is now far easier to share. Since 2020, the FAO data on forests – including how much area they cover, what characteristics they have, and how they are managed and used – have been available on an accessible digital platform, significantly increasing its potential to inform policies, decisions, and investment at every level.

Curbing deforestation

And it brings us hopeful news: the rate of deforestation in the world has been substantially declining, from 17.6 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2000 to 13.6 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2015, and finally 10.9 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2025. Moreover, net forest loss – the difference between deforestation and forest expansion – estimated at 10.7 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2000, fell to 4.12 million hectares per year between 2015 and 2025.

Remarkably, Africa, facing some of the greatest challenges from climate change, poverty, conflict, and population growth, is also curbing deforestation.

Protected areas

Asia is moving in the right direction faster than anywhere else. While the world continues to experience a net loss of forest area, the region bucks this trend – along with Europe and North and Central America – with its net forest area increasing since 2000, also as a result of an increase in its planted forests. Among the regions, Asia has the largest share of total forest area held by planted forests, at 23%. It also now has the highest proportion of forests in legally established protected areas (26%) of all the regions.

Since 1990, the area of protected forest worldwide has expanded by 251 million hectares, and one-fifth of forests is now in legally established protected areas.

Restoration

Momentum has also grown for restoring degraded forest landscapes as a key strategy for combating climate change, conserving biodiversity, and working towards the SDGs. Some 91 countries have pledged in recent years to restore 190 million hectares of degraded forest.

Sustainable multi purpose forestry

This progress has been enabled by growing recognition that forests play an essential role in human lives. More than five billion people use forests for food, medicine, and livelihoods. Over two billion depend on wood and other traditional fuels for cooking. Forests also support resilient and efficient farming, from providing homes for pollinators and keeping soils healthy to retaining water, regulating temperatures, and much more. Forests are indispensable to the fight against climate change, storing and sequestering carbon.

There is now more openness towards sustainable approaches to farming – such as integrating trees with crop and animal farming in agroforestry – in order to achieve food security while also conserving and restoring forests. They signal the belief that forests are not just resources to be exploited, but beneficial partners to be nurtured and safeguarded.

2030 deadline for global targets

The international community has set ambitious global targets for 2030 to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation and increase forest area worldwide, including at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 26). These targets in turn have increasingly focused minds, mobilized resources, and strengthened global collaboration in recent years.

Five years away from the 2030 deadline for global targets, change may not yet be as swift or as substantial as needed. But progress is being made, and with sustained political will, stronger policies, and international cooperation, there is hope for the world’s forests.