Despite an international pledge to halt the destruction of forests by the end of this decade, the world continues to lose around 20 million acres a year, an area roughly the size of Ireland. That is the finding of a new report warning that global forests “remain in crisis.”
Miners, loggers, and farmers are driving the loss of forest globally, buoyed by generous subsidies, according to an assessment from the group Climate Focus. The report notes that the agricultural sector has, since 2022, received $409 billion in yearly subsidies for industrial farming.
Private money is also buoying destructive industries, according to a new analysis from Global Witness. The watchdog group finds that, since the Paris Agreement was adopted, banks and investors globally have garnered $26 billion in income from just 50 companies involved in cattle, soy, palm oil, rubber, timber, and pulp and paper — all industries tied to the loss of forest.
Compounding the destruction from industry are the losses from increasingly intense drought and wildfire. In the tropics, last year was the first in which fire, not farming, drove the loss of primary forest, according to a recent analysis from the World Resources Institute. In many cases, small fires used to clear land got out of control, tearing through larger, drought-ridden areas.
In a silver lining, Climate Focus finds many humid tropical forests are recovering. In the past decade, the rate at which such forests are regrowing jumped fourfold in Asia and sevenfold in Latin America. These figures largely reflect the vast amount of forest that has been destroyed — forests would not regrow if they had not been cleared in the first place — but authors say recovered forests still play a key role in drawing down carbon and providing a home to wildlife.
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