Global deforestation falls, but 2030 goal off track

What the report says

A new global forest assessment says deforestation fell in 2025, but the world is still far behind the target of ending forest loss by 2030. The Independent Uganda reports that 7 million hectares of native forests were destroyed last year, down 15 per cent from 2024, based on the 2026 Forest Declaration Assessment released ahead of the COP31 climate summit. The report was produced by a coalition of civil society and research groups and tracks progress against pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow to halt deforestation and restore degraded forests.

The analysis says the improvement was driven mainly by Latin America, where forest loss declined, especially in the Amazon. In contrast, tree loss continued in Central Africa’s Congo Basin, which remains the world’s second-largest forested region after the Amazon. For the first time, the report says, deforestation in tropical Africa is occurring at a scale comparable to Latin America. The Congo Basin lost 2.4 million hectares in 2025, while Latin America lost 2.5 million.

The report links forest loss in the Congo Basin largely to agricultural expansion, logging and mining, and says it found no comparable new policy push there to curb deforestation. It also warns that progress in parts of Latin America could be fragile because forest policy can shift with elections and changes in government. More broadly, the assessment argues the world remains about 70 per cent off track for the 2030 zero-deforestation goal, underscoring how difficult it will be to meet the promise without stronger action.