Although global leaders agreed in 2021 to halve forest losses within a decade, 4.1 million hectares (15,830 square miles) of tropical primary forest were lost last year, said the World Resources Institute on Wednesday. “The trend is moving in the wrong direction,” said the environmental group in its annual report.
“All this forest loss produced 2.7 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to India’s annual fossil fuel emissions,” the group said. Tropical primary forest loss had been declining after exceeding 6 million hectares in 2016, but it topped 4 million hectares in both 2020 and 2022. The WRI said it focuses on forest loss in the tropics “because that is where more than 96 percent of deforestation occurs.”
Brazil lost 1.8 million hectares of tropical primary forest in 2022, a 15 percent increase from 2021 and accounting for 43 percent of global losses. Congo had the second-largest losses, at more than a half million hectares. Bolivia was third, with losses of nearly 400,000 hectares.
The WRI deforestation report is available here.