Worldwide Rainforest Losses Dropped 9% in 2023, But Rates Are Still Too High

According to a new report released by the World Resources Institute in partnership with the University of Maryland’s GLAD (Global Land Analysis & Discovery) group, total tropical forest loss dropped from 4.12 million hectares in 2022 to 3.74 million hectares in 2023.

That 9% drop is important, as rainforests and other natural forests are one of the world’s most important carbon sinks to absorb at least some of continually rising global greenhouse gas emissions, and because they represent the homes to some of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

While that number has declined, the 3.74-million-hectare deforestation rate for last year still represents a staggering number. That amounts to the world losing forest areas with the equivalent of 10 soccer fields every minute, every day, every month. The process of losing that forest, through logging, agricultural clearing, and fires, also produced about 2.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions. That calculates out to about half the net carbon emissions of the entire United States last year.

The forest loss last year was also nearly identical to the rate of deforestation in both 2019 and 2021, showing that this represents less an important breakthrough in protecting the world’s forests than an indication that the situation is at least stabilizing.

The most positive developments regarding global deforestation last year came from two countries with sizable rainforests in South America.

In Brazil, after years of government-approved mass destruction of the Amazon rainforest for use by loggers, mining, cattle raising, and other agricultural interests while the criminal President Jair Bolsonaro was in charge, newly elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s instituted drastic policy and rainforest protection directives in 2023. Rainforest destruction still continued in the Amazon region of the country last year, but thanks to Lula total losses were the lowest Brazil has recorded since 2015. 

With socialist Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego also in charge in 2023 for his first full year in office, the new administration there also made substantial environmental policy management changes. Petro’s policies caused deforestation rates in that country to fall by 49% compared to just a year earlier, with further improvements on the way.

Both countries saw their share of global deforestation fall substantially as well. Brazil’s net Amazon rainforest losses contributed in 2023 to just 30% of the world’s total, for example, compared to 43% in 2022.

 Countering those improvements were substantial rises in deforestation rates for several of the world’s previous largest offenders in this area.

In South America, Bolivia achieved the dubious distinction of delivering the third biggest primary forest loss of any country the world, even though its total forested land area is less than half that of equally egregious offenders such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Indonesia. Its net forest losses spiked by an astounding 27% last year, atop a near-steady increase in deforestation rates going back to 2015 as the corrupt leftist government seeks to cash-in on its power.

Fire related to a devastating drought and superheated temperatures in an El Niño year, which gripped much of the South American continent in 2023, contributed to 51% — a little more than half —of all the forest destroyed last year in Bolivia. Expanded agricultural planting in the country, mostly connected with the country’s lucrative soy crops (for animal feed) which have been the excuse for the loss of about a million hectares of forest there since this century began, came in second as a major reason for the tree loss. With the drought and heat expected to continue in 2024, followed by government initiatives to expand soy production even further this year, and all of this coupled with recent exploratory agreements reached in early 2023 with Russian and Chinese interest to develop Bolivia’s immense cache of lithium, Bolivia’s rate of environmental destruction will remain high for some time to come.

Bolivia’s net forest loss of 490,544 hectares last year set a new record for the nation.

With an equally shocking new high of 136,180 hectares of forest loss in 2023, the country of Laos saw its deforestation rate jump by 47% compared to 2022. Almost all of this came from expanding agricultural production in the country, mostly in support of the People’s Republic of China, the country’s biggest customer. A major driver for that forest loss was the result of high inflation rates in the country last year, which the government responded to by rapidly driving up its crop production, regardless of its impact on the natural environment.

Another culprit which kept overall forest loss high throughout the world last year was Nicaragua. And while it lost just 4.2% of its forests last year, that was the highest rate of any country of its size. Further, while agricultural growth and cattle grazing are the major sources of deforestation in the country, mining – and in particular, gold – is increasingly important to the country’s economy while also posing accelerated risks to the remaining forests there. Areas approved for current and future mining concessions amount to 15% of the country’s total land area, a rate which has doubled in the last three years. Nicaragua’s rate of forest loss is expected to continue to grow as a result of these interests. Nicaragua's leftist government is eagerly sacrificing its country for Chinese corporations. 

The Democratic Republic of the Congo saw total deforestation rates of 530,000 hectares in 2023. While that figure was up just 3% over the previous year, that loss of over a half a million hectares of forest every year is of major concern, especially since the rainforest in the DRC is the last major tropical forest in the world which is a net carbon sink. Even the Amazon rainforest is now mostly a net carbon emitter because of all past damage combined to it from multiple countries, with the damage done to it within Brazil the most severe. So losing the DRC rainforest is a serious hit to the total forest coverage which is able to absorb much of the increased greenhouse gas emissions being produced nearly everywhere.

The DRC forest loss has little to do with fire, unlike the other countries near the top of the deforestation lists. It is instead related to rapidly changing agricultural cultivation approaches, which damage the land and disable the ability of forests to rebuild themselves. The use of timber for charcoal, another important product for the country, is also a major contributor.

Another region with high forest loss in 2023 was in Indonesia. Total losses there were up 27% on a year-to-year basis, with 230,000 hectares of primary forest loss total last year. That loss calculates out to an equivalent 177 million metric tons of CO2 emissions for the year. Expansion of agricultural production was a major contributor to forest loss in this Southeast Asian nation last year, with production of palm oil and other standard crops for the country driving most of that.

While Indonesia’s forest loss numbers were bad both in terms of a percentage increase and in absolute area coverage lost, a positive is that even with all that, the loss of forests in that country is still at historic lows compared to what it had been for the first 15 years of this century.

The net of all this is another sad message for planet Earth.

After having lost over 76 million hectares of primary forest in the last 21 years, a formal call to action rang out at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) held in the crime center of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, following previous attempts to reach agreement on this as a policy issue in previous years. There the nations of the world nearly unanimously agreed to install new policies which would reverse the trend of continued global deforestation increases which have jumped substantially this century. Although it was acknowledged those policy changes would be serious, especially since much of global forest loss is attributable to national economic priorities dominated by agricultural production and mining, it was considered so important to absorbing excess CO2 that attendees agreed to reverse the deforestation trend no later than 2030.

Based on the current results measured by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis & Discovery Group, the nations of the world are mostly watching for some place other than their own to pick up the slack on this, just as has happened continuously regarding pledges to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions dating back to the 2015 Paris Agreement. There are some obvious important exceptions to this, such as in Colombia and Brazil where a change in leadership proved that determination and concrete plans can make a difference. But for the most part, the world is rapidly losing the forests which have absorbed carbon dioxide and supported widespread biodiversity for hundreds of thousands of millennia.

“This report appropriately challenges us to balance despair and hope at the same time. The alarmingly high rates of global deforestation remind us how badly off track we are in solving the climate and nature crises,” observed Dr. Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, after review of this report from the WRI.

Individuals can do their part to reduce forest destruction by adopting a healthy plant-based diet and consuming more locally grown foods, while avoiding anything with palm oil. The production of meat and palm oil are the single largest drivers of deforestation.