Despite great progress in protecting vast tropical rainforests, the world failed to significantly slow global deforestation last year, according to a report released Thursday. The report says record wildfires in Canada and agricultural expansion elsewhere have offset major gains in forest protection in Brazil and Colombia.
An annual survey by the World Resources Institute, a research organization, found that 9.1 million acres of primary tropical forest would have been lost globally in 2023 – an area equivalent to the size of Switzerland. This is a decrease of approximately 9% from the previous year. But these improvements have failed to set the world on course to halt all forest loss by 2030. This is a commitment made by 145 countries at the 2021 global climate talks in Glasgow and reaffirmed by all countries last year.
“World leaders have sent an undeniable message that forests are critical to meeting global climate goals,” said Rod Taylor, global director of forests at the World Resources Institute. But he added: “We are far off track and moving in the wrong direction.”
Last year's massive wildfires in Canada destroyed nearly three times as much boreal forest as any other year, resulting in a 4 per cent decline in global forest loss but a 24 per cent increase compared to last year. .
This report focuses on the tropics because deforestation and fires there are mostly caused by human activities and can have long-lasting consequences. Wet forests in tropical countries hold a quarter of all carbon stored on land and are home to many plant and animal species, so protecting them is essential to curb climate change and prevent biodiversity loss.
Researchers at the World Resources Institute, in collaboration with the University of Maryland, have documented global tree loss due to deforestation, fire and other causes. Last year's destruction resulted in the release of 2.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to half the amount emitted each year from burning fossil fuels in the United States.
Nonetheless, last year's results showed that progress is possible when forest protection becomes a priority for world leaders. Recent leadership changes in Brazil and Colombia, which together account for nearly a third of the world's rainforests, have led to sharp declines in deforestation rates in both countries.
Brazil lost 2.8 million acres of forest last year, 36% less than in 2022. Ahead of his inauguration in 2023, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the country was “ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis.” Brazil, home to more than half of the Amazon rainforest, accounted for 30% of global rainforest loss last year.
Colombia, where President Gustavo Petro took office promising to protect the rainforest in 2022, recorded an even steeper improvement, with deforestation rates falling by 49%. Both Brazil and Colombia have increased funding for environmental protection, established new programs to develop sustainable economic alternatives for rainforest regions, and worked to protect the communities that protect the forests.
However, there are concerns about how permanent these gains will be. In Indonesia, one of the countries that has made the greatest progress in fighting deforestation over the past decade, tree loss has begun to rise again in the past two years.
“A temporary victory or temporary progress in slowing deforestation may not be progress at all.” said Matthew Hansen, co-director of the University of Maryland Institute, which examines land use change around the world.
But even the gains researchers recorded last year were largely offset by the expansion of agricultural operations into tropical ecosystems around the world. Researchers at the World Resources Institute linked increased deforestation in Bolivia and Laos to the expansion of farms aimed at increasing exports.
Forest loss continued last year in the Congo River Basin, the world's second-largest tropical forest area. This is because economic hardships continue to force communities to convert trees into firewood and charcoal for cooking.
Last year, man-made climate change sparked record wildfires in Canada and appeared to leave its mark around the world.
In Bolivia, forest fires are growing bigger and the same areas are burning repeatedly. It is too early to tell whether climate change is the cause. But the phenomenon has raised questions about whether some heavily degraded areas of the Amazon are transforming into different ecosystems, and some researchers fear this could lead to the gradual collapse of entire forests.
Still, there is much that governments, businesses and communities can do to combat forest loss in addition to curbing the carbon emissions that cause climate change, said Mr. Taylor, director of the World Resources Institute. New regulations and subsidies for forest protection could help, he said.
Unfortunately, such initiatives are not taking place on a significant scale globally, Taylor said. “So we still have sustained rates of deforestation.”