Global forest loss exceeds targets in 2023, report warns

Rate of forest loss last year remained 45 percent above levels needed to halt deforestation by 2030.

Forests almost equivalent to the size of Ireland were destroyed in 2023, according to a new report that warns that the world is lagging behind targets aimed at ending deforestation.

The Forest Declaration Assessment 2024, released on Tuesday, said that 6.37 million hectares (15.7 million acres) of forest were lost last year.

The extent of forest lost “significantly exceeded” the amount of deforestation that would have kept the world on track to hit a target of eliminating deforestation by 2030, the report said.

The target for last year was to bring global deforestation down to a maximum of 4.4 million hectares (10.9 million acres).

The overshoot means that global deforestation remains 45 percent above the levels needed to meet international goals, the report noted.

“Globally, deforestation has gotten worse, not better, since the beginning of the decade,” Ivan Palmegiani, lead author of the report, said.

“We’re only six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be chopped down, degraded, and set ablaze at alarming rates.”

Tropical troubles

Nearly 96 percent of all deforestation occurred in tropical regions, and almost all these areas failed to meet their annual targets, the report said, adding that reducing deforestation in the tropics was “essential to meeting global forest goals”.

“Tropical deforestation resulted in the emission of nearly 3.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent in 2023,” the authors said.

In such high-risk regions, researchers pointed to backsliding in Bolivia and in Indonesia.

The report said there was an “alarming rise” in deforestation in Bolivia, which jumped 351 percent between 2015 and 2023. The “trend shows no sign of abating” in the South American nation, they said.

In Indonesia, deforestation slumped between 2020-2022 but started rising sharply last year.

Rethink

The report identified agriculture, road construction, fires and commercial logging as the main drivers of deforestation across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Oceania, which includes island nations in the Pacific north and east of Australia, was the only region to meet its 2023 deforestation reduction target.

Erin Matson, senior consultant at Climate Focus and co-author of the report, emphasised the need for “strong policies and strong enforcement” to address deforestation.

“To meet global forest protection targets, we must make forest protection immune to political and economic whims,” she said.

“We have to fundamentally rethink our relationship with consumption and our models of production to shift away from a reliance on over exploiting natural resources,” said Matson.