7 Million Hectares of Forest Lost in 2025; Congo Nears Amazon

Jeff's Daily Pick. The world cut deforestation by 15% last year. Yet for the first time on record, Africa's Congo Basin lost almost as much forest as all of Latin America.

Worldwide, just over 7 million hectares of forest were lost to deforestation in 2025, about the size of Ireland, according to the 2026 Forest Declaration Assessment released on October 13 and 14. That is 15% less than in 2024. The assessment tracks the pledge made by 145 countries at the 2021 Glasgow climate summit to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.

Where the drop came from

Latin America and the Caribbean, historically the main hot spot, cut deforestation by about a third, to 2.5 million hectares. The authors credit Brazil's deforestation action plan and stronger enforcement in the Amazon. In June 2026, Colombia became the first tropical forest country to pass a nationwide cattle traceability law linking livestock tracking to land tenure and deforestation monitoring. In tropical Asia, deforestation fell 11% to 1.6 million hectares.

Where it got worse

The Congo Basin lost 2.4 million hectares in 2025, up 1.4% on the previous year, approaching parity with Latin America for the first time since the assessment began in 2015. The Basin holds the world's second largest tropical rainforest. The assessment blames uncontrolled expansion of small scale farming, weak political will and inadequate regulation; in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, decades of conflict and poor oversight have fueled logging, Semafor reported.

The authors list three risks ahead: recent elections in Colombia and Peru, upcoming elections in Brazil, and an exceptionally strong El Niño that raises the danger of drought and fire. The World Resources Institute found fire behind 42% of global tree cover loss in 2025. To stay on track for 2030, deforestation would need to fall by about one million hectares a year.