- According to Global Forest Watch data released by the World Resources Institute (WRI) on April 29, tropical primary forest loss declined by 36% in 2025 compared to the previous year.
- While GFW’s data show that more than 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical forest was cut down, this still represents the steepest single-year decline in two decades and offers a rare moment of optimism after consecutive years of forest destruction and record-breaking wildfires.
- Much of the improvement stems from Brazil, where renewed political will and enforcement under President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva played a decisive role.
- But while the decline suggests that protective policies and favorable weather can slow the destruction of the world’s forests, GFW’s Elizabeth Goldman warns that the progress is fragile.
According to new data from the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch platform, losses of global tropical primary forest loss slowed by 36% in 2025. For scientists, policymakers and environmental groups who track deforestation, this assessment is a welcome note of optimism.
“It’s a better year, but it’s just one year,” said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of GFW. Despite the drop, more than 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical primary forest — an area larger than Switzerland — vanished in 2025 alone, she said. And the improvement is fragile: “If 2025 had been another bad fire year like 2024, we’d be telling a very different story.”
For Goldman, the data are less a cause for celebration than an opportunity for reflection: a chance to understand what worked, why, and how those conditions might be replicated elsewhere.
In an interview with Mongabay, she shared her anxiety over 2026, which has begun under the shadow of a new El Niño cycle likely to bring hotter and drier conditions across the tropics. “That’s going to be the real test,” she said. “We could see the same kind of fire-driven loss we saw in 2024 if the right measures aren’t in place.”
Mongabay: Let’s start with the good news. After years of grim updates, there’s finally a positive story: a 36% drop in primary forest loss across the tropics. What’s driving that?
Elizabeth Goldman: Yes, it’s really welcome news after what we saw in 2024, which was a terrible year for fires across Latin America. In 2025, we recorded a 36% reduction in primary forest loss globally, most notably driven by progress in Brazil.
We’re also seeing country-level examples where specific policies appear to be working. So yes, it’s a big relief to finally see a downward trend in the data this year.
Mongabay: It’s encouraging, but some worry that headlines about a 36% drop could be misleading — that we might be overselling progress when forests are still disappearing at large scale.
Elizabeth Goldman: That’s fair. There’s definitely nuance here. It’s a better year, but it’s still just one year.
We need to see sustained declines to really say we’re turning the corner. Even in 2025, we lost around 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary forest. And globally, fires are becoming an increasingly dominant driver of loss.
So the progress is fragile, making it essential to keep up the momentum in the years ahead.
Mongabay: Brazil’s performance seems central here. What do you see as the relationship between leadership, policy and these outcomes?
Elizabeth Goldman: It’s complex, but the political signal matters enormously. We’ve seen that when leaders who value forests are in office, for example, President Lula in Brazil, deforestation rates drop. Under administrations less committed to forest protection, they rise.
In Brazil’s case, the data are striking: even when we isolate loss unrelated to fire, the decline is still over 40%. That suggests policy is playing a real role. The reestablishment of Brazil’s National Action Plan for Combating Deforestation, known as the PPCDAm, in 2023 helped coordinate enforcement and response measures. Environmental enforcement has ramped back up, too. Having accurate, near-real-time monitoring also helps target interventions, so it’s a combination of political will, enforcement and data transparency working together.
Mongabay: But political will can change fast. How do we sustain these gains when administrations and priorities shift?
Elizabeth Goldman: That’s the good question, and honestly, there isn’t a simple answer. What it points to is the need for a multipronged approach. National governments are key, but so are voluntary corporate commitments and international regulations like the EU Deforestation Regulation [EUDR]. Any single measure can be fragile. We saw that with the Amazon Soy Moratorium [a landmark 2006 agreement between traders, government and civil society to stop purchasing soy grown on Amazon land deforested after July 2008], which required constant reinforcement. Having multiple overlapping initiatives helps provide stability against political turnover, economic shocks, or bad fire years.
Mongabay: Speaking of bad fire years, if 2025 had seen the same fire levels as 2024, would the story look very different?
Elizabeth Goldman: Absolutely. In Latin America, especially, 2024’s fires were devastating. If conditions had been similar in 2025, our results would look far worse. I’m nervous about 2026, which is projected to be an El Niño year, which means hotter, drier conditions and a real test of how well countries have prepared. If we’ve learned from past years and strengthened response systems, we might avoid a repeat of 2024, but it will be critical to watch.
Mongabay: Are our current forest policies even designed to respond to climate-driven fires?
Elizabeth Goldman: Honestly, not always. Many policies assume deforestation is something we can directly control through laws or enforcement. But when climate change drives hotter, drier conditions, that’s a different story. We’re now seeing a feedback loop where forests, instead of absorbing carbon, are turning into sources of emissions when they burn. In those cases, the forest loss is harder to reverse — regrowth might not even happen after severe fires. That’s a much tougher challenge for policy to address.
Mongabay: Your report notes that the world remains roughly 70% off track for the 2030 zero-deforestation goals under the Glasgow Declaration. Are we reaching a point where we have to admit the current global framework isn’t working?
Elizabeth Goldman: Not yet. It’s too early to call it a failure. We didn’t have time to dig deeply into this in the report release, but if you look at our Targets Tracker on the Global Forest Review site, you can filter by basin. I was surprised to see that the Amazon Basin is now probably the closest it’s ever been to being on track for the 2030 goal. So we may see a mixed result: some regions could reach or approach the commitment, while others lag. It might not be a global “yes or no” answer, more like a patchwork of progress.
Mongabay: Finance and politics seem to drive a lot of this. Do you think stronger enforcement or financial backing has helped keep trees standing in the Amazon?
Elizabeth Goldman: Yes, absolutely. Brazil alone has an outsized influence because of its forest area. When things go well there, it shifts the global numbers significantly. Increased enforcement, stronger institutions and dedicated funds have all contributed.
Mongabay: The economic side seems uneven. Deforestation is backed by large capital flows in agriculture, mining and infrastructure, while conservation runs on tiny budgets. Is this even a winnable fight?
Elizabeth Goldman: That imbalance is real. Initiatives like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility are trying to address it, but even then, the current promise is roughly $4 per hectare, which is nowhere near what extractive or agricultural ventures can earn from the same land. We need to find ways to properly value the ecosystem services forests provide — carbon storage, rainfall regulation, biodiversity — not just the raw materials beneath or the land they occupy. If we can shift that economic calculus, conservation can compete.
Mongabay: The report also highlights huge losses in smaller, often poorer forested countries, for example, Madagascar losing a large share of its remaining forests. Are we giving these countries enough attention?
Elizabeth Goldman: Not really. Countries like Madagascar and Bolivia don’t get nearly the attention they deserve. In some regions — parts of the Congo Basin, for instance — forest loss is deeply intertwined with poverty. The solutions there look very different: livelihood support, job creation and access to affordable energy alternatives. We tried to highlight that by showing not just absolute loss, but loss as a proportion of total remaining forest, since that tells a fuller story.
Mongabay: In places like the Congo Basin, people rely on forests for cooking fuel and survival while living through conflict and poverty. Is the global community asking too much of them in trying to meet global climate and biodiversity goals?
Elizabeth Goldman: It’s a fair point, and yes, in many ways, it’s an unfair ask. That’s part of why this problem is so hard. The responsibilities and costs aren’t equally distributed. Still, there are real solutions: developing alternative energy sources, supporting rural livelihoods and generating jobs that reduce dependence on forest extraction. But you’re right — these are very different challenges than what we see in Brazil or Southeast Asia.
Mongabay: What would a system that really works look like for you and for WRI?
Elizabeth Goldman: It has to be multilayered. There’s no silver bullet. First, leadership that genuinely values forests is crucial. The data are clear: deforestation rates align closely with who’s in office.
Second, we need to deal seriously with fire as a climate-driven threat. Even great policies can’t overcome catastrophic fire seasons that erase years of progress overnight.
Third, the finance piece: we need to make sure commitments like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility actually get traction and proper seed funding. And finally, agriculture, still the biggest driver of deforestation, requires incentives for higher yields, sustainable practices and reduced land expansion. Those pieces together are what will make Glasgow achievable.
Banner image: Rainforest in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
Tropical forest loss falls in 2025, but world still off track on deforestation goals
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