According to a report, too much forest is still being destroyed worldwide – through slash-and-burn agriculture and deforestation. At the UN climate conference in Glasgow, more than 140 countries actually committed to something different.
Last year, forests around the world were destroyed in an area almost the size of Latvia. The world is falling far behind in its forest protection goals, according to the forest status report published jointly by research organizations and civil associations.
Global forest destruction in 2023 was 45 percent above the value that would be required to end deforestation by 2030. More than 140 countries committed to this at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. According to the report, 6.37 million hectares of forest were lost, or 63,700 square kilometers.
The evaluation Forest Declaration Assessmentwhich is also funded by the federal government, shows how far a country or region is from the declared goal of zero deforestation. To this end, annual interim targets were formulated up to 2030 and compared with the actual deforestation rates.
Tropical regions in particular are missing targets
Almost 96 percent of all deforestation in 2023 took place in tropical regions. And almost all of these regions would have missed the targets for the year: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Agriculture, road construction, fires and commercial logging primarily drove the destruction. Of the tropical regions, only Oceania – the Pacific island states north and east of Australia – would have achieved its annual target.
“We are just six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be cut down, degraded and burned at alarming rates,” said Ivan Palmegiani of Climate Focus, a lead author of the report. A course correction is still possible. Above all, industrialized countries need to rethink their excessive consumption and support forest countries.
Progress in Brazil
The largest areas of forest were lost in Brazil, Indonesia, Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although Brazil is the country with the most deforestation in the world, it made progress after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office: deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon region fell by 62 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year. The Amazon rainforest is considered a CO2 store and plays an important role in the international fight against climate change.
Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) is today presenting the inventory of the condition and extent of German forests. The study provides, among other things, information on growth and damage to trees as well as the proportions of tree species.