Once our primary forests are gone, they are gone forever

Efforts to reverse deforestation and land degradation are moving in the wrong direction, exposing the hollowness of UN pledges.

- Lara Williams

At the 2021 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow, 145 nations made a pledge to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030. Almost three years later, the call for transformative action is ringing hollow.

Globally, 6.37 million ha of forest were lost in 2023, and targets to reduce deforestation were missed in almost all tropical regions, according to the 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment. Even more forest -- 62.6 million ha -- became degraded (meaning an area fell to a lower ecological integrity class) in 2022. Overall, the world is 45 per cent off its deforestation targets and, in a frustrating twist, forest-loss levels have risen above a 2018-2020 baseline since the pledge.

The core driver of deforestation is commodity production. Over the past two decades, 57 per cent of permanent forest loss has been caused by the production of agricultural commodities such as beef, soya and palm oil, with about 20 per cent to 25 per cent of that production being exported. Demand for these products has only increased. The EU and China were responsible for 40 per cent of all deforestation embodied in the direct trade of agricultural commodities from 2020 to 2022.