Woodman, spare that tree!

Touch not a single bough!

In youth it sheltered me,

And I’ll protect it now. – GP Morris 1837

From one side of the globe to the other, the ring of axe, the snarl of chainsaw and the roar of flame are sounding the knell for the world’s forests, as the green Earth turns scarred, charred and desolate.

Originally, forests cloaked 57% of the land. Today their area is 31%. A total of 420 million hectares of forest have been lost since 1990 and 10 million more are now lost each year.

Rates of deforestation are worst in Russia, Brazil, Canada, the US and China. But the trend is not all one way: in Scandinavia, for example, the process of forest loss is being reversed with new plantings and restoration. Deforestation (total loss) is not the only threat: thinning for timber, inroads by farming, fragmentation by roads and towns, pest invasions, wildfires and climate change also take a heavy toll of what remains. Forest loss is a primary driver of the 6th extinction.

Together,these forces,propelled by insatiable human demands,are reducing the last remaining intact forests on Earth. Between 2000 and 2020, the area of intact forest fell by 1.55 million sq kms – a span the size of France, Germany and Spain combined.

Ominously, over this period, the annual rate of forest loss sped up, from an average of 7.1 million hectares between 2000-2013 to 9 million hectares from 2013-2020. The uncloaking of the Earth is closely observed by the unblinking eyes of a thousand

The world’s Forests: A Story of Loss and change

For millennia, forests have covered the Earth, providing essential resources and regulating the climate. However, over the centuries, these vital ecosystems have faced increasing pressure from human activity, leading to widespread deforestation and significant environmental consequences.

Historically, deforestation began with the advent of agriculture. As human populations grew, forests were cleared to make way for farmland. This process accelerated with the rise of civilizations and the demand for timber for construction, fuel, and shipbuilding. By 1800, half of Europe’s wooded area was gone. There has been little let-up in recent times, with Europe today continuing to remove trees and having next to no primary forest left.

Today, the chief villains in global deforestation are not farmers or even miners, but the giant food corporations and their agribusiness offshoots, currently shredding the world’s forests and their wildlife so as to produce more beef, soybeans, chocolate and palm oil for the unhealthy industrial diets they have marketed so successfully to urban consumers.

Corporate food is a major factor in the removal of the rainforests of Southeast Asia, which has lost half its trees since logging began. In the first two decades of the C21st, the region lost more than 610,000 sq kms, an area larger than Thailand. The countries most affected are Indonesia,Malaysia and the island of Borneo and the main cause is clearing for industrial palm oil production. The orangutan, Javan rhino, and Sumatran tiger are among the wildlife critically endangered by the destruction.

A balancing act

The world forest scene is not one of unrelieved despair, as large areas are being replanted by eager volunteers or regenerate naturally every year, offsetting some of the losses. The following table shows how the gains compared with the losses between 2000-2020. All told, 101 million hectares more were lost than gained.

[Image of Forest-loss-gain-1.jpeg showing changing tree cover 2000-2020. Source: Global Forest Watch, 2025]

Figure 2. Changing tree cover 2000-2020. Source: Global Forest Watch, 2025.

Both Russia (+37mha/yr) and Canada (+17mha/yr) successfully replanted large areas of forest during this period – but not nearly as much as they removed.

Of huge importance is the growing area of disturbed forest, which is subject to selective logging, fragmentation by roads and farms, wildfire and pests or diseases. Disturbance has been found by scientists to convert forest from a carbon absorber to a net emitter – and thus, an accelerator of climate change. It is estimated that presently less than 30% of the world’s remaining forest area is undisturbed.

Climate impact

There is now ominous evidence from around the world that the Earth’s dep