World Lost More Than 7 Million Hectares of Forest in 2025

A new report on deforestation reflects the persistent gap between global ambitions to conserve and restore forests and enduring practices that continue to destroy them. Credit: UN Climate Change/Diego Herculanoby Umar Manzoor Shah (berlin, germany/washington, d.c., usa)Wednesday, October 14, 2026Inter Press Service BERLIN, Germany/WASHINGTON, D.C., USA , October 14 (IPS) - The world lost more than 7 million hectares of forest to deforestation in 2025, a modest improvement on recent years but still far from what is needed to meet global forest protection targets by 2030, according to a new assessment of international conservation efforts. The Forest Declaration Assessment 2026, prepared by a coalition of civil society organisations and researchers and released worldwide on October 14, says deforestation remains stubbornly high despite international commitments to halt and reverse forest loss. The average annual area cleared since 2021 has exceeded 8 million hectares, highlighting the gap between government promises and progress on the ground. Ivan Palmegiani, senior consultant at Climate Focus and one of the key report authors, told Inter Press Service in an exclusive interview that...