Rainforest loss worsened despite global pledge: research

Rainforest loss accelerated last year compared to 2021 despite 100 international leaders’ pledge to end deforestation by 2030, according to a report released Tuesday by the group Global Forest Watch.

Tropical forest loss increased 10 percent last year from the previous year, according to the group’s report. The loss was equivalent to about 11 soccer fields a minute, and produced the same carbon dioxide emissions as a year’s worth of India’s fossil fuel emissions.

Among countries analyzed by the report, Brazil led in rainforest loss, with a 15 percent increase over the prior year. Overall, Brazil comprised 43 percent of total forest loss last year, causing carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to more than half its annual fossil fuel output. Although Brazil also has more rainforest than any other country to begin with, non-fire loss also reached its highest level in 17 years and increased 15 percent between 2021 and 2022.

Last year was also the final year in office for Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s hard-right former president, whose administration undid numerous protections for the indigenous people of the Amazon and stepped up deforestation. Last year saw the most deforestation of Bolsonaro’s presidency.

In the early 21^st century, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva significantly curtailed deforestation activity in Brazil during his first administration. Since replacing Bolsonaro at the beginning of 2023, Lula has resolved to restore many of those protections, but the rate and scope of deforestation under Bolsonaro will take some time to fully reverse, according to the report.

The country with the second-most rainforest, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also saw steep losses last year. The country lost about 500,000 hectares, or 1.2 million acres, in 2022, according to Global Forest Watch. Much of the loss was agriculture related, as the country’s expanding population broadens its agricultural needs and sections of forest are often cleared for temporary crop cultivation.

The report comes despite a November 2021 pledge by global leaders at the COP26 climate summit in Scotland, which committed to ending deforestation by 2030. Brazilian and Congolese leaders signed onto the pledge, as well as leaders from Indonesia, the third-leading country for total rainforest.