Forests nearly the size of Ireland lost in 2023, says study

Forests are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial plant and animal species and crucial for sequestering.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Deforestation continued last year at a rate far beyond pledges to end the practice by 2030, according to a major study published on Tuesday.

Forests nearly the size of Ireland were lost in 2023, according to two dozen research organisations, NGOs and advocacy groups, with 15.7 million acres of trees felled and burned. This “significantly exceeded” levels that would have kept the world on track to eliminate deforestation by the end of the decade, a commitment made in 2021 by more than 140 leaders. Forests are home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial plant and animal species and crucial for regulating water cycles and sequestering CO2, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

“Globally, deforestation has gotten worse, not better, since the beginning of the decade,” said Ivan Palmegiani, a biodiversity and land use consultant at Climate Focus and lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment report.

“We are only six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be chopped down, degraded, and set ablaze at alarming rates.” In 2023, 9.1 million acres of tropical primary forest — particularly carbon rich and ecologically biodiverse environments — disappeared, a figure that should have fallen significantly to meet the 2030 objective. In high-risk regions, researchers pointed to backsliding in Bolivia and in Indonesia.

The report said there was an “alarming rise” in deforestation in Bolivia, which jumped 351% between 2015 and 2023. In Indonesia, deforestation slumped between 2020-2022 but started rising sharply last year.