These are the findings of the Global Forest Resources Assessment – a major new report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization – which says that an estimated 10.9 million hectares (Mha) of land was deforested each year between 2015 and 2025. This is almost 7Mha less than the amount of annual forest loss over 1990-2000.
Since 1990, the area of forest destroyed each year has halved in South America, although it still remains the region with the highest amount of deforestation. Europe was the only region in the world where annual forest loss has increased since 1990. Agriculture has historically been the leading cause of deforestation around the world, but the report notes that wildfires, climate change-fuelled extreme weather, insects and diseases increasingly pose a threat.
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