tropical forest loss

The claim that “billions of hectares” disappear each year is false: all forests on Earth together cover about 4.1 billion hectares. FAO estimated average deforestation in the tropical domain at about 7 million hectares per year in 2010–2018. A different measure, loss of tropical primary rainforest, reached 4.3 million hectares in 2025 according to WRI/University of Maryland data. Forest area continues to decline, but losses are measured in millions of hectares, and deforestation, net area change, and regrowth are not interchangeable measures.