The world’s tropical forests disappeared faster than ever recorded last year, with 67,000 square kilometers of pristine, old-growth forests lost in 2024 – an area nearly as large as the Republic of Ireland or 18 football pitches a minute. Fires, exacerbated by record drought, were the main cause, overtaking land clearances from agriculture for the first time on record. The Amazon was particularly badly hit, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and threatening its ability to act as a buffer against climate change.
Prof. Matthew Hansen, co-director of the GLAD laboratory at the University of Maryland, described the new results as “frightening” and warned of the possible “savannisation” of the rainforest, where old-growth tropical forests die back and permanently switch to savanna. “The tipping point idea is, I think, increasingly the right one,” he said. “It’s still a theory, but I think that’s more and more plausible looking at the data.”
The record loss of tropical forests released 3.1 billion tonnes of planet-warming gases, roughly the same as the emissions of the European Union. Rod Taylor of the World Resources Institute (WRI) noted, “I think we are in a new phase, where it’s not just the clearing for agriculture that’s the main driver… Now we have this new amplifying effect, which is a real climate change feedback loop, where fires are just much more intense and much more ferocious than they’ve ever been.”
Signs of Progress
Countries in South East Asia bucked the global trend, with Indonesia seeing an 11% reduction in primary forest loss compared to 2023, despite drought conditions. According to Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of the Global Forest Watch project at WRI, “Indonesia serves as a bright spot in the 2024 data.” Gabriel Labbate, head of climate change mitigation at the United Nations forests programme UNREDD, agreed, “Political will is a key factor of success – it’s impossible otherwise.”
Prof. Hansen emphasized the need for sustained success in reducing forest loss, saying, “The key we haven’t seen yet is sustained success in reducing and maintaining low levels of conversion of these ecosystems and if you were interested in conserving the environment you have to win always and forever.”
The upcoming UN climate summit COP30, hosted in the Amazon, will be critical for sharing and promoting forest protection schemes, including proposals to reward countries that maintain tropical forests through payments. Rod Taylor noted, “I think it’s an example of an innovation that addresses one of the fundamental issues that at the moment there’s more money to be made by chopping forests down than keeping them standing.”