Overview

• The World Resources Institute and University of Maryland report the highest tropical forest loss since 2002, totaling 6.7 million hectares in 2024.
• Fires accounted for nearly half of the destruction, overtaking agriculture as the leading cause for the first time.
• The record loss coincided with 2024 being the hottest year on record, exacerbated by climate change and El Niño conditions.
• Brazil lost 2.8 million hectares of rainforest, with two-thirds of the damage caused by fires, marking the worst Amazon losses since 2016.
• Conflicting data from Brazil’s MapBiomas monitor, which reported a decline in deforestation, highlights challenges in global forest monitoring.