Tropical forests to shrink by 10% in 2022

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The world’s tropical primary forests shrank by 10 percent last year, with a tree area equivalent to the size of Switzerland lost globally, according to new research.

The year-over-year decline of tropical primary forest is set to accelerate in 2022, despite 145 countries pledging last year to halt deforestation by 2030, according to a report published Tuesday by Global Forest Watch from the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute. Went. ,

Brazil signed the COP26 pledge in 2021, but the greatest loss of tropical primary forest – areas of natural, mature forest cover that have not been cleared in recent history – occurred in the country during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s last term in office. happened during the year.

Bolsonaro has been accused of turning a blind eye to rising rates of deforestation during his four years in office. Environmentalists said the myriad criminal groups operating in the Amazon, including illegal loggers, ranchers and gold miners, ramped up their activities last year to maximize profits ahead of Bolsonaro’s expected election defeat in October.

“It was a perfect storm. Opportunistic actors took advantage of political change and weak environmental safeguards,” said Natalie Unterstel, president of climate policy think-tank Talanoa.

Brazil is losing tree area the size of Belgium every year

Tropical forests are major stores of carbon dioxide and deforestation is a major contributor to global emissions.

The report says that the equivalent of 11 football fields per minute of primary tropical forest disappeared last year, despite growing awareness from companies and policymakers about the need to halt forest loss worldwide.

It said this resulted in the release of carbon dioxide equivalent to India’s annual fossil fuel emissions.

Activities, including agricultural deforestation, have caused large losses in several countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia, in addition to Brazil.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

The loss of Brazil’s primary tropical forests as a result of increased activity by criminal groups, unrelated to fires, rose 20 percent last year to its highest level since 2005.

The report found that in the western Amazon, hotspots of deforestation remained concentrated around roads and were often the result of land being cleared for cattle pastures.

However, Bolsonaro’s successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has promised to crack down on illegal deforestation and offered more resources and financial support to the country’s environmental protection agencies.

In April, deforestation in the Brazilian part of the Amazon dropped by nearly 70 percent compared to the previous year, a tentative sign of the country’s changing environmental trajectory.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Meanwhile, Ghana is set to experience a nearly 70 percent increase in primary forest loss in 2022 compared to 2021 – the largest increase of any country in recent years. Most of these losses were related to cocoa production, gold mining and fire and occurred in areas of protected woodland.

However, signs of positive change were seen in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose rates of tropical primary forest loss have fallen to near record-low levels in recent years. Indonesia is a classic example, where non-fire-related deforestation has declined by 75 percent since 2016.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Another promising finding was that overall global tree cover loss, which includes man-made as well as natural forest loss due to human or natural causes, declined by about 10 percent last year.

This was mainly due to fewer wildfires in Russia, the report said, adding that 2022 was a “relatively quiet year for fires globally”, with fire-related losses almost as high as 2021. was reduced by a third.

“(The improvement) was more a factor of weather patterns than human action to combat forest loss,” said Mikaela Weiss, director of Global Forest Watch. He said that the market forces that promote deforestation are far greater than the forces that protect woodland.

Scientists expect wildfires to become more frequent and severe in some countries as climate change accelerates, with the World Resources Institute saying wildfires are now burning nearly twice as many trees as 20 years ago.

Get free deforestation updates

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding deforestation News every morning.

The world’s tropical primary forests shrank by 10 percent last year, with a tree area equivalent to the size of Switzerland lost globally, according to new research.

The year-over-year decline of tropical primary forest is set to accelerate in 2022, despite 145 countries pledging last year to halt deforestation by 2030, according to a report published Tuesday by Global Forest Watch from the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute. Went. ,

Brazil signed the COP26 pledge in 2021, but the greatest loss of tropical primary forest – areas of natural, mature forest cover that have not been cleared in recent history – occurred in the country during former President Jair Bolsonaro’s last term in office. happened during the year.

Bolsonaro has been accused of turning a blind eye to rising rates of deforestation during his four years in office. Environmentalists said the myriad criminal groups operating in the Amazon, including illegal loggers, ranchers and gold miners, ramped up their activities last year to maximize profits ahead of Bolsonaro’s expected election defeat in October.

“It was a perfect storm. Opportunistic actors took advantage of political change and weak environmental safeguards,” said Natalie Unterstel, president of climate policy think-tank Talanoa.

Brazil is losing tree area the size of Belgium every year

Tropical forests are major stores of carbon dioxide and deforestation is a major contributor to global emissions.

The report says that the equivalent of 11 football fields per minute of primary tropical forest disappeared last year, despite growing awareness from companies and policymakers about the need to halt forest loss worldwide.

It said this resulted in the release of carbon dioxide equivalent to India’s annual fossil fuel emissions.

Activities, including agricultural deforestation, have caused large losses in several countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia, in addition to Brazil.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

The loss of Brazil’s primary tropical forests as a result of increased activity by criminal groups, unrelated to fires, rose 20 percent last year to its highest level since 2005.

The report found that in the western Amazon, hotspots of deforestation remained concentrated around roads and were often the result of land being cleared for cattle pastures.

However, Bolsonaro’s successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has promised to crack down on illegal deforestation and offered more resources and financial support to the country’s environmental protection agencies.

In April, deforestation in the Brazilian part of the Amazon dropped by nearly 70 percent compared to the previous year, a tentative sign of the country’s changing environmental trajectory.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Meanwhile, Ghana is set to experience a nearly 70 percent increase in primary forest loss in 2022 compared to 2021 – the largest increase of any country in recent years. Most of these losses were related to cocoa production, gold mining and fire and occurred in areas of protected woodland.

However, signs of positive change were seen in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose rates of tropical primary forest loss have fallen to near record-low levels in recent years. Indonesia is a classic example, where non-fire-related deforestation has declined by 75 percent since 2016.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

Another promising finding was that overall global tree cover loss, which includes man-made as well as natural forest loss due to human or natural causes, declined by about 10 percent last year.

This was mainly due to fewer wildfires in Russia, the report said, adding that 2022 was a “relatively quiet year for fires globally”, with fire-related losses almost as high as 2021. was reduced by a third.

“(The improvement) was more a factor of weather patterns than human action to combat forest loss,” said Mikaela Weiss, director of Global Forest Watch. He said that the market forces that promote deforestation are far greater than the forces that protect woodland.

Scientists expect wildfires to become more frequent and severe in some countries as climate change accelerates, with the World Resources Institute saying wildfires are now burning nearly twice as many trees as 20 years ago.