The world lost an area of tropical rainforest roughly the size of Denmark in 2025. That sentence should feel alarming. It also represents the best news these forests have had in years.

Satellite analysis from the University of Maryland’s GLAD Lab, published on the World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch platform, found that tropical primary rainforest loss fell 36% in 2025 compared to the record-breaking devastation of 2024. An estimated 4.3 million hectares of old-growth forest disappeared — still 46% higher than a decade ago, but a sharp reversal.

Brazil drove much of the decline. Non-fire primary forest loss there dropped 41%, reaching the lowest level since monitoring began in 2002. Stronger environmental enforcement under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including the relaunch of a federal anti-deforestation plan, played a measurable role. Colombia reversed a 2024 spike. Indonesia and Malaysia maintained relatively low loss rates.

The warning follows close behind. El Niño conditions expected later this year could dramatically increase fire risk — the same climate pattern that helped fuel the 2024 record. “Climate change and land clearing have shortened the fuse on global forest fires,” said Prof Matthew Hansen of the University of Maryland. Fires accounted for 42% of global tree cover loss in 2025.

The world is still roughly 70% off track from the 2030 target to halt and reverse forest loss, pledged by more than 140 countries at COP26 in Glasgow. Primary forests continue vanishing at a rate of 11 football fields per minute.

“A drop of this scale in a single year is encouraging — it shows what decisive government action can achieve,” said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch at WRI.

The data shows what political will can do. Whether it survives the months ahead is another matter.

Sources