FOREST DECLARATION ASSESSMENT 2025

The 2025 Forest Declaration Assessment finds that the world is significantly off track to achieve zero deforestation by 2030, with 8.1 million hectares lost in 2024. The report highlights a systemic failure where harmful agricultural subsidies (USD 409 billion annually) dwarf positive forest finance, and where corporate commitments remain largely voluntary and insufficient. While some countries like Brazil and Indonesia have shown that political will can reduce deforestation, these gains are threatened by geopolitical instability and regulatory rollbacks. The assessment emphasizes that forests are better managed when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure tenure rights, yet only 13 percent of customary lands in tropical forests are formally recognized. It calls for a shift from voluntary pledges to mandatory regulations and inclusive governance to prevent ecosystem collapse.

• The world is significantly off track to eliminate deforestation by 2030, with nearly 8.1 million hectares of forest lost in 2024. To remain on track, global deforestation should have been no more than 5 million hectares in 2024, meaning the target was exceeded by 63 percent.
• Permanent agriculture has been the primary driver of global deforestation, accounting for approximately 86 percent of annual losses over the last decade.
• Tropical moist forest degradation is escalating, with 8.8 million hectares degraded in 2024. This is more than double the annual level required to meet the 2030 goal. Fire-induced degradation in the Amazon Basin was a major contributor, emitting 791 million metric tons of CO2e in 2024, which exceeds the total GHG emissions of Germany.
• Global restoration efforts are insufficient, with only 10.6 million hectares under restoration as of September 2025. This represents only 5.4 percent of the global reforestation potential and 0.3 percent of the global biophysical forest restoration potential, failing the 30 percent target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
• International public finance for forest protection and restoration is severely inadequate, averaging USD 5.9 billion per year from 2022-2024. This is far below the estimated annual need of USD 117-299 billion by 2030.
• Environmentally harmful agricultural subsidies are vastly larger than positive incentives, totaling USD 409 billion per year, which exceeds green subsidies by a factor of more than 200 to 1.
• Private financial institutions continue to fund forest-risk sectors despite pledges. In 2024, 150 financial institutions assessed by Forest 500 held USD 8.9 trillion in active financing for companies most exposed to deforestation risk, and only 40 percent of these institutions have a deforestation policy.
• Corporate action in agricultural and forestry supply chains remains insufficient; only 27 percent of companies assessed by Forest 500 have deforestation commitments for all commodities to which they are exposed.
• Recognition of customary land tenure for Indigenous Peoples and local communities is rare, with only 13 percent of customary lands in tropical forests formally recognized. Recognition of women's forest tenure rights is even lower, with only 2 percent of analyzed legal frameworks providing adequate protection for women's community-level voting rights.
• Environmental defenders face extreme violence, with at least 142 land and environmental defenders killed in 2024.
• The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has faced significant delays and political pushback. Implementation was delayed by a year to December 2025, and further delays were announced in September 2025 due to IT system concerns.
• Illegal activity is a dominant feature of tropical deforestation, with estimates suggesting that between 61 and 94 percent of tropical deforestation for agriculture is illegal.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2025). FOREST DECLARATION ASSESSMENT 2025. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Assessment2025.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. FOREST DECLARATION ASSESSMENT 2025. 2025. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Assessment2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=FOREST DECLARATION ASSESSMENT 2025 |date=October 2025 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Assessment2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2025forest, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{FOREST DECLARATION ASSESSMENT 2025}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2025}, month = oct, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Assessment2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }