Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) collected the data through forest monitoring program Global Forest Watch, and the full report can be viewed here.
- Only 36% of the planet’s 14.6 million square kilometres of tropical rainforests are currently intact. Out of the two-thirds lost, logging and land-use has destroyed 34% of original old-growths and degraded another 30% of tropical rainforests globally.
- Degraded forests (around 30% of the destruction) are defined as original forests that were partially or fully destroyed and have since been replaced by secondary forest growth.
- Over 50% of the destruction since 2002 has been in the Amazon and neighbouring rainforests. Brazilian forest loss also hit a 12-year high in 2020.
- Southeast Asian islands, mostly covering Indonesia, rank second in forest destruction since 2002 with most of its forests cleared for palm oil plantations.
- Between 2002 and 2009, deforestation around the world played a role in the loss of tropical rainforests larger than the size of France, and the size of Belgium every year in between.
