BetterTwo numbers describe the world's forests over the same ten years. One is nearly three times the other, and both are correct.
Which one you meet depends entirely on who is quoting.
Deforestation, 2015-2025: 10.9 million hectares a year. Forest that disappeared.
Net loss, same decade: 4.12 million hectares a year. What is left after subtracting forest that appeared elsewhere, 6.78 million hectares a year of expansion.
Neither figure is wrong. They answer different questions, and only one of them is about trees being cut down.
Two questionsWhat each number counts
The distinction is simple once stated, and almost never stated.
- Deforestation answers: how much forest was removed? 10.9 million hectares a year in 2015-2025, and 489 million hectares in total since 1990.
- Net loss answers: how much less forest is there than before? 4.12 million hectares a year, because 6.78 million appeared elsewhere over the same decade.
A government reporting progress will reach for the second. A campaign reporting damage will reach for the first. Both can cite the FAO, and neither is lying, which is why knowing that two numbers exist is worth more than knowing either one.
The trendBoth curves are falling
The good news is real and worth stating plainly, because good news about forests is rare enough that skipping it would be its own distortion.
Deforestation has fallen in each measured period, and the FAO's own heading says the net loss of forest area “has been reduced by more than half since the 1990s”.
And the other curve is falling too. Forest expansion slowed from 9.88 million hectares a year in 2000-2015 to 6.78 million in the decade to 2025. Less forest is being destroyed, and less is being created. The net figure improves because the first fell faster, not because the second grew.
The unitAn hectare is not an ecosystem
There is a limit built into the subtraction, and the FAO does not hide it, it simply does not advertise it either.
Net loss counts hectares. A newly planted stand and a centuries-old tropical forest each count as one hectare.
The assessment gives the other half of that picture itself: naturally regenerating forests cover 3.83 billion hectares, 92% of the world's forest, and that category shrank by 324 million hectares between 1990 and 2025.
So the area lost and the area gained are not the same kind of forest, and the assessment measures both separately for exactly that reason.
The FAO adds the same encouraging shape here as elsewhere: the net loss of naturally regenerating forest slowed from 13.8 million hectares a year in 1990-2000 to 6.97 million in 2015-2025. Slower, and still a loss.
A note on the sourceAn error in the French edition
This section exists because we found something while checking, and publishing the figures without it would leave a French reader with a false date.
The two editions do not say the same thing.
English: “The annual rate of net forest loss fell from 10.7 million ha in 1990-2000 to 4.12 million ha in 2015-2025.”
French: the same sentence, but “en 2000-2015”.
The arithmetic on the same page settles it: deforestation of 10.9 minus expansion of 6.78 for 2015-2025 gives 4.12 exactly. The English period is the coherent one, and this article follows it.
That subtraction is ours; the three figures are the FAO's.
It is a small thing and it changes a lot: read as written in French, the most recent net-loss figure would appear to stop in 2015, ten years before the assessment it belongs to. We say it here rather than quietly picking one, because a reader who checks us against the French page deserves to know why the dates differ.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between deforestation and net loss?
Deforestation counts forest that disappears. Net loss subtracts from that total the forest that appears elsewhere, plantations, regeneration, replanting. For the decade 2015-2025: 10.9 million hectares deforested a year, 6.78 million gained, leaving 4.12 million of net loss.
Is deforestation really slowing?
Yes, and markedly. FAO gives three periods: 17.6 million hectares a year in 1990-2000, 13.6 in 2000-2015, and 10.9 in 2015-2025. Since 1990, deforestation has removed 489 million hectares in total.
So things are improving?
On that figure, yes. But forest expansion is also slowing: from 9.88 million hectares a year in 2000-2015 to 6.78 in 2015-2025. Both curves are falling, the one that destroys and the one that compensates.
Is a planted hectare worth a destroyed one?
FAO does not say so, and the net-loss arithmetic does not claim it. It counts areas, not ecosystems: a young plantation and an old tropical forest each count as one hectare. That is the indicator's limit, not a hidden flaw.
How much forest is left?
4.14 billion hectares, close to one-third (32%) of global land area, and equivalent to 0.50 ha per person. More than half (54%) is in only five countries: the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America and China.
Where is forest shrinking, and where growing?
FAO writes that forest area “has declined substantially in Africa and South America since 1990, although the rate of loss slowed in both regions in the decade to 2025”. It increased in Asia, in Europe, and to a lesser extent in North and Central America.
Read nextRelated
Sources
- Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025, “Key findings”, FAO
- Global Forest Resources Assessments, FAO
About this article. General and educational information. All figures come from the “Key findings” of FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025, consulted in both the English and French editions. The two editions give different periods for the 4.12 million hectare net loss; this article follows the English edition and explains why. The subtraction 10.9 − 6.78 = 4.12 is ours; the three figures are FAO's.
Spotted an error or an out-of-date figure? Write to us: we will correct it and re-date the article. Our texts are written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked against official sources before publication, but a figure or a definition can change without us catching it. If anything here does not match what an official body tells you, they are right.