BetterThe previous article in this card explained why two figures describe the same decade: deforestation counts what disappears, net loss subtracts what appears elsewhere.
This one is about what that “elsewhere” is made of.
Primary forest, 1990-2025: −110 million hectares.
Planted forest, since 1990: +120 million hectares.
Nearly equal, opposite, over the same 35 years. But primary forest is 29% of the world's forest and planted forest is 8%and about half of that 8% is intensively managed plantation.
FAO publishes these two figures separately and nowhere says one replaced the other. Putting them side by side is ours.
Primary forestWhat a third of the world's forest is
The category is defined by what has not happened to it, which is unusual and worth noticing.
Where it is may surprise: of all regions, Europe has the largest area of primary forest, 311 million hectares, followed by South America at 299 million and North and Central America at 280 million. The boreal north holds far more of it than the popular image allows.
Planted forestWhat the other column contains
The word “forest” is doing a lot of work across the two categories, and the assessment gives enough detail to see how much.
Planted forests cover 312 million hectares, 8% of the world's forest. The largest area is in Asia (146 million ha), where planted forest is 23% of the region's forest land, the highest share anywhere.
And FAO adds the detail that matters: intensively managed plantation forests account for about half the total planted-forest area worldwide.
So roughly 4% of the world's forest is intensive plantation, a working surface, planted and harvested on a cycle.
The 4% is our arithmetic. FAO publishes 8% planted and “about half” of it intensively managed; the multiplication is ours, and it is approximate because “about half” is approximate.
ImprovementThe good news, kept
An article that only counted losses would be leaving out the assessment's clearest trend.
- Primary forest was lost at 1.61 million hectares a year in 2015-2025“less than half the rate in 2000-2015, when it was 3.92 million ha per year”.
- Planted forest increased in every region since 1990, though globally the rate of increase slowed over the last ten years.
Both halves of this card's story are improving, then. Less primary forest is being lost each year, and less new forest is being planted each year. What the assessment does not offer is a way of turning the second into the first.
FireThe disturbance that ignores categories
One number in the assessment does not respect the distinction this article is built on, and it belongs here for exactly that reason.
“On average, 261 million ha of land was affected by fire annually in 2007-2019; almost half (49 percent) of this area was forested.”
For a single year: about 123 million hectares of forest was affected by fire in 2019, of which 79% was in the subtropical domain.
FAO calls fire “a significant disturbance in forests and a contributor to forest loss and degradation”. It is not deforestation and it is not net loss, it is a third thing, measured separately.
Which is the honest end of an article about categories. The world's forest is counted in hectares, sorted into primary and planted, and tracked as gross and net, and fire crosses all of those lines in the same afternoon.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
What is a primary forest?
A forest not visibly altered by human activity. FAO counts “at least 1.18 billion ha (29 percent of the total forest area)”, close to a third of the world's forest.
How much has been lost?
“The area of primary forest worldwide decreased by 110 million ha between 1990 and 2025,” FAO writes. The recent rate is 1.61 million ha per year in 2015-2025, less than half the 3.92 million per year of 2000-2015.
And planted forest?
It accounts for 8% of total forest area, 312 million ha in 2025, and “has increased in all regions (by a total of 120 million ha) since 1990”. The largest area is in Asia: 146 million ha.
Do the 120 million planted replace the 110 million lost?
FAO does not write that anywhere, and neither do we. These are two measurements published separately over the same period; putting them side by side is our doing. What can be said safely: they are not the same forests, and one of them cannot be manufactured.
What is an intensively managed plantation?
A planted forest managed for production, often a single species, planted in rows, harvested on a cycle. FAO indicates these intensively managed plantations account for about half of the world's total planted-forest area.
How big a role do fires play?
On average, 261 million ha of land was affected by fire annually in 2007-2019; almost half (49%) of that area was forested. In 2019, about 123 million ha of forest was affected by fire, of which 79% was in the subtropical domain.
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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, compared one by one between the French and English editionsthey agree here. FAO nowhere says planted forest replaces primary forest; setting the two figures side by side is ours, as is the 4% intensive-plantation calculation.
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.