BetterAsk who owns the world's forests and most answers name companies. The assessment's figure is the opposite of that, and it comes with a second figure that complicates it.
The two are three sentences apart in the same section.
71% of the world's forests is publicly owned. Public ownership predominates in every region.
But the share of management rights held by public administrations fell from 94% to 81% between 1990 and 2020, while the share of publicly owned forest managed by business entities and institutions rose from 4% to 15%.
Owning a forest and deciding what happens in it are two different things, measured separately.
Two registersOwning is not deciding
The assessment measures ownership and management rights separately, which is the only reason the shift is visible at all.
Public management still dominates almost everywhere, it is highest in Africa (91%), South America (89%) and Asia (85%), and Oceania is the only region where private management predominates. The direction of travel is what the two dates show.
And a third line, easy to miss. The share of publicly owned forest managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities went from 2% to 3% over the same thirty years, one point, against eleven for business entities.
The previous card recorded that formalizing and enforcing tenure rights reduced deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. This is the global scale of that arrangement: three per cent.
DesignationWhat the forest is for
Alongside who decides, the assessment records what was decided. Two figures answer that, and they do not balance.
- 20% protected. 813 million hectares of forest sit in legally established protected areas.
- 29% for production. 1.20 billion hectares are managed primarily to produce wood and non-wood forest products, plus about 616 million hectares of multiple use, “which often includes production”.
- 55% under a management plan. 2.13 billion hectares, up 365 million since 1990, in every region.
A plan is not a protection and production is not destruction, the assessment is careful about both. But the ratio is worth holding: for every hectare of forest a government has placed inside a protected area, there is roughly one and a half managed first for what can be taken out of it.
EuropeOne region holds the answer twice
Reading this card's three articles together, one region keeps appearing at the top of lists that seem to contradict each other.
Europe has the largest area of primary forest of any region, 311 million hectares.
Europe also has the largest forest area designated for production548 million hectares, “more than half the region's total forest area and almost half the total forest area designated for production globally”.
And 94% of its forest is under a management plan, the highest share of any region.
The picture is not contradictory. It is what a large, old, intensively administered forest estate looks like.
GrowthWhat has genuinely grown
Three articles of forest figures should not end without the ones that went the right way.
- Forest in legally established protected areas grew by 251 million hectares since 1990.
- Forest under a management plan grew by 365 million hectares, in every region.
- Area designated primarily for production fell by 29.8 million hectares between 1990 and 2025, and multiple-use area by 97.5 million.
Which closes this card where the other two closed theirs. What decides the fate of a forest is not a technology: it is a designation, a plan and a set of rights, written by an administration that in most of the world still owns the land. The forest is largely ours. The question the assessment leaves open is who is holding the pen.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
Who owns the world's forests?
“Seventy-one percent of the world's forests is under public ownership, 24 percent is privately owned, and the ownership of the remainder is categorized as either ‘unknown' or ‘other',” FAO writes. Public ownership is predominant in all regions.
Who manages those public forests?
Less and less by public administrations. Their share of management rights fell from 94% to 81% between 1990 and 2020. Conversely, the share of publicly owned forests managed by business entities and institutions rose from 4% to 15%.
And Indigenous Peoples?
Their share rose, but slightly: the proportion of publicly owned forests managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities went from 2% to 3% between 1990 and 2020. Compare that with the eleven points gained by business entities over the same period.
How much forest is protected?
813 million hectares are in legally established protected areas, about 20% of the total forest area. That area has increased by 251 million hectares since 1990.
How much is managed for production?
1.20 billion hectares, 29% of total forest area, is managed primarily to produce wood and non-wood forest products. On top of that, about 616 million hectares is designated for multiple use, “which often includes production”.
Where is the production forest?
Mostly in Europe. FAO states that the largest area designated for production is there, at 548 million hectares“more than half the region's total forest area and almost half the total forest area designated for production globally”.
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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 between the French and English editions, they agree here. The ownership and management-rights data cover 1990-2020, a shorter period than the rest of the assessment, which runs to 2025; the article says so at each mention. The “one and a half” ratio between production and protected areas is our reading of the two published percentages.
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.