Despite major progress in Brazil and Colombia, deforestation led by farming still cleared an area nearly equal to Switzerland

Despite major progress in Brazil and Colombia, deforestation led by farming still cleared an area nearly equal to Switzerland

The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.

An area nearly the size of Switzerland was cleared from previously undisturbed rainforests last year, totalling 37,000 sq km (14,200 sq miles), according to figures compiled by the World Resources Institute(WRI) and the University of Maryland. This is a rate of 10 football pitches a minute, often driven by more land being brought under agricultural cultivation around the world.

While Brazil and Colombia recorded large drops in forest loss of 36% and 49% respectively, under the environmental policies of presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, those falls were offset by big increases in Bolivia, Laos, Nicaragua and other countries.

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    4•8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The destruction of the world’s most pristine rainforests continued at a relentless rate in 2023, despite dramatic falls in forest loss in the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon, new figures show.

    While Brazil and Colombia recorded large drops in forest loss of 36% and 49% respectively, under the environmental policies of presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, those falls were offset by big increases in Bolivia, Laos, Nicaragua and other countries.

    Changes in land use – of which deforestation is a central component – is the second-largest source of greenhouse-gas emissions and a main driver of biodiversity loss.

    At the Cop28 climate conference in Dubai, governments agreed on the need to halt and reverse the loss and degradation of forests by 2030, after a commitment by world leaders at Cop26 in Glasgow to end their destruction this decade.

    Despite the lack of overall progress in the figures for 2023, researchers said the world could learn from the examples of Brazil and Colombia to meet deforestation targets.

    Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

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