Forest Declaration Assessment reveals a forest paradox

The world’s forests tell two stories at once. Even as chainsaws advance, new trees are rising in their wake. More than 11 million hectares of tropical moist forest—an area roughly the size of Cuba—were in some stage of natural regrowth between 2015 and 2021, according to the Forest Declaration Assessment 2025. Latin America shows the most dramatic increase, with regrowth up 750%, and tropical Asia not far behind at 450%. The forest, it seems, remembers how to heal. But this recovery story conceals a deeper contradiction. Deforestation has not slowed. The same assessment finds that in 2024 roughly 8.1 million hectares of forest were cleared worldwide—almost exactly the level seen at the decade’s start and 63% off track from the trajectory needed to reach the pledge of “zero deforestation by 2030.” “Global forests remain in crisis,” the report concludes, midway through what was meant to be the decisive decade. The paradox is simple: regeneration is rising because destruction continues. “Tropical forests wouldn’t be regrowing if they weren’t cleared in the first place,” explained Erin Matson, the assessment’s lead author. “An increase in regrowth is often correlated to an increase in loss.” Fires, drought, and agricultural expansion keep pushing the boundary between life and ash. Each flare-up opens space for new shoots, even as it drains the ecosystem’s ability to recover. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Amazon. During the 2023-24 El Niño, nearly 150,000 forest fires were recorded each month of the dry season—seven times more than in any previous El Niño. NASA’s…This article was originally published on Mongabay