2026-05-05 · percent of primary forest loss
Tropical tree cover loss leads every year
Brazil and Indonesia headline deforestation — fires and farms eat primary forest.
About four of every five hectares of primary forest lost worldwide now disappear in the tropics: tropical countries account for 82% of global primary forest loss, against 18% for temperate and boreal forests combined. Brazil and Indonesia headline the toll as fires and farm expansion keep eating old-growth forest that stores carbon and shelters wildlife.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of primary forest loss (0.1% of tropical primary loss) · 1,000 cells
Context
The figures come from Global Forest Watch, the satellite forest-monitoring platform now rebranded as Global Nature Watch, with its datasets and tools continuing as before. Its 2026 data put 82% of the world's primary forest loss in tropical countries and the remaining 18% in temperate and boreal forests.
Brazil and Indonesia headline the loss year after year, with fires and farm expansion doing most of the damage to standing forest.
Primary forest is old-growth woodland that stores far more carbon than young regrowth and harbors much of the world's biodiversity, so what burns or is cleared is, in practice, lost for good.
Global Forest Watch tropical share of tree cover loss.
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