Tropical forest loss doubled in 2024 as wildfires rocketed
A record 67,000 square kilometres of primary rainforest was lost from the tropics in 2024, with global warming and El Niño contributing to a massive jump in fire-driven damage
By Luke Taylor
21 May 2025
Forest cleared for mining in the Brazilian Amazon
Marcio Isensee e Sá/Getty Images
The amount of tropical forest lost in 2024 was double that in 2023 and the highest in at least two decades as climate change made rainforests susceptible to uncontrollable fires.
A record 67,000 square kilometres of primary rainforest was lost from the tropics in 2024, according to an annual assessment of satellite imagery by Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland. Primary forest refers to mature forest that has never been disturbed by logging.
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The report’s authors attributed the surge in forest loss to the El Niño weather phenomenon and the warming global climate, which made the rainforest a tinderbox.
“We are in a new phase where it’s not just clearing for agriculture that’s the main driver [of forest loss],” says Rod Taylor at Global Forest Watch, an initiative of the World Resources Institute. “Now we have this new amplifying effect, which is the real climate change feedback loop, where fires are much more intense and ferocious than they have ever been.”
Tropical forests regulate weather systems and store carbon, cooling the planet, but in recent years deforestation has brought them to a tipping point at which they sometimes emit more carbon than they absorb, creating a feedback loop.
