Global destruction of forests increased by 4% last year, compared to 2021, according to a new report.
A total of 6.6 million hectares of forests were lost in 2022—an area more than one and a half times as large as Switzerland, according to the Forest Declaration assessment.
Countries, companies and investors have actually publicly promised to work towards an end to the global destruction of forests and to restore as much as 350 million hectares of destroyed land by the end of 2030.
But the report says the world was a long way from this goal in 2022. Agriculture, road building, fires and commercial logging were the main drivers of destruction, the report said.
“The world’s forests are in crisis,” said Erin Matson, who works at consultancy Climate Focus and co-authored the report.