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Changes in forest area by world region (1990-2025)
(ourworldindata.org)
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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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So the general pattern is that temperate forests are increasing, but tropical forests are declining (presumably due to climate change).
Given that tropical forests are richer in species diversity and biomass per unit area, the discrepancy is probably greater than the changes in area suggest.
At least in South America it's human-made deforestation. Namely: transforming rainforest into pastures.
If I had to take a guess most of that loss is in territory controlled by Brazil, and in the skirts of the Amazon biome. Last president (Bolsonaro, a fascist) actively promoted it, and the current one (Lula — as braindead as Trump and as senile as Biden) lacks the balls to put some bloody export tax on beef, Argentina style. Because this increase isn't even due to local consumption.
Sure—but I’d guess that the reason similar trends seem to be underway in Africa and Southeast Asia is that climate change has made the conversion of forest to pasture more profitable in the tropics than elsewhere.
In the Amazon all it takes to get profitable pasture is fire and a minimal amount of labor, but in Siberia the same investment would get nothing. Which is why the cattle industry buys the government of Brazil instead of Russia.