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Fire in the Amazon rainforest in October 2023

Photo: Gustavo Basso / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Last year, 37,000 square kilometers of tropical jungle were destroyed worldwide. That is around 4,000 square kilometers less than in the previous year, said the US World Resources Institute (WRI). Nevertheless, the lost forest area is approximately the same size as North Rhine-Westphalia. In some cases, fires have significantly reduced the size of the forest, but most of the lost area continued to be logged.

“The world has taken two steps forward and two steps back,” explained Mikaela Weisse from the environmental organization Global Forest Watch, according to a statement. The area of ​​forest lost in 2023 is almost identical to the destruction in 2019 and 2021.

In Brazil, the loss decreased significantly in 2023, but according to the report, the country is still the one with the greatest forest loss. Colombia has almost halved its forest loss compared to the previous year, it said. “Sharp declines in the Brazilian Amazon and Colombia show that progress is possible,” said Weisse. "But the increasing loss of forests in other areas has largely wiped out this progress."

Heavy losses in Canada

Forest decline was particularly severe in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Indonesia. Canada also features prominently in the statistics for 2023. Forest loss there was three times higher than in other recorded years. The reason: Last year, fires there destroyed five times more trees than the previous year.

Primeval forest, i.e. forest that is largely untouched by humans, is home to numerous species and is important for biodiversity. Trees also store large amounts of carbon; they draw carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and thus act as sinks for the climate-damaging gas.

Numerous environmental organizations, led by the WRI, have been monitoring changes in forest areas worldwide since 2014, using satellite technology, among other things. The WRI uses the data to create an annual report together with researchers from the US University of Maryland.

msk/dpa