The year in rainforests, 2025
This year’s review of major tropical forest storylines covers 12 thematic areas:
The Amazon
If 2025 produced a clear signal for the Amazon rainforest, it was that deforestation can be slowed—it fell 11% in Brazil in the year ending July 31—but that maintaining the world’s largest rainforest as a healthy and productive ecosystem is increasingly constrained by past degradation and a warming climate.
The Congo Basin
The Congo Basin’s defining story in 2025 was a steady intensification of pressures in areas long treated as buffers. DRC embodied this trend, with deforestation reaching a record level in 2024 and the resurgence of M23 wreaking havoc in the eastern part of the country.
Indonesia
2025 reflected a familiar contrast: national-level progress (deforestation fell 11%) alongside persistent pressure on the ground, including policy shifts that could exacerbate forest clearing. A deadly disaster in Sumatra illustrated what is at stake.
COP30
There was excitement in the run-up to the “Amazonian COP,” but the summit did little to translate that ambition into specific commitments. It reinforced a familiar pattern of multilateral climate diplomacy advancing largely through deferral of the hardest decisions.
Tropical Forest Forever Facility
TFFF was designed as an endowment-style mechanism: raise $125 billion, invest the capital conservatively, and distribute annual payments to forest countries that keep deforestation and degradation below agreed thresholds. It got off to a slow start, however, securing just $6.7B in pledges at COP30.
EUDR
The European Union’s deforestation regulation was postponed again.
Commodities
Rather than a synchronized boom, pressures diverged. Gold prices surged, palm oil rose, while soy, beef, timber, and wood pulp were stable to lower. Critical minerals and rare earths attracted growing attention.
Forest carbon markets
After several years of rapid expansion, activity slowed and scrutiny intensified.
American retreat
A freeze on foreign aid, followed by contract terminations & staff losses, turned what is usually slow, technical work—park budgets, ranger salaries, forest monitoring, community agreements—into improvised crisis management. The cumulative result was a reduced U.S. footprint.
Forest recovery and regeneration
Tropical regrowth is expanding in some regions but remains vulnerable to re-clearing and degradation. Tree planting still has a role, but persistence matters more.
Tropical forest ecology
Ecological research continued to link forest function more directly to environmental stress, shifting attention away from abstract services and toward how specific pressures alter forest health and productivity over time.
Remote sensing
Remote sensing of tropical forests increasingly focused on whether data could arrive quickly and reliably enough to inform decisions. The year also exposed operational fragility.
The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not