Data and Assessment

First results of the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 are out!

On 7 May 2020 the FAO released the key findings of the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 (FRA 2020). The release was the first step in the process of the dissemination of the FRA 2020 which examines the status of, and trends in, more than 60 forest-related variables in 236 countries and territories in the period 1990–2020.

According to the report, today there are 4.06 billion hectares of forest, equal to 0.52 hectare for each person on Earth. On a net basis, including forest expansions, the world's forest area has declined by 4.7 million hectares a year during the last decade.  Deforestation continues, albeit at a slower rate, with 10 million hectares of forest being converted to other land uses every year since 2015, down from 12 million hectares a year in the previous five years.

One notable upside captured by the new assessment is that the area of forest in protected areas globally has increased by 191 million hectares since 1990 and now 18 percent of the world's forests are located within protected areas, with South America home to the highest share of these. That means that the world has met and surpassed, for forests, the Aichi Biodiversity Target to protect at least 17 percent of terrestrial area by 2020.

Read more here.