The world’s tropical rainforests are disappearing at an accelerating rate. In 2024, the tropics lost a record-shattering 6.7 million hectares of primary rainforest, an area nearly the size of Panama. That figure represents an 80% increase over 2023, driven by a combination of agricultural expansion, fire, and industrial activity that is fundamentally reshaping Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems.
Why Rainforests Are Being Cleared
Agriculture is the overwhelming force behind tropical deforestation. Between 90% and 99% of all tropical forest loss is driven directly or indirectly by farming, according to a 2022 study in the journal Science. Three commodities alone are responsible for well over half of that destruction: cattle pasture, soy, and palm oil. In practical terms, the steak, cooking oil, and animal feed supply chains that stock grocery stores around the world are the primary reason rainforests disappear.
The type of agriculture varies by region. In much of the Congo Basin, small-scale shifting agriculture, where families clear small patches of forest, farm them temporarily, then move on, remains the dominant pattern. But permanent industrial agriculture is rising. In Cameroon, 40% of tree cover loss between 2001 and 2024 was caused by permanent agriculture. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, cocoa production more than quadrupled between 2015 and 2023 as the government prioritized the crop.
Mining, charcoal production, and logging also play significant roles. In Suriname, gold mining expanded by 522% over 22 years, destroying more than 420 square kilometers of forest, with 85% of that damage caused by small-scale artisanal operations rather than large industrial mines. In the Congo Basin, artisanal mining indirectly causes 28 times more deforestation than the physical footprint of the mines themselves, as roads, settlements, and cleared land radiate outward from mining sites.
What’s Happening Region by Region
The Amazon
The Amazon remains the world’s largest tropical rainforest and the most closely watched. Cattle ranching and soy farming continue to be the primary drivers of clearing, particularly in Brazil and Bolivia. Scientists have warned for years that the Amazon may be approaching a tipping point where enough forest loss disrupts the region’s ability to generate its own rainfall, potentially converting large areas to grassland or savanna. The record-breaking fires of 2024 intensified those concerns.
The Congo Basin
Central Africa’s Congo Basin is the world’s second-largest tropical forest. It lost 780,000 hectares of primary forest in 2024 alone, a 14.2% increase over the previous year. While the region’s overall loss rate (0.44% of its primary forest) remains lower than other tropical areas, the trend is moving in the wrong direction. The DRC accounts for the bulk of the damage, and roughly 95% of the country’s population relies on wood and charcoal for energy, creating relentless pressure on surrounding forests. Climate change is compounding the problem: in the Republic of Congo, primary forest loss jumped from 24,000 to 62,000 hectares between 2023 and 2024, with half of those losses caused by fires.
Southeast Asia
Indonesia and Malaysia have already lost enormous areas of forest to palm oil plantations over the past two decades. What makes Southeast Asia’s situation distinct is the destruction of peatlands, waterlogged forests that store vast amounts of carbon in their soils. When these peat swamp forests are drained and cleared, they release carbon not just from the trees but from the exposed, decomposing peat beneath. Land use changes affecting peat swamp forests and mangroves across Southeast Asia generate approximately 692 teragrams of CO2-equivalent emissions annually, nearly half of the entire region’s land use emissions. Indonesia alone accounts for 73% of those emissions.
Rainforests Are Losing Their Ability to Cool the Planet
Healthy tropical forests act as massive carbon sponges, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere as trees grow. That role is eroding. Scientists tracking Australian tropical rainforests since 1971 found that these forests flipped from absorbing carbon to releasing it around the year 2000. Between 2010 and 2019, those rainforests lost close to a thousand kilograms of carbon per hectare each year. The cause was straightforward: heat extremes and drought killed more trees, and the dead wood released its stored carbon back into the air.
This shift has been documented in Australia, but researchers warn it previews what could happen across the far larger rainforests of South America, Africa, and Asia if global emissions continue rising. A rainforest that stops absorbing carbon and starts emitting it doesn’t just lose its climate benefit. It actively accelerates warming.
How Forest Loss Changes Local Weather
Rainforests generate a significant portion of their own rainfall. Trees pull water from the soil and release it through their leaves, a process that creates moisture that falls as rain downwind. When forests are cleared, this cycle weakens. Research published in 2025 found that for every percentage point of tropical forest lost over a surrounding 40,000-square-kilometer area, annual rainfall dropped by roughly 2.4 millimeters. Observational data suggested the real-world sensitivity may be even higher, closer to 3 millimeters per percentage point of loss.
That may sound small, but it compounds. As rainfall declines, remaining trees experience more drought stress, which kills more trees, which reduces rainfall further. This feedback loop is one of the mechanisms that could push large sections of the Amazon past the point of recovery. A forest that no longer receives enough rain to sustain itself doesn’t gradually thin out. It can collapse relatively quickly into a drier, sparser landscape.
Indigenous Lands Lose Less Forest
One of the clearest patterns in deforestation data is that forests managed by Indigenous peoples fare better than unprotected land. Globally, Indigenous territories experience roughly a fifth less deforestation than comparable non-protected areas. In Africa, Indigenous lands actually outperformed government-designated protected areas in retaining forest cover. In Asia, Indigenous lands and protected areas performed similarly, both reducing deforestation by about 20% compared to unprotected zones.
The picture is more complicated in the Americas, where deforestation in Indigenous lands was about 15% higher than in formally protected areas. That gap likely reflects the intense agricultural pressure on South American forests and the fact that Indigenous communities in the region often lack the enforcement resources that protected areas receive. Still, the global data is consistent: when Indigenous communities have recognized land rights and the resources to enforce them, forests survive at higher rates.
The Scale of What’s at Stake
Tropical rainforests cover roughly 6% of Earth’s land surface but hold more than half of all terrestrial species. They regulate rainfall patterns across entire continents, store centuries’ worth of carbon in their wood and soil, and support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. The 6.7 million hectares lost in 2024 isn’t just a number on a chart. It represents a permanent loss of biodiversity, a measurable increase in atmospheric carbon, and a reduction in the rainfall that remaining forests and nearby farmland depend on. Each year of record-breaking loss narrows the window in which these systems can still recover.