The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2020, published jointly by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Environment Program (UNEP), also called for global cooperation to turn the tide of deforestation.

According to the report, it is estimated that around 420 million hectares of forest have been lost since 1990 through land-use conversion, although the rate has decreased recently.

In the decade beginning in 2010, the world lost 22 million ha of forest to deforestation, up from the 15 million ha lost in the decade prior. Between 1990 and 2000, some 16 million ha of forest was lost to deforestation.

While up to 93 percent of the world’s forests can naturally regenerate, they were not able to keep up with the rate of deforestation, with annual agricultural expansion rising from 8 million ha between 1990 and 2000 to 10 million ha (2000-2010) and 12 million ha (2010-2020) per year.

“This is clearly not a sustainable track we are on. Forests regulate global weather and provide livelihoods to millions of people – we just cannot afford to continue down this road,” UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said at the recent virtual launch of the report.

Agricultural expansion was found to be the main driver of deforestation, especially in tropical and subtropical regions, as large-scale commercial agriculture linked to cattle ranching and soybean and palm oil plantations accounted for 40 percent of tropical deforestation between 2000 and 2010, followed by local subsistence agriculture (33 percent), urban expansion (10 percent), infrastructure (10 percent) and mining (7 percent).

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