Protected and intact forests lost at an alarming rate around the world

In Australia and Oceania, as well as North America, the loss in protected forests exceeded 5%. Worryingly, in parts of Africa, Central Asia, and Europe, the relative forest loss was higher inside protected areas than outside. However, in several countries of South America and Southeast Asia, protection was found to substantially prevent forest loss.

On a global scale, agricultural land expansion is one of the most important processes causing forest loss.

According to the analysis, high rates of protected forest loss were also associated with high proportions of agricultural land. At the same time, the losses in protected and intact forests were associated with a high gross domestic product, challenging partly the previous findings.

"Forests maintain ecological diversity, regulate climate, store carbon, protect soil and water and provide resources and livelihoods for the world’s population. It is alarming that official protection in many places does not actually protect the forests," says Timo Räsänen, Postdoc fellow at Aalto University.

"However, there are also positive signs, especially in the tropics. For example, the rate of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon has finally declined in recent years," continues Matias Heino, researcher at Aalto University.

The analysis was conducted, using recently published global remote sensing based forest cover change data, together with global spatial datasets on protected areas and intact forest landscape. Global forest loss in protected areas and in intact forest landscapes have not been previously assessed with detailed and uniform datasets that allow consistent forest extent comparisons over space and time.

The study was made in collaboration with researchers from the Natural Resources Institute of Finland, King's College London and the VU University of Amsterdam.