Forests around the world are degrading faster than they are recovering with over 460 million hectares (mha) of forests standing degraded, a United Nations (UN) report has revealed.
The authors of The State of the World’s Forests 2026: Restoring Forests and Landscapes – The Way Forward for a Sustainable Future, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), noted that forest degradation was driven mainly by climate change, population growth, urbanisation and infrastructure development.
Land use change, resource energy demand and people’s reliance on these lands for livelihoods and well-being are other reasons these lands stand degraded.
The flagship report provides a comprehensive global assessment of land degradation and outlines practical strategies for scaling up high-quality Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR).
Land degradation is commonly understood as a “persistent decline” in the goods and services that an ecosystem provides, including biological and water-related goods and services, as well as land-related social and economic goods and services, the report noted.
However, to meet the 2030 target under global frameworks—such as Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), to achieve 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems, nearly 469 mha must be under effective restoration, the report said.
On the contrary, as of 2026, national reports indicate that 206.5 mha are recorded to be under restoration. The gap in figures highlight an urgent need to accelerate progress.
“Naturally regenerating forests, accounting for approximately 92 percent of global forest area, declined by 324 million ha between 1990 and 2025, underscoring the continued vulnerability of forest ecosystems and the need for sustained efforts to halt degradation and support forest recovery,” it noted.
The report observed that approximately 12 per cent of land area amounting to around 334 mha was categorised as degraded in Africa in 2019, suggesting a significant forest loss and land degradation.
“In Asia, degraded land accounted for approximately 19 percent of land area, corresponding to about 583 million ha, reflecting the combined impacts of land-use change, agricultural expansion and forest degradation across diverse ecosystems,” it said. For South America, 14 per cent land area corresponding to nearly 245 mha accounted as degraded land.
The figures are consistent with persistent pressures from deforestation and land-use conversion, the authors said. They added, “Forest loss and forest degradation are recognised as core components of land degradation through this framework, as they directly contribute to land degradation by altering land cover, reducing ecosystem productivity and diminishing terrestrial carbon stocks.”
The global forest area in 2025 was recorded at 4.14 billion ha, equivalent to 32 per cent of the total land area.
The report said deforestation and forest degradation remain major global challenges, and have negative impacts on biodiversity, climate stability and land productivity. Since 1990, an estimated 489 mha of forest have been lost worldwide through deforestation with primary forests, among the most biodiverse and ecologically valuable forest ecosystems, being particularly affected. Primary forests’ global area decreased by 110 mha between 1990 and 2025.
The impact of the loss has resulted in species decline, fragmentation of ecosystems and erosion of critical ecosystem services.
“While global forest loss remains substantial, the overall rate of net forest loss declined significantly from 10.7 million ha per year in 1990-2000 to 3.68 million ha per year in 2000-2015, largely driven by forest area gains in countries such as Canada, China, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. However, in 2015-2025, the annual net forest loss rose to 4.12 million ha, primarily due to a reduced rate of forest gains (i.e. afforestation and natural forest expansion),” it stated.
For instance, China’s net forest gain decreased from 2.22 mha per year in 2000-2015 to 1.69 mha per year in 2015-2025, Canada’s from 513,000 ha to 82,500 ha per year and the United States shifted from a net gain of 437,000 ha per year in 2000-2015 to a net forest loss of 120,000 ha per year in 2015-2025, the report added.
Additional analysis for the 2026 report found that 93 countries and areas had been identified in need of restoration. Forest degradation was prevalent when identifying areas in need of restoration and is frequently characterised using a combination of condition-, disturbance- and process-based descriptions.
Countries defined areas in need of restoration based on the general forest condition, using terms such as ‘degraded forest’ or ‘degraded lands’.
The report found terms such as ‘fire-affected areas’, ‘burnt forests’ and ‘forest areas affected by wildfires’ appeared repeatedly across regions.
“Furthermore, countries defined degraded forests in terms of loss of forest cover or structure. These structural changes were often associated with underlying management and land-use practices, including unsustainable harvesting, poor or failed silvicultural practices and land-use conversion, which contribute to reduced forest density, productivity and regeneration capacity,” it said.
Forest degradation due to soil erosion, overgrazing and border land degradation was also categorised by several countries.
In these cases, forests were described not only as ‘degraded’ but as part of a wider landscape mosaic (areas affected by erosion, wetlands, mangroves, bare lands or croplands), highlighting the interconnected nature of degradation across ecosystems and land uses, it said.
It concluded that, “The final years of the UN Decade present a narrow but critical window to close the gap between global restoration commitments and on-the-ground restoration actions, including Forest and Land Restoration (FLR). Achieving this will require a decisive shift – from fragmented efforts to coordinated, high-quality restoration programmes. The three pillars discussed above – knowledge systems, standards and capacity, and monitoring and adaptive learning – provide a critical foundation to enhance the quality, effectiveness and impact of FLR.”
