Global Deforestation
This section is intended to collect data on the current status of global deforestation. This is accomplished through the utilization of APIs, databases, news sources, MapBuilders, and academic journals.
Global forest loss map
Credits: University of Maryland, department of geographical sciences.
Results from time-series analysis of Landsat images characterizing forest extent and change.
Trees are defined as vegetation taller than 5m in height and are expressed as a percentage per output grid cell as ‘2000 Percent Tree Cover’. ‘Forest Cover Loss’ is defined as a stand-replacement disturbance, or a change from a forest to non-forest state, during the period 2000–2019. ‘Forest Cover Gain’ is defined as the inverse of loss, or a non-forest to forest change entirely within the period 2000–2012. ‘Forest Loss Year’ is a disaggregation of total ‘Forest Loss’ to annual time scales.
Reference 2000 and 2019 imagery are median observations from a set of quality assessment-passed growing season observations.
News List
Cutting Trees to Balance Budgets: International Monetary Fund Programs are Associated with Increased Deforestation
Photo by Matt Palmer via Unsplash.
International financial institutions (IFIs) are increasingly expected to support environmental and climate goals. Among them, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a central role in shaping economic policy acr... [4202 chars]
Upper Assam’s flood catastrophe is a direct result of river and mountain grabbing
Since July 19, an artificial flood has wreaked havoc in four Upper Assam districts. So catastrophic has this flood been that nearly 800 villages and an area of around 1,19,000 hectares of cropland have been submerged, sheets of mud have been deposite... [7039 chars]
‘We feared we’d all be drowned’: the Indian floods that killed more than 100 and left thousands homeless
It was a normal July morning in the Indian state of Assam. After finishing her chores and eating breakfast, Gitali Phukon, a resident of the town of Gaurisagar, left her home to buy groceries. After two days of rainfall that had made the unpaved road... [8407 chars]
One in four cocoa farm audits contain data manipulated to meet sustainability targets, researchers find
ETH researchers have used a sustainability program for cocoa cultivation in Côte d'Ivoire to demonstrate that, in one in four cases, data was manipulated to meet the program's requirements. If the auditor were aware of the required target values, dat... [7042 chars]
Assam Floods 2026: Rain falls in Nagaland, ruin lands in Assam. Can it be fixed?
The most unjust thing about the 2026 Assam floods is a matter of geography.
The rain that drowned Sivasagar, Charaideo and Jorhat did not fall on them. It fell on the hills of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, on slopes stripped of trees and torn open ... [22490 chars]
Indonesia Battles Widespread Forest Fires Amid Intensifying El Nino
Indonesia is upping its battle against forest and land fires across six key provinces by deploying cloud-seeding aircraft to artificially induce rain as a strategy to mitigate the spreading haze, officials revealed. The nation faces an extended and h... [1468 chars]
Assam Floods 2026: The rain was ordinary, so why did Upper Assam drown?
For more than 25 years, Sivasagar had forgotten what a flood felt like. The old Ahom capital, with its tanks and temples and tea gardens, sat on ground the water had spared for a generation. Then, on a July night in 2026, the water came back, and it ... [13442 chars]
Assam floods: Climate change is turning the monsoon deluge into an annual disaster. But are we learning its lessons?
Unfortunately, once the waters abate and news of the devastation and suffering vanishes from the headlines, the floods become a mere statistical footnote. But as the global temperature rises, devastating floods that used to occur one every ten years,... [1532 chars]
Deforestation hits record low in Brazilian Amazon
SAO PAOLO — Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon last year plunged to its lowest level in a decade, according to official data released Friday, the latest decline under Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government.
The world’s largest tropical rainforest ... [1146 chars]
Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate approaches a historic low
SAO PAULO - Amazon deforestation in Brazil has plunged 37 per cent from a year ago, putting the country on track for what could be its lowest official amount of forest lost since satellite measurements began nearly four decades ago.
Forest destructio... [2036 chars]
News API sources: NewsCatcher & GNews