World's forests going up in flames

Fires fuelled by climate change drive tropical tree loss to record high, writes Julien Mivielle

- Julien Mivielle

Eighteen football pitches every minute of every hour of every day: that is the record extent of tropical rainforest destroyed last year due in large measure to fires fuelled by climate change, researchers reported yesterday.

Tally it all up and the world lost 67,000 square kilometres of precious primary tropical forest, an area double the size of Belgium or Taiwan.

The loss was 80% higher than in 2023, according to the Global Forest Watch think tank.

"This level of forest destruction is completely unprecedented in more than 20 years of data," its co-director Elizabeth Goldman said in a briefing. "This is a global red alert."

Fires are responsible for nearly half of these losses, surpassing for the first time agriculture as the main driver of destruction.