Roughly half of the world’s original tropical rainforest is gone. Of the forest that covered an estimated 14 to 16 million square kilometers before widespread human clearing began, somewhere between 7 and 8 million square kilometers remains today, scattered across the Amazon Basin, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. The losses have accelerated sharply over the past 50 years, and 2024 set records for fire-driven tropical forest destruction.
Where the Largest Rainforests Stand Today
The Amazon is still the giant. It holds about 5.5 million square kilometers of tropical forest, making it the largest contiguous rainforest on Earth. But roughly 17% of the Amazon has been cleared in the last 50 years, mostly for cattle ranching. In practical terms, that’s an area larger than France and Spain combined, converted to pasture and farmland within a single human lifetime.
The Congo Basin in Central Africa is the second largest, spanning about 3.7 million square kilometers across six countries. That’s an area larger than India. It remains relatively intact compared to the Amazon, though forest losses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have averaged 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year in recent decades. That sounds small, but it compounds. At those rates, the DRC loses thousands of square kilometers of forest annually, driven largely by small-scale farming and charcoal production.
Southeast Asia has fared the worst in percentage terms. Malaysia has lost nearly a third of its primary forest since the 1970s. Indonesia had 94 million hectares of primary forest at the start of 2001 and has been losing it steadily since, though the rate has slowed. Both countries saw less forest loss in 2024 than in 2023, with Malaysia dropping out of the global top 10 for the first time. That’s encouraging, but it follows decades of aggressive clearing for palm oil and timber plantations.
Not All Remaining Forest Is Equal
The total area of remaining rainforest can be misleading because it lumps together very different kinds of forest. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, only about one-third of the world’s total forest area qualifies as primary forest, meaning it has no visible signs of human activity and its ecological processes remain largely undisturbed. The rest includes secondary forest (areas that were logged or cleared and have partially regrown), degraded forest, and managed plantations.
This distinction matters enormously for biodiversity and carbon storage. A primary rainforest that has been developing for centuries stores far more carbon and supports far more species than a 20-year-old patch of regrowth. Since 1990, the world has lost over 80 million hectares of primary forest. That area doesn’t come back on any human timescale. Secondary forests can recover significant tree cover within a few decades, but they may take centuries to approach the complexity of old-growth forest, and some never do.
Why Rainforests Keep Shrinking
Agriculture is the dominant driver. Expanding farmland and ranch land, fueled by rising global demand for meat, soy, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, and timber, accounts for the vast majority of tropical deforestation worldwide. In the Amazon, cattle ranching is the single largest cause. In Southeast Asia, palm oil plantations have been the primary force. In Central Africa, smallholder farming and fuelwood harvesting do the most damage.
These aren’t just local decisions. Global supply chains connect a soy farm in Brazil to a feedlot in Europe, or a palm oil plantation in Borneo to processed food on a grocery shelf anywhere in the world. Poorly planned infrastructure, including roads, railways, and mines, also opens up previously inaccessible forest to settlement and clearing. A new road through intact forest typically triggers a cascade of deforestation along its edges within a few years.
The Amazon’s Tipping Point
Scientists have identified a threshold that makes the Amazon particularly worrying. The Amazon generates a significant portion of its own rainfall: trees release moisture that forms clouds, which rain back down on the forest. If enough forest is removed, this cycle breaks. Research published in Science Advances suggests that clearing between 20 and 40 percent of the Amazon, combined with rising global temperatures, could trigger a dramatic decline in regional rainfall of 30 to 50 percent. At that point, large portions of the remaining forest could no longer sustain themselves and would transition into savanna-like grassland.
With roughly 17% already gone and deforestation continuing, the Amazon is approaching the lower end of that range. The margin between where things stand now and where an irreversible shift could begin is uncomfortably narrow. Brazil’s deforestation rates have fluctuated with political leadership and enforcement, meaning the trajectory could change in either direction within a few years.
Recent Trends and Bright Spots
The picture in 2024 was mixed. Fire-driven forest loss hit record levels globally, particularly in regions experiencing drought conditions linked to climate patterns. But some countries showed real improvement. Indonesia cut its primary forest loss by 11% compared to 2023. Malaysia reduced its losses by 13%. Both countries have sustained lower deforestation rates than they had a decade ago, suggesting that policy interventions and market pressure on commodities like palm oil can work when sustained over time.
Brazil’s trajectory has been more volatile, swinging with changes in government enforcement. The Congo Basin remains a growing concern, as population growth and limited economic alternatives push more people into forest-dependent livelihoods. Forests globally still cover about 31% of the planet’s land area, but the tropical rainforest fraction, the most biologically rich and carbon-dense portion, continues to shrink faster than any other forest type.