Yet the difference is stark. A study of Cordillera Azul reported more than 262,000 hectares of forest lost in its surrounding buffer zone between 2001 and 2021, compared with about 7,660 hectares inside the park. The trees outside the boundary were still part of the Amazon. Their future was shaped by different land-use pressures and a different set of rules.

Rainforest buffer zones bring that tension into focus. Governments recognise that the land around a protected area matters. But recognising its importance and keeping its forests standing are two different tasks. This is where conservation beyond the park boundary becomes essential.

What a rainforest buffer zone actually means

Cordillera Azul National Park was established on 21 May 2001. It protects more than 1.35 million hectares, stretching from mountain forests towards the Amazonian plain. Its headwaters supply the surrounding region, and its forests shelter wildlife including tapirs, river otters and large birds of prey. The park protects a living system whose connections extend beyond its borders.

Around it lies the zona de amortiguamiento, or buffer zone. Think of this as the area where what happens outside the park can affect what survives inside it. Clearing nearby forest, opening access routes or damaging waterways puts pressure on the wider ecosystem. The buffer zone exists to help manage those pressures.

Article 25 of Peru’s Protected Areas Law requires activities in buffer zones to respect the conservation purposes of the neighbouring protected area. National parks operate under a stricter regime that prohibits natural-resource extraction. Buffer zones accommodate a mix of communities, private properties and compatible economic activities. They are a place to reconcile conservation with life around the park, rather than an extension of the park’s strict protection.

That difference matters on the ground. A forest parcel can sit within an officially designated buffer zone and still face pressure from agricultural expansion or logging. Its proximity to a national park makes conservation important, but does not make protection automatic.

Cordillera Azul: the contrast in numbers

A 2025 study using Peru’s Geobosques forest-monitoring data examined Cordillera Azul and its buffer zone separately. For 2001 to 2021, its tables report 262,014.70 hectares of forest loss in the buffer zone, compared with 7,659.64 hectares inside the national park. The surrounding loss amounts to more than 2,620 square kilometres of forest.

The contrast remains striking when the different sizes of the two areas are taken into account. Reported forest loss occupied 11.37% of the buffer zone’s total land area, against 0.57% of the park’s. That is roughly a 22 times difference in the share of land affected. By 2022, forest covered 98.05% of the park’s total area, compared with 73.43% of the buffer zone.

These figures put the vulnerability of the surrounding forest into perspective. The park’s canopy remained largely intact while substantial areas beyond its boundary were lost. The surrounding zone also contained agricultural land and settlements, with demands on the forest that differ from those inside the park.

There is still a great deal worth protecting. The study mapped around 1.69 million hectares of forest remaining in the buffer zone in 2022. Conservation there means securing living forest before further clearing takes place, alongside restoring areas already damaged.

Tambopata and Bahuaja Sonene show the wider pressure

Cordillera Azul is one example of a problem visible elsewhere in the Peruvian Amazon. In the buffer zone of Tambopata National Reserve, gold mining has stripped away forest in places where proximity to a protected area offered little defence against the demand for gold.

The Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program, or MAAP, documented 2,774 hectares cleared between 2013 and 2015 in just two mining hotspots, La Pampa and Upper Malinowski. Both were within Tambopata’s buffer zone. A designation meant to safeguard the reserve’s surroundings coexisted with thousands of hectares of clearing for gold.

Further south, MAAP examined the Colorado sector of Bahuaja Sonene National Park and the surrounding buffer zone. It found 1,172 hectares of buffer-zone deforestation between 2001 and 2014, alongside 538 hectares lost inside the park in the same sector. Agricultural expansion and cultivation associated with coca were among the pressures identified. Here, the forest was being converted for a different purpose, but the vulnerability around the boundary was familiar.

A later MAAP assessment recorded 876 hectares of gold-mining deforestation in protected-area buffer zones outside southern Peru’s Mining Corridor during 2021 and 2022. The most affected buffer zones included Tambopata, Bahuaja Sonene and Amarakaeri. The same report documented the government’s success in essentially halting mining expansion in La Pampa after Operation Mercury began in 2019. Enforcement made a difference there, while pressure remained elsewhere around protected areas.

Together, these examples show why conservation cannot stop at the park gate. Buffer zones are places where the demand for farmland, timber or gold meets forests that still have immense ecological value.

Why the government cannot simply make every park bigger

Looking at those losses, expanding the national park seems like an obvious answer. But extending strict protection over a buffer zone changes what people can do with the land. It involves existing property rights, livelihoods and decisions about which uses must end or change. A new boundary has consequences for the people already living on either side of it.

Peru’s protected-areas law addresses those realities. It provides for restrictions and, where applicable, compensation when private property is included in a protected area. It also recognises compatible traditional uses and the participation of Indigenous and rural communities. Turning an inhabited area into a national park therefore requires more than a conservation ambition. It requires a workable arrangement for the people and rights involved.

Powerful commercial interests can also resist protection. In the Cordillera del Cóndor, an ODECOFROC investigation published by IWGIA in 2010 describes intensive lobbying by mining company Afrodita against the original proposal for Ichigkat Muja National Park. According to the investigation, the company persuaded government departments to recommend a smaller protected area. The report reproduces minutes of a November 2005 government-company meeting pressing for a favourable opinion on mining exploration. The dispute shows how conservation proposals can collide with extractive interests before a park boundary is even agreed.

Community participation is a different issue from commercial lobbying. People need a say in decisions affecting their homes and resources, and conservation needs their involvement to last. Buffer zones give governments a way to protect the surroundings of a park while accommodating compatible livelihoods. Making that approach work requires sustained attention to land use, local needs and the pressures that drive clearing.

Protecting more forest requires funding that lasts

A park designation is a beginning. Rangers need salaries, remote sites need transport, and monitoring and enforcement need resources year after year. Expanding protection means sustaining those responsibilities over a larger area. The cost continues long after the boundary is drawn.

The funding challenge is documented. A Green Climate Fund proposal approved in April 2026, covering 25 protected areas in Peru’s Amazon biome, identifies an annual financing gap of US$5.3 million for those areas. Its approach combines better protected-area management with work in selected buffer zones and new sources of recurring finance. Even existing protected areas need additional funding to reach the management standards the programme targets.

The difficulty is not that standing forest has no economic value. Clean water, tourism and climate regulation all bring benefits, and the proposal includes tourism entrance fees and payments for water-related ecosystem services among its financing mechanisms. But a benefit to society does not automatically become money available for a ranger’s salary. The proposal makes that mismatch explicit: much of the climate benefit reaches the wider world, while mitigation costs have traditionally fallen on the Peruvian state.

Conservation needs ways to connect those benefits with dependable funding. Public budgets, community-led management and private conservation each have a role. Adding capacity around a park helps address the gap between wanting forests protected and having the resources to protect them.

Where private conservation steps in

Peru’s conservation framework already makes room for this approach. Article 62 of the protected-areas regulation promotes private conservation areas, habitat restoration and agroforestry in buffer zones, with priority given to local participation. Private conservation can add committed land stewardship and funding around the public protected-area system.

At Fund The Planet, our model is to acquire rainforest land particularly from owners who may be in a position to sell it for other negative use cases, for the sole purpose of conservation and fund its protection through memberships. Our project is in the Sarayacu area of Loreto. The October 2021 environmental assessment located the land it examined within Cordillera Azul’s buffer zone, outside the national park. It described forest in good conservation condition alongside disturbed areas and risks from farming and logging. This is forest where a commitment to conservation has a practical purpose.

That commitment involves work on the ground. In August 2024, our team completed boundary-marking work at the Sarayacu project, using GPS equipment to follow the perimeter and place signs. Transporting materials into the forest, working through heavy rain and dealing with drought were part of the job. These are the less visible demands behind protecting a place that looks effortlessly green in a photograph.

Our transparency page brings together purchase documents, the environmental study and project reporting. It connects the conservation model with a specific place and records of the work behind it. For members, recurring contributions support a model designed around keeping forest standing rather than converting it to another use.

The trees around Cordillera Azul do not become less valuable when they fall outside the national park. The loss of more than 262,000 hectares in its buffer zone shows the scale of the challenge, while the forest still standing shows what remains possible to protect. That work needs public safeguards, local involvement and funding that can continue beyond a single project or announcement.

The next time you see a national park outlined on a map, look at the green beyond its boundary too. Protecting that forest helps keep the wider ecosystem connected and gives conservation more room to succeed. It is the reason Fund The Planet’s work belongs alongside the park: the rainforest beyond the line still needs a future as forest.

For someone interested in that technology, this might be exciting. For someone who simply wants to protect a forest, it can feel like being asked to learn a new language before being allowed to take part. At Fund The Planet, that gap between caring about nature and understanding the technology is one reason we changed our approach. We began with Rainforest Tokens. We later introduced a membership model, keeping the idea of a personal connection to the rainforest while making participation more familiar.

Why We Started with Rainforest Tokens

When we introduced Rainforest Tokens in 2021, we wanted to make rainforest conservation feel less distant. The Amazon is thousands of kilometres away from many of the people who care about its future. Supporting its protection can feel abstract when you cannot see the place involved or understand how your participation connects to it. We wanted people to be able to find that place on a map.

Rainforest Tokens used NFTs, unique digital records stored on a blockchain, to make that connection. Instead of a piece of digital artwork, a token carried information associated with a particular rainforest area, including its size and coordinates. Through the Rainforest Explorer, people could view the location and learn more about the forest connected with their token. The intention was to put a real place behind something that might otherwise remain a distant idea.

Our early materials described rainforest-linked NFTs, trading on OpenSea, and a system of rewards. Those materials also used investment and environmental-compensation language. Those descriptions are part of our history, and explaining the change honestly means acknowledging them rather than suggesting the early model was only ever about easier access to conservation.

When the Technology Becomes a Barrier

Imagine explaining the idea to a friend. You start with the rainforest, the trees, the wildlife, and the importance of keeping it standing. Your friend is interested. But then the conversation turns to wallets, marketplaces, and acquiring an NFT. Before they can act on the part they care about, they have to understand the part they may never have wanted to learn.

There was a financial barrier as well. The early offer involved entry purchases starting at around €500. That was the offer described then, not the price of membership today, but it helps explain why the early model was a different proposition from a smaller, recurring contribution. Interest in rainforest conservation does not necessarily come with either a crypto background or the budget for a larger purchase.

We wanted a more inclusive way for people to participate. That meant rethinking what we were asking them to do before they could join. The ability to see a particular forest area was worth keeping. Making an NFT the entry point was something we could change.

In 2024, we introduced the membership model. The aim was to make joining more straightforward for people who cared about the rainforest but did not want to engage with a crypto product. This was a change in how people could participate, not proof that a different payment method would, by itself, protect the forest better. The work in Peru still had to stand on its own.

A Familiar Way to Join, a Forest You Can See

Today, Fund The Planet’s membership uses recurring contributions linked to an allocated rainforest area. Members can view that area in the Rainforest Explorer and see it grow over time as their membership continues. The personal connection remains, but acquiring an NFT is no longer the starting point for this offer. You can approach it as someone interested in nature, rather than someone interested in crypto.

There is something valuable about being able to point to a place. Rainforest protection becomes easier to understand when you can see where the area is and how large it is. That visibility was part of the original idea, and it remains part of the membership approach. It gives people a way to explore the forest associated with their participation instead of relying only on a broad promise about conservation somewhere in the world.

Regular contributions also provide a more predictable basis for planning long-term conservation. Forest protection requires attention beyond the moment someone joins, and the membership model is designed around that continuing relationship. Our transparency page brings together purchase documents, the environmental study, and links to project reports. Those materials help explain the work behind the area shown on a screen.

Keeping the Forest at the Centre

The change reflects a practical choice about participation. We wanted to keep the visible connection to a rainforest area while removing the need to acquire an NFT to use the newer offer. Technology can help people explore and understand the project, but it should serve their interest in conservation rather than become a separate requirement they have to overcome.

The next time an image of forest loss makes you stop scrolling, you should be able to explore what you can do without first becoming a crypto enthusiast. You can look at the forest, read about the work, and decide whether the membership is right for you. The place that matters is still in the Peruvian Amazon, beyond the screen.

Featured image: Elif Ilkel via Pexels. Pexels License.

That difference is the heart of this story. Tropical forests need long-term finance that makes standing forest worth more than short-term destruction. A declaration can help build that case. It cannot protect a hectare on its own.

What the New Delhi Declaration says

The official New Delhi Declaration includes support for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility and calls for its capitalisation. The TFFF has been proposed as a mechanism to reward countries that keep tropical forests standing, with benefits intended to reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities as well.

The wording is important. It is a call for ambitious contributions. It does not announce a BRICS funding total, a timetable for payments or a list of projects that have received funds. Readers should be wary of headlines that blur those steps together.

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The declaration puts forests alongside climate resilience, energy and development. That makes sense because tropical forests sit inside all of those questions. They support biodiversity, water cycles and livelihoods, while forest loss can create costs far beyond the place where trees are cut.

Why a funding call still matters

Forest countries often face a blunt economic choice. Clearing land can generate immediate revenue. Keeping intact forest standing provides wider benefits, but those benefits are not always paid for fairly or reliably. International finance is supposed to narrow that gap.

World Resources Institute’s response to the summit welcomed the TFFF language, while making the next step plain: governments still need to put serious money behind it. That is a reasonable test. A facility’s promise depends on its capital, its safeguards and whether money reaches the people who live with the consequences of forest policy.

The idea has already attracted some movement. Earlier this month, the United Kingdom announced a £400 million loan linked to the facility, according to WRI’s September 3 statement. That is background, not the news from New Delhi. It also should not be counted as a BRICS disbursement.

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What good forest finance would need to prove

The TFFF is built around a simple aim: create durable incentives to keep tropical forests intact. The difficult work is in the details. Finance needs clear rules, independent monitoring and safeguards for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It also needs to avoid rewarding paper promises while forests continue to disappear on the ground.

This is not an argument against funding forests. It is an argument for being precise about what has happened. The BRICS declaration moves the discussion forward. It does not complete the job.

Forest finance also cannot replace national enforcement, land rights or strong protection of threatened places. It can support them. A payment mechanism that ignores who holds rights, who makes decisions and who bears the risks would repeat old mistakes.

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Existing evidence from the Amazon reinforces why community safeguards matter. Indigenous peoples and the Amazon are not an add-on to forest policy. Their territories, knowledge and rights are central to how many forests are protected. The same is true of the legal and operational choices behind lasting rainforest protection. It also belongs beside the practical debate about how to protect the rainforest.

A declaration is a starting point, not a result

The New Delhi Declaration gives tropical forest finance a place in a major diplomatic conversation. That is useful. It may make future commitments easier to build and harder to ignore.

But the responsible headline remains modest. BRICS called for more funding to keep tropical forests standing. It did not announce that the money has arrived. The next meaningful evidence will be actual commitments, transparent rules and verified benefits for forests and the people who protect them.

The eruption began on September 4. Park authorities said on September 7 that vibrations and noise had had minimal effect on the rhinos’ habitat. A conservation researcher told Mongabay on September 10 that there had been no reports of rhino deaths linked to the eruption. “Appear safe” is the right phrase because it describes the available checks without pretending every animal has been individually accounted for.

What the eruption means for the rhinos now

NASA’s September 9 satellite account confirms that the Anak Krakatau eruption sent ash into the atmosphere, disrupted flights and worsened air quality. The volcano sits in the Sunda Strait, about 50 kilometres from Ujung Kulon.

The immediate concern was whether ash, vibration or disturbance had harmed the park’s rhinos. The answer so far is cautiously reassuring. Mongabay’s report says rangers remain on guard and that the habitat was minimally affected by the early eruption impacts.

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That does not make the population secure. A volcanic event can change quickly, and the bigger conservation problem has not changed: all wild Javan rhinos are concentrated in one coastal park.

One habitat leaves no room for a big mistake

Javan rhinos once ranged across parts of South and Southeast Asia. Today, Ujung Kulon is their only remaining wild home. A population concentrated in one place is exposed to disease, habitat change and disasters that a more dispersed species might survive.

A tsunami is the most frequently cited fear in this setting. Ujung Kulon’s coastal habitat was affected by the 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami, and conservationists have long argued for a second habitat away from the highest-risk zone. The current eruption has revived that question without proving that a tsunami is imminent.

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This is why the news should not become a simple survival story. The rhinos appear safe after this eruption. Their survival still depends on reducing the risk that one event could harm the entire wild population.

The population number is not settled

Official and independent counts do not match. Mongabay notes that the IUCN estimates a current minimum population of about 50, while Indonesia’s forestry ministry has cited 87 to 100. Past reporting also raised questions about whether animals that had not appeared on camera traps for years were still included in official totals.

Those differences should not be used to make the species seem hopeless or to pick a convenient number. They are a reason for caution. Small populations need reliable monitoring because decisions about habitat, disease and any movement of animals depend on knowing who is still alive and where they are.

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The wider lesson applies beyond rhinoceroses. In rainforest biodiversity hotspots, the most vulnerable species are often those whose habitat has been reduced to fragments. Protecting endangered species through rainforest conservation means protecting enough connected habitat that a single disaster does not decide the future of a species. Protecting biodiversity in the Amazon offers another example of why monitoring matters before a population becomes harder to recover.

Safe today is not the same as safe enough

The immediate update is positive: no rhino deaths have been reported from the eruption, and park officials say the animals appear normal. That deserves to be said clearly.

It should also keep attention on the harder work. A second, safer habitat, strong monitoring and careful population management would give the Javan rhino more than one chance. For a species confined to one coastal refuge, that is the difference between getting through the latest emergency and being ready for the next one.

As we reflect on the Javan rhinos Anak Krakatau eruption 2026, it is crucial to remember that their survival hinges on proactive conservation efforts. While the initial reports are encouraging, the ongoing vulnerability of the Javan rhinos underscores the need for a comprehensive strategy that includes habitat expansion and rigorous monitoring. The Javan rhinos Anak Krakatau eruption 2026 serves as a reminder that today’s safety does not guarantee tomorrow’s security. Ensuring the long-term survival of these magnificent creatures requires us to act decisively, especially in light of the lessons learned from the Javan rhinos Anak Krakatau eruption 2026.

The report, published on September 15 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Landscape Alliance, is titled Forests for food: Nourishing people, sustaining the planet. It brings together evidence on forest foods, livelihoods and the services that support agriculture. Its point is practical: food security policies are weaker when they treat forests as separate from the systems that feed people.

Forest foods are already part of many diets

FAO’s launch announcement says forests and trees provide fruits, nuts, tubers, mushrooms, edible insects and wild meat. It reports that more than 50,000 wild species are used for food, medicine and other purposes, including at least 10,000 eaten directly as food.

Those numbers describe a food system that can be easy to overlook because much of it is local, seasonal or informal. For many families, forest foods are not a novelty. They are part of daily nutrition, income or a fallback when crops fail and prices rise.

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The report is also careful to connect food with health. Forest plants contribute medicines, while forests support the water, soil and biodiversity that agriculture depends on. That does not mean every forest must be used as a food source. It means food policy should recognise the many ways living forests support diets and livelihoods.

The Amazon example is specific

The FAO release gives an Amazon example rather than leaving the argument at a global level. It says fish account for 44 percent of food consumed by weight in the Amazon, alongside wild meat, Brazil nuts and açaí berries.

That is a useful reminder that forests, rivers and food are connected. Clearing forest can affect wildlife and tree products directly, but it can also alter water systems, soil protection and the wider conditions that support fishing and farming.

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Readers looking for a closer introduction to this relationship can explore how Indigenous peoples and the Amazon are connected and our overview of the Ucayali rainforest’s biodiversity, communities and conservation. The new FAO report does not turn those relationships into a single universal story. Food systems differ by place, and policies need to start from that reality. Rainforest conservation and reforestation are also different choices with different effects on food systems.

Protection supports farms too

The report describes forests as support systems for agriculture, livestock and fisheries. Forested watersheds help regulate water. Trees and forest cover can protect soil, cycle nutrients, support pollinators and provide shade or resilience in managed landscapes.

That is why forest protection should not be presented as a choice between people and food. In many places, losing forest can make food production less secure over time. The benefits may be less visible than a harvest, but they are still material.

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The report offers 12 recommendations across policy, management, information and governance. They include integrated, context-specific policy; sustainable management of forest foods; better data; public investment; and stronger institutional capacity. The detailed report is freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, so its evidence can be read directly rather than filtered through a headline.

What changes after this report

The report does not claim that forests alone can end hunger. It argues that food policy needs a fuller picture of the resources people already use and the ecological systems that make agriculture possible.

That is a sensible place to start. Protecting forests protects habitat and climate functions, but it can also protect access to food, nutrition and income. The next question is whether governments will carry that understanding into land-use, agriculture and food-security decisions, where it can make a real difference.

In summary, the FAO forests for food report 2026 emphasizes the integral role that forests play in global food systems. By highlighting the connections between forest resources and food security, the FAO forests for food report 2026 encourages policymakers to adopt a more holistic approach. As we move forward, it is crucial to integrate the insights from the FAO forests for food report 2026 into sustainable land-use practices. Ultimately, embracing the recommendations of the FAO forests for food report 2026 can lead to healthier ecosystems and more resilient communities, ensuring that forests continue to nourish both people and the planet.

In conclusion, the FAO forests for food report 2026 serves as a crucial reminder of the interconnectedness of forests and food security. By advocating for integrated policies that recognize the multifaceted benefits of forests, the FAO forests for food report 2026 encourages a holistic approach to food systems that prioritizes sustainability and resilience. As we move forward, it is essential for policymakers to embrace the insights from the FAO forests for food report 2026 to create a future where both people and ecosystems thrive together.

The distinction is easy to lose in a headline. The final rule changes a large part of the 2024 standards now. The broader repeal is not final. It is a proposal and will have its own rulemaking process.

What EPA finalised on September 14

EPA’s rule page identifies the action as the “final Partial Repeal of the Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units.” The accompanying final-rule preamble says EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signed it on September 14 and that it was being submitted for Federal Register publication.

According to EPA’s September 14 announcement, the final action strikes most provisions of the 2024 standards. The agency says it concluded that the earlier rule relied on control technologies that were not adequately demonstrated and could force plants to retire rather than meet achievable standards.

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EPA projects up to $310 billion in savings from the final action. That is an agency estimate, not an independently settled outcome. The agency frames the repeal as a reliability and affordability measure. Other institutions and advocates may assess the climate, health and economic effects differently.

What remains a proposal

The second action is separate. EPA issued a supplemental proposal to rescind the greenhouse-gas findings for fossil fuel-fired power plants and repeal all remaining greenhouse-gas emission standards for those plants under Clean Air Act section 111.

EPA’s own general fact sheet says plainly that the final rule repeals the majority of the 2024 standards, while the supplemental proposal would repeal all remaining standards. “Would” is doing important work here.

A proposal can signal the direction of an administration. It does not create a final legal change by itself. Readers should therefore separate three things: the partial repeal that EPA has finalised, the broader repeal it has proposed and any future court or rulemaking developments.

Why the legal scope matters

Power-plant regulation is often described in sweeping terms. The actual rules are more specific. Different standards can apply to different kinds of generating units and different circumstances, including new, reconstructed or existing units.

That is why it would be inaccurate to say that EPA has already erased every power-plant greenhouse-gas requirement. It has not said that. Its September 14 materials describe a final partial repeal alongside a proposal concerning the remaining requirements.

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The rule also arrives in a wider climate-policy debate. What causes climate change explains why fossil fuel emissions matter, while rainforest carbon storage and planting new trees explores a different part of the climate system. Neither forest protection nor power-sector rules can substitute for the other. Understanding global warming adds context on the wider warming process.

What to watch next

The clearest next step is the public rulemaking around EPA’s supplemental proposal. Interested parties can examine the proposal, supporting documents and docket materials, then comment through the formal process once the relevant notice is published.

For now, the news can be stated precisely. EPA has finalised a partial repeal of the 2024 power-plant carbon standards. It has also proposed a wider repeal of the remaining greenhouse-gas standards. The final legal scope will depend on the text of final rules and the process that follows, not on the broadest version of the announcement.

As we look ahead, the implications of the EPA power plant carbon rule repeal September 2026 will be significant for the energy sector and environmental policy. Stakeholders must stay informed about the ongoing rulemaking process and the potential impacts of the proposed changes. The EPA power plant carbon rule repeal September 2026 not only reflects the current administration’s priorities but also sets the stage for future regulatory frameworks. Engaging in the public comment period will be crucial for those wishing to influence the outcome of the EPA power plant carbon rule repeal September 2026 and its long-term effects on emissions standards.

Annual loss figures need context. Fire, logging, temporary disturbance and permanent conversion are measured differently. MAAP’s Amazon analysis is useful because it separates several of those signals instead of treating them as one number.

How Much Rainforest Did We Lose in 2025?

The numbers from 2025 tell a mixed story. In the Amazon, total deforestation reached 736,484 hectares, with non-fire forest loss climbing to 1.03 million hectares, according to MAAP monitoring data. Across the Atlantic, Indonesia recorded 433,751 hectares of deforestation in 2025, a 66 percent increase that reversed years of declining forest loss. These are not abstract numbers. They represent real ecosystems, real species, and real communities losing their home.

The encouraging side is that Brazil’s Amazon deforestation dropped 30.6 percent in 2024, showing that sustained policy and enforcement can bend the curve. But progress in one region does not cancel out acceleration in another, and the global appetite for cheap commodities continues to push the frontier deeper into standing forest.

Nearly 132,000 hectares of the 2025 Amazon deforestation was illegal. That fact alone underscores how much of the problem sits outside any formal planning or permitting system. For many people, the products linked to this destruction are sitting in their kitchen or on their shelf right now. If you are curious about how close the connection really is, this piece on rainforest products you probably consume every day lays it out clearly.

Read the supporting explainers on beef production in the Amazon and palm oil and deforestation. IUCN’s palm-oil brief also explains why replacing palm oil with another crop is not automatically the lower-impact answer.

commodities driving rainforest loss : Cattle Ranching and Palm Oil

Cattle ranching is the single largest driver of Amazon deforestation. Across Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru, vast tracts of rainforest are cleared and converted to pasture. The economics are straightforward: global beef demand rewards expansion, and forested land is often the cheapest available. Even where deforestation rates have improved, illegal clearing persists. Of the 736,484 hectares lost in the Brazilian Amazon in 2025, nearly 132,000 hectares were classified as illegal, much of it tied to cattle operations that push beyond permitted boundaries.

Palm oil presents a different but equally powerful dynamic. It produces 35 percent of all vegetable oil on less than 10 percent of oil crop land, an efficiency ratio that makes it nearly impossible for competing crops to displace. That same efficiency is what makes expansion so destructive. When new plantations go in, they go into forest. Indonesia’s 2025 deforestation spike to 433,751 hectares was driven in large part by palm oil expansion. In West Africa, the pattern is already devastating. Cote d’Ivoire has lost more than 90 percent of its forest since 1950, and Ghana has lost more than 65 percent, largely due to cocoa and oil palm cultivation.

The overlap between these two commodities and consumer goods is staggering. Palm oil appears in processed foods, cosmetics, cleaning products, and biofuel. Beef enters global supply chains through leather, gelatin, and meat products. Many of the everyday items linked to rainforest loss are explained in more detail in our guide on how to save the rainforest through actionable strategies.

Soy Expansion Into the Cerrado and West Africa

Soy does not always get the same attention as cattle or palm oil, but its footprint is enormous. In Brazil, soy cultivation is expanding rapidly into the Cerrado, a tropical savanna that holds remarkable biodiversity and acts as a critical water source for the Amazon basin. The Cerrado has already lost roughly half its native vegetation, and soy farming is one of the primary reasons. Much of that soy feeds global livestock, creating an indirect chain: the burger requires cattle, the cattle require feed, and the feed requires cleared land.

In West Africa, the story takes a different form. The region’s forests are being cleared not primarily for soy but for cocoa and oil palm, yet the underlying mechanism is the same. Global commodity demand pushes agricultural frontiers into standing forest because the economic incentive to clear outweighs the incentive to protect. When forested land is treated as a cheap input for production, the math always favors clearing.

For readers who want to understand the deeper regional dynamics, the case of Borneo deforestation offers a detailed look at how a single commodity can reshape an entire island’s forest cover. The pattern repeats across continents, even when the specific crop changes.

For related supply-chain risks, see our guides to cocoa and rainforest loss and illegal gold mining in the Amazon. The goal is traceable production and stronger protection of standing forest, not a simple boycott of every product that has a complex supply chain.

Timber, Illegal Logging, and What Comes Next

Timber operates differently from the other three commodities. Its supply chain is more fragmented, more opaque, and harder to trace. Legal timber harvesting exists under national forestry laws, but enforcement varies widely. In January 2026, the Environmental Investigation Agency found that illegal Amazon wood was still flowing into European and American markets despite existing regulations. The fact that this continues to happen in 2026 tells you something about the limits of voluntary compliance.

Illegal logging also acts as a gateway. Timber roads open access to previously intact forest, making it easier for cattle ranchers, soy farmers, and miners to follow. A logged forest is a forest under pressure, and the transition from selective logging to full clearing can happen within a few years. Of the 736,484 hectares of Amazon deforestation in 2025, a significant share began with logging access routes that preceded agricultural conversion.

None of this means the situation is hopeless. Brazil’s 30.6 percent drop in Amazon deforestation during 2024 shows that political will, monitoring, and enforcement can produce real results. The challenge is scaling those gains across every commodity frontier simultaneously. Rainforests store vast amounts of carbon and shelter a disproportionate share of global biodiversity. The comparison between rainforest carbon storage and planting new trees explains why protecting existing forest delivers far more value than replanting.

These four commodities will not disappear from global supply chains anytime soon. But the way they are produced can change. Certification systems, supply chain transparency, and direct conservation action all play a role. Fund The Planet is part of that picture, offering a way to protect rainforest directly in Peru’s Ucayali region. The land is purchased, legally secured, and monitored so that the forest stays standing. Every hectare that is protected is a hectare that cannot be converted to pasture, plantation, or logged timber. The scale of the problem demands many approaches working at once, and direct protection is one that delivers proof, not just promises.

This is not a distant problem. Fund The Planet operates in Peru’s Ucayali region, directly adjacent to some of the most affected areas. Understanding what illegal gold mining does to the Amazon is part of understanding what real protection means here, and why it matters now more than ever.

Scars That Keep Spreading

The numbers tell a stark story. According to monitoring data from MAAP (Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project), gold mining caused 139,169 hectares of deforestation in Peru between 1984 and mid-2025. That is roughly 343,894 acres of forest, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. The Madre de Dios region accounts for 97.5% of that destruction, making it the epicenter of the crisis. But mining has now spread to nine regions across the Peruvian Amazon, reaching areas that were untouched a decade ago.

What makes this particularly alarming is the pace and scale of the expansion. Mining operations have expanded along 225 rivers and streams, turning clearwater systems into sediment-choked channels that run brown for miles downstream. Forest that took centuries to grow is cleared in days using heavy machinery. The exposed soil, stripped of root systems and leaf cover, erodes quickly and feeds sediment into waterways that communities and wildlife depend on for survival.

The economic losses are staggering. A recent Mongabay analysis documented $593,786,943 in losses across just three communities in a single year between August 2022 and 2023. That figure includes lost ecosystem services, degraded fisheries, and the long-term economic damage of removing the forest that supports local livelihoods. The communities most affected by mining are often the ones with the fewest resources to recover, creating a cycle where poverty drives mining and mining deepens poverty.

The crisis in Madre de Dios and the broader mining regions shows how quickly damage can become entrenched when enforcement is inconsistent and economic pressures are strong.

Mercury in the Water, Mercury in the Body

Gold mining in the Amazon relies heavily on mercury. Miners mix liquid mercury with sediment to bind with gold particles, then burn off the mercury to isolate the metal. The vaporized mercury settles into rivers and soil, enters the food chain through fish, and accumulates in the people who live downstream. It is a process that is efficient for extraction and devastating for everything else.

A 2021 study found that 71% of people living in mining communities had hair-mercury levels above US EPA safety thresholds. What is often overlooked is that 80% of people living outside mining communities, downstream and further away, also tested above those levels. Mercury does not stay where it is released. It travels through water systems and concentrates in fish, which are a primary protein source for many Amazonian communities. The contamination follows the rivers, reaching people who have never seen a mining operation but eat the fish that swim through poisoned water.

The health effects are serious and long-lasting. Mercury exposure damages the nervous system, impairs cognitive development in children, and can cause kidney and cardiovascular problems. For indigenous and riverine communities who rely on fishing for food and income, the contamination is not just an environmental issue. It is a daily health crisis with no easy workaround, and it compounds the pressures that already make life in remote Amazon communities difficult.

This is one reason why protecting the Peruvian Amazon matters so urgently. The species that depend on these waterways, from pink river dolphins to giant otters, face the same contamination through the fish they eat and the water they breathe. But the human toll is what gives the crisis its weight.

The Carbon Hidden Beneath the Surface

The visible destruction of mining is dramatic enough: stripped riverbanks, muddy pits, and stumps where canopy used to be. But some of the most serious damage happens below ground, in peatland ecosystems that most people have never heard of.

Peru’s Amazon peatlands are ancient, carbon-rich swamp forests that have been accumulating organic material for thousands of years. According to research published in Environmental Research Letters and covered by Mongabay, over 550 hectares of peatland have already been destroyed by mining, and more than 10,000 hectares face immediate risk. These are not just any hectares. Peatland stores vastly more carbon per unit area than typical rainforest. Researchers estimate that up to 14.5 million metric tons of carbon could be released if the at-risk peatlands are destroyed.

To put that in perspective, 14.5 million metric tons of carbon is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of a small country. And unlike above-ground forest, which can regrow relatively quickly, peatland takes thousands of years to accumulate its carbon stores. Once it is dug up and exposed to air, that carbon enters the atmosphere and does not go back on any human timescale. The combination of deforestation and peatland destruction means that illegal gold mining is not just a local environmental problem. It is a significant and largely underreported contributor to global carbon emissions.

Protection has to be specific: legal land security, clear boundaries, local partnerships and monitoring. For context on the wider drivers, see the four commodities linked to rainforest loss and our explainer on the Madre de Dios mining crisis.

What Real Protection Looks Like

Peru has tried enforcement. In 2019, Operation Mercury deployed military and police forces to dismantle mining camps in Madre de Dios. It was a short-term success. Deforestation dropped visibly in the targeted areas. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, mining operations rebounded and expanded into new areas, spreading beyond their traditional strongholds into regions that had previously been spared. Enforcement alone has not proven durable enough to stop the cycle.

The challenge is structural. Illegal gold mining is driven by global gold prices, poverty in mining regions, and weak governance in remote areas where roads and law enforcement are scarce. A single excavator can clear forest and process ore faster than any patrol can respond. The solution, if there is one, requires multiple approaches working together: legal protection of forest land, community-based monitoring, alternative livelihoods, and the kind of transparent, traceable conservation that makes protected areas genuinely off-limits to extraction.

This is where Fund The Planet’s work in the Ucayali region becomes directly relevant. Ucayali sits in the western Amazon, a region where mining pressure is real and growing. By legally acquiring and protecting rainforest land, FTP creates areas where extraction simply cannot happen. The boundary pinning project physically marks protected boundaries, making it harder for illegal operations to encroach on secured land without detection.

The legal protection framework that underpins FTP’s model is not symbolic. It is backed by land ownership, community partnerships, and ongoing monitoring through the Rainforest Explorer platform. Members can view their protected-area allocation in the Rainforest Explorer and receive regular updates.

The hidden cost of gold is paid by rivers that run brown with sediment, by children whose nervous systems absorb mercury from their food, and by peatlands that release carbon accumulated over millennia. Protecting the Amazon from illegal mining is not a matter of good intentions alone. It requires legal certainty, operational presence, and the kind of sustained commitment that outlasts any single enforcement operation. That is the work, and it is happening now.

The gold may be extracted in days. The damage lasts generations.

The Scale of Amazon Deforestation in 2025

The numbers from 2025 tell a complicated story. According to a new analysis by Mongabay and MAAP, total forest loss across the Amazon basin reached 736,484 hectares through direct deforestation. Fires caused an additional 1.51 million hectares of damage, bringing combined loss to well over two million hectares in a single year.

Non-fire forest loss, which serves as a proxy for human-driven deforestation, totaled 1.03 million hectares. This figure captures the clearing done by chainsaws, bulldozers, and machinery, much of it tied to expanding cattle operations and industrial agriculture. The distinction matters because fire-driven loss can be partly seasonal or accidental, while direct clearing reflects deliberate land-use decisions.

There is a sliver of progress in the data. Brazil’s Amazon deforestation dropped 30.6 percent in 2024, falling to 6,288 square kilometers according to WWF Brasil. That decline shows that policy enforcement and satellite monitoring can make a real difference. But the absolute numbers remain enormous, and the pace of loss still threatens the forest’s ability to sustain itself as a functioning ecosystem.

Nearly 132,000 hectares of 2025 deforestation occurred illegally inside protected areas and Indigenous territories. These are lands that existing laws already shield from development, yet enforcement gaps and political will allow the bulldozers in regardless. The main threats facing the Amazon rainforest today are not abstract. They are specific, measurable, and accelerating in certain corridors.

How Cattle Ranching Drives Forest Loss

Cattle ranching occupies roughly 80 percent of all deforested land in the Brazilian Amazon. The mechanism is straightforward: trees are cut or burned, grass is planted, and cattle graze until the soil is exhausted. Then the operation moves deeper into the forest. This cycle has consumed millions of hectares over the past five decades and continues to push the deforestation frontier northward and westward.

The economics reinforce the cycle. Global beef demand, particularly from China, the Middle East, and domestic Brazilian markets, makes clearing forest profitable for land speculators and ranchers alike. A hectare of cleared Amazon land can be worth five to ten times more as pasture than as standing forest, at least in the short-term calculus that drives individual decisions.

What makes the Amazon especially vulnerable is the feedback loop between deforestation and drought. As the forest shrinks, regional rainfall patterns shift. Less rain means drier conditions, which makes remaining forest more susceptible to fire, which further reduces forest cover. Scientists call this the savannification threshold, and parts of the eastern Amazon are already approaching it. The forest is not just losing trees. It is losing the conditions that allow it to regenerate.

The environmental cost extends far beyond carbon. Each hectare of cleared Amazon forest eliminates habitat for species found nowhere else on Earth, disrupts river systems that millions of people depend on for water and food, and weakens the continental weather patterns that keep rainfall flowing across South America. The loss is not contained to the immediate clearing site. Its effects ripple outward for hundreds of kilometers.

The Peruvian Amazon rainforest, a haven for endangered species, faces similar pressures from agriculture and cattle expansion, though at a different scale than Brazil. The Ucayali region, where Fund The Planet concentrates its conservation work, sits at the front line of this expansion.

Supply Chains, Accountability, and the Global Forest Watch

The beef that ends up in global supply chains passes through a web of intermediaries that makes accountability difficult. Cattle raised on recently deforested land are often sold to fattening farms on legally cleared land before slaughter, effectively laundering the deforestation signal out of the supply chain. A 2025 report from the Global Forest Watch highlights the urgent need for changes in food supply chains to address this gap.

Brazil’s government has made strides in satellite monitoring through systems like DETER and PRODES, which detect deforestation in near real-time. But detection is only half the equation. Enforcement actions against illegal clearing remain inconsistent, and political pressure from the agricultural lobby frequently weakens environmental regulations. The result is a system that can see the problem clearly but struggles to act on what it sees. Criminal networks involved in illegal land-grabbing add another layer of complexity, sometimes using violence against environmental defenders and Indigenous communities who resist encroachment on their territories.

International markets are beginning to respond. The European Union’s deforestation-free product regulation, which entered into force in 2024, requires importers to prove that beef, soy, cocoa, and other commodities were not produced on recently deforested land. Whether this regulation survives industry pushback and implementation challenges remains an open question, but it represents the most significant attempt yet to connect consumer demand with forest outcomes.

Buying rainforest land for conservation is one direct approach to countering the economic logic that makes deforestation profitable. When forested land is protected and managed for its ecological value rather than cleared for short-term grazing, the economic equation shifts permanently.

For a wider view of forest loss and its drivers, see Global Forest Watch’s global dashboard. The accompanying guides on palm oil and deforestation and the four major commodity drivers add the broader supply-chain context.

What Realistic Progress Looks Like

The 30.6 percent decline in Brazil’s Amazon deforestation during 2024 proves that the trend can be reversed. That drop came from a combination of renewed enforcement, satellite surveillance, and political will. It did not require new technology or untested policy. It required applying tools that already exist with greater consistency.

At the same time, the sheer scale of ongoing loss defies simple optimism. Over 736,000 hectares of direct deforestation and 1.51 million hectares of fire damage in a single year represent an enormous volume of destroyed habitat, carbon released, and biodiversity lost. Progress is real, but it has not yet brought the Amazon anywhere near a sustainable rate of forest loss.

Conservation models that combine direct protection with community partnership offer one path forward. The Ucayali Rainforest Reserve, supported by Fund The Planet members, protects thousands of hectares of primary forest in the Peruvian Amazon. This is not a carbon offset scheme or a distant donation. It is direct, traceable protection of specific land, verified through satellite data and on-the-ground partnerships with local communities.

Learning how to save the rainforest through actionable strategies starts with understanding that the problem is not hopeless and the solutions are not theoretical. Every hectare of forest that stays standing is a hectare that continues to cycle water, shelter wildlife, and store carbon. The connection between beef production and Amazon deforestation is direct and well-documented. The connection between informed action and forest protection is just as real. Every person who understands this connection is better positioned to support the solutions that are already working, whether through direct conservation, informed purchasing, or holding supply chains accountable for their environmental footprint.

Addressing beef production Amazon deforestation requires a multifaceted approach that prioritizes transparency and accountability within supply chains. As consumers become more aware of the link between beef production and Amazon deforestation, they can drive demand for sustainably sourced products. Governments and organizations must also enforce stricter regulations to prevent illegal land clearing and promote reforestation efforts. Ultimately, tackling beef production Amazon deforestation is not just an environmental imperative; it is a collective responsibility that involves consumers, producers, and policymakers working together to protect one of the planet’s most vital ecosystems for future generations.

Between 1980 and 2014, global palm oil production increased fifteenfold, rising from 4.5 million to 70 million tonnes annually. Today, Indonesia and Malaysia together produce about 85% of the world’s supply. The question is not whether we can grow palm oil. We clearly can. The question is whether we can do it without clearing the forests that hold some of the planet’s richest biodiversity.

Where Palm Oil Hides in Everyday Products

One reason palm oil deforestation is so hard to fight is that most consumers do not know they are buying it. The ingredient rarely appears on a label as simply “palm oil.” Instead, it hides behind a long list of derivative names: palm kernel oil, palmate, palm stearin, sodium lauryl sulfate, and dozens more. These ingredients appear across food, cosmetics, cleaning products, and personal care items.

The oil palm tree is genuinely productive. It generates about 35% of all vegetable oil worldwide while using less than 10% of the land allocated to oil crops. That efficiency is real, and it is one reason the crop expanded so quickly. But the scale of that expansion has come at a cost that efficiency alone cannot justify. You are probably consuming rainforest products every day without realizing it, and palm oil is one of the most common.

For consumers who want to understand what they are actually buying, the first step is awareness. Apps and guides exist to decode ingredient lists, but the sheer number of palm oil derivatives makes this a challenge. The real leverage point is not just individual label-reading. It is pushing brands toward supply chain transparency and holding certification schemes accountable for what they promise.

In Borneo, IUCN reports that at least half of deforestation recorded between 2005 and 2015 was related to oil-palm development. The pattern matters because plantations can turn one continuous forest into isolated fragments that are harder for wildlife and local communities to use.

How Palm Oil Drives Deforestation

The connection between palm oil and forest loss is not abstract. On the island of Borneo, at least 50% of all deforestation between 2005 and 2015 was linked to oil palm expansion. That destruction fragmented some of the oldest tropical forests on Earth and displaced Indigenous communities who had protected those forests for generations. Borneo’s deforestation story shows what happens when a single commodity drives land-use decisions at industrial scale.

Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, lost 433,751 hectares of forest in 2025, a 66% increase from the previous year. Of that total, oil palm accounted for 14%, or roughly 37,483 hectares. Those numbers matter, but they also understate the risk. According to Trase and the Stockholm Environment Institute, 2.4 million hectares of intact forest remain inside Indonesia’s existing oil palm concessions. That is forest already designated for potential clearing, forest that has not been cut yet but could be.

The biodiversity toll is staggering. The IUCN reports that palm oil expansion affects at least 193 threatened species globally. These are not abstract statistics. They include orangutans, Sumatran tigers, pygmy elephants, and hundreds of lesser-known species whose habitats overlap with oil palm zones. When a forest is cleared for a plantation, it is not just trees that disappear. It is the entire web of life that depended on them.

RSPO certification gives companies a framework for sourcing certified sustainable palm oil. It can be a useful signal, but a label is not proof by itself. Look for traceability, a public sourcing policy and evidence that forest clearing is excluded.

What Certification Actually Delivers

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created to address these problems. It certifies palm oil produced under standards that prohibit clearing primary forest and require environmental protections. In theory, buying products with RSPO-certified palm oil should support better practices. In practice, the picture is more complicated.

Studies have found that certification schemes often struggle with enforcement, traceability, and scope. Not all palm oil in a certified product may actually be certified. Some critics point out that RSPO covers only a fraction of global production. Greenwashing is a real concern here, and consumers deserve honest answers about what labels actually guarantee. Certification is not worthless, but it is not a silver bullet either.

That said, the direction of travel is positive. More companies are publishing supply chain data. More consumers are asking questions. Indonesia’s government has imposed moratoriums on new plantation permits in certain areas. The system is far from perfect, but it is moving. The challenge is making that movement fast enough to protect the forests that remain.

Start with the products and supply chains you use most. Our guides to rainforest products in everyday life, deforestation in Borneo and spotting greenwashing can help make those questions more practical.

What You Can Actually Do

Avoiding palm oil entirely is technically possible but practically difficult, given how many products contain it or its derivatives. A more realistic approach combines several strategies that push the system from different angles.

Start by looking for products that disclose their palm oil sourcing. Brands that name their suppliers and publish traceability reports are doing more than those that hide behind vague sustainability claims. Support organizations working to protect intact rainforest before it enters the supply chain. Direct rainforest protection, the kind Fund The Planet pursues in the Peruvian Ucayali region, keeps standing forest out of reach of agricultural expansion entirely.

Advocacy matters too. Push for stronger regulations on deforestation-linked imports. The EU’s deforestation regulation, which requires companies to prove their products are not linked to recent forest loss, is a step in that direction. Consumer pressure on brands has real effects when it is sustained and specific.

The palm oil problem is not going away overnight. But the forests that remain are still standing, and the choices made in the next decade will determine whether they stay that way. How to save the rainforest is not a mystery. It requires protecting what exists, demanding transparency from the industries that profit from its destruction, and supporting the people and organizations doing that work on the ground.