Washington: The world lost an area of old-growth tropical rainforest the size of Switzerland last year, as deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon continued unabated, a forest monitoring project report said on Tuesday.

Global Forest Watch, which is backed by the nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI) and draws on forest data collected by the University of Maryland, revealed that about 41,000 sq km of tropical rainforest was lost in 2022.

That was the final year of Jair Bolsonaro’s government in Brazil, which accounted for more than 40 per cent of all losses. Despite a recent global pledge to reach zero deforestation by 2030, tropical forest loss last year exceeded 2021 levels.

“2022 numbers are particularly disheartening,” said Francis Seymour, a WRI official. “We had hoped by now to see a signal in the data that we were turning the corner on forest loss.”

Global Forest Watch assessed ‘primary forests’, which include mature forests that have not been cleared or regrown in recent history.

Such forests protect against climate change because they absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide. Last year’s losses in the tropics released some 2.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to India’s annual fossil fuel emissions, the report said.

Indonesia and Mala­ysia managed to keep forest loss near a record low, continuing a multiyear streak of stamping down deforestation driven by oil palm plantations.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2023