Despite its vital role in supporting life on Earth, forest protection remains outpaced by the scale of its destruction. Four years to the deadline, a UN report takes stock of the global progress related to forest goals. The sobering reality highlights significant gaps and calls for greater actions to realize sustainable forest management.

The Global Forest Goals

Forests are home to millions of species—animals, plants, and more. The areas, known as the Earth’s lung, are key actors in maintaining healthy ecosystems and regulating climate for environmental and societal wellbeing. Yet, forests are facing multiple pressures globally that threaten these very functions.

In 2017, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a strategic plan setting out a long-term vision for the world’s forests. The United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030 has six goals and 26 associated targets, including to reverse forest loss, enhance benefits for people, and strengthen cross-sectoral and international cooperation.

Nine years after the framework’s adoption, the Global Forest Goals Report 2026 was published as a second progress report for the goals. Similar to the first forest goals report published in 2021, the report largely draws upon voluntary national reports submitted by 48 countries between 2024 and 2026 cycle. These countries represent 51% of the global forest areas. 

Continued Forest Loss

Out of 26 targets, two are notably off track. Being off track means that current pace is clearly not enough to meet the objective within the decided time frame in 2030.

The first unmet target is “increasing global forest area by 3%”, which falls under the goal of reversing forest loss. The report looks into the data from FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 and finds an almost 1% decrease—over 40 million hectares—of the total global forest area between 2015 and 2025. 

The loss includes 16 million hectares of primary forests. Primary forests are forests generally unmodified by human activities, with natural regeneration and other ecological processes that are largely undisturbed. As such, losing hectares of these precious ecosystems means losing unique and highly valuable carbon storage and habitats for endemic and threatened species. 

The progress report cites agricultural expansion as one persisting challenge. In South America, which the report notes has the biggest annual forest loss, agricultural and pasture expansion drove the loss of over 19 million hectares of forest in the Gran Chaco region in the last 30 years. Specifically in Argentina and Paraguay, Carpenter et al. (2025) found that beef and soy production is associated with the decline of 47 key mammal species between 2008 and 2018. 

Meanwhile, soaring demand for forest products, from timbers to fuels, also counts as a major driver of forest loss and degradation. 

Persistent Poverty

The rising demand of forest products supposedly can indicate improved livelihoods for people working to supply them. However, the target of eradicating extreme poverty for all forest-dependent people remains off track, the report reveals.

Defining ‘forest-dependent people’ can be rather tricky as we all depend on forest and its related products one way or another. A study by Newton et al. (2016) examining existing literature found that there are multiple dimensions in people-forest relationships. In terms of livelihoods, people can be considered forest-dependent if their daily needs, such as food, fodder, and medicinal plants, are in part derived from forests. Additionally, people who earn income from selling forest products or services can also be seen as forest-dependent.

Looking into the World Bank’s data, the Global Forest Goals Report notes that despite global progress in poverty eradication, several regions with a high number of forest-dependent people showed little change. In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty, defined as USD 3 per person per day, is still close to 46%. Millions of people in the region’s rural households depend on forests and forest resources for energy, small-scale agriculture, and commercial income.

While measures to reduce poverty and enhance livelihoods exist, persistent barriers limit their effectiveness. Community forest and agroforestry, for example, grapple with weak market access and limited financial capacity.  

Greater Actions, Better Cooperations

Aside from the two off track ones, there seven broadly met targets and 17 partially achieved targets. The unfulfilled targets of the Global Forest Goals reflect the urgency for greater actions and better cooperation at international and country levels.

The report underscores improving coordination between agriculture and forest policies as a crucial part in reducing the loss of primary forest. With agricultural expansion being the major culprit of deforestation, developing deforestation-free supply chains for agricultural goods is also vital. The EU’s Deforestation Regulation is among the initiatives that aims to tackle deforestation and forest degradation across supply chains. 

Furthermore, boosting livelihoods for communities who depend on forests can be done through improved market access, financial and technical capacity, and legal protection for land tenure. To this day, weak legal recognition for Indigenous land rights and women’s tenure rights still prevent communities from managing their land properly to support their wellbeing. 

Ultimately, realizing sustainable forest management entails seeing forests not as profit-making machines, but as an essential pillar to societal and environmental wellbeing. 

Editor: Nazalea Kusuma

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