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History of Baltic Yachts

Baltic Yachts is a world-leading yacht builder that's built on a strong heritage of design and engineering excellence. The company was founded in 1973 by a team of experienced yachtsmen and craftsmen who sought to create a range of high-performance, custom-made yachts that blended innovative technology with traditional craftsmanship. Since its inception, the Finland-based company has consistently pushed the boundaries of yacht design and construction, establishing itself as a market leader in the luxury yacht sector.

The boat manufacturer started operations in the village of Bosund on the west coast of Finland. The early years were focused on catering to the local market, but Baltic Yachts quickly gained international recognition, with its sailboats being praised for their advanced design, excellent performance, and superior build quality. Significant milestones in the company's history include launching the cutting-edge Baltic 141 Canova in 2019, which showcased the manufacturer's technological prowess with its innovative DSS foil system.

Today, Baltic Yachts continues its tradition of excellence at its state-of-the-art shipyard in Jakobstad, Finland. The shipyard is renowned for its advanced facilities and skilled workforce, excelling in carbon fibre technology to deliver some of the world's most advanced yachts. Despite progressing towards larger and more complex yachts, the company remains true to its core values, delivering boats of exceptional quality and performance that exemplify the best of Scandinavian design and craftsmanship.

Which models do Baltic Yachts produce?

Baltic Yachts produce a range of boats including the Baltic Yachts 51 , Baltic Yachts 66 , Baltic Yachts 62 , Baltic Yachts 37 and Baltic Yachts 46 . For the full list of Baltic Yachts models currently listed on TheYachtMarket.com, see the model list in the search options on this page.

What types of boats do Baltic Yachts build?

Baltic Yachts manufactures a range of different types of boats. The ones listed on TheYachtMarket include Sloop , Cruiser , Offshore cruiser , Cruiser/racer and Bluewater cruiser .

How much does a boat from Baltic Yachts cost?

Used boats from Baltic Yachts on TheYachtMarket.com range in price from £36,200 GBP to £2,150,000 GBP with an average price of £500,000 GBP . A wide range of factors can affect the price of used boats from Baltic Yachts, for example the model, age and condition.

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Baltic Yachts

Baltic Yachts has been building high-tech, semi-custom sailing yachts, and custom superyachts since the early 1970s. While working for Finnish shipyard Nautor, five young builders decided to split from the firm and create their own legacy. Baltic Yachts was created to fill the niche of high-quality sailing yachts for racing applications. Baltic Yachts would continue to innovate with lightweight materials such as carbon fiber and new building techniques to reduce weight.

2 years later in 1975, Baltic Yachts would be acquired by Finnish shipbuilder Hollming Ltd., enabling expansion of its marketing efforts.

• Year Established 1973
• Shipyard Location Finnland
• Boat Construction
• Boat Category Luxury Yacht, Superyachts , Megayachts

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Baltic Yachts are some of the finest built-in Finland. The yard started building yachts in the 80s and accumulated experience on the 20+ superyachts they delivered over the years. The yard has been delivering yachts of the utmost quality up to 66m and 340GT.

Whether you are taking the very first step towards Superyacht ownership or already have a fleet, a Baltic Yacht is a strong buy.

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Yachting World

• Digital Edition

Baltic 67 review: Finnish superyacht yard goes back to its roots with no-compromise cruiser

• Toby Hodges
• March 28, 2019

When a renowned superyacht yard builds a 67-footer for short-handed cruising you can be sure the result will be something special

Were money no object and you wanted the ultimate yacht for long-term cruising, what would you choose? How large could you go without needing a paid crew? What do you really need length and space for and how important is displacement and potential speed to you?

These were the sort of questions crowding into my head on first viewing the sensational new Baltic 67 at the Cannes Yachting Festival . It is truly striking. The quality of the yacht is undeniably world class, but it’s the precision of design and engineering that soon absorbs you.

The owner of this first boat is a highly experienced cruising sailor, boat owner and navigator, so joining him for a 24-hour trial from Mallorca proved the ideal way to get under the gleaming composite skin of this athletic new model.

The concept is about combining the pleasure of pure sailing with ease of handling for long-distance cruising at high average speeds. It is the alternative to a full custom yacht – all the engineering is already calculated – but a great deal of flexibility has been worked into the design, with options including single or twin rudders, a fixed or telescopic keel, multiple cabin layouts, and a carbon or epoxy sandwich hull.

Wanting to return to its mid-size fast cruiser roots, Baltic Yachts teamed up with designers and fellow in-demand superyacht specialists Judel Vrolijk and Design Unlimited. The result is this exceedingly attractive, modern-looking sloop, with a powerful hull shape, a flush foredeck and a low-profile coachroof.

Powered sail handling systems means Manyeleti can be sailed by just two

The Baltic 67 is very much at the luxury and custom end of the production yacht scale, so our light wind trial of the boat focused more on the various choices and details aboard and how they might be relevant to sailors in general. Hull number one in particular had a lot of owner input.

Manyeleti , the first 67, belongs to Erik Lindgren. It is his fifth yacht from Baltic after a string of upgrades that started with a used 39 in 1989. “It’s very different to design and build your own boat – in my case using nearly 30 years of offshore sailing experience,” Lindgren explains.

Swede Lindgren travelled to the yard once a month and was in daily contact with the project manager, Kjell Vesto.

The Lindgrens’ plan is to head off on another world cruise in a couple of years time, when Erik’s teenage children have finished school. His shakedown sail involved a 5,000-mile trip from Finland to and around the Mediterranean.

“Not a single thing broke,” he reports, saluting Baltic’s build quality. “I could literally go to El Corte Inglés, stock up, fuel up and sail across the Atlantic.”

CNB 76 boat test – more boat for your money

It may sound daunting, but it seems 60ft is no longer a big boat. In typical Philippe Briand fashion the…

Walk the course with Mike Broughton- navigator onboard the brand new Baltic 115 Nikata

Start date:  Monday 22nd February 2016 Course: Approx. 600nm non-stop around 11 Caribbean Islands Organised by: The Royal Ocean Racing…

The Baltic 67 is as big as you can go without needing a pro crew, argues Erik Lindgren.  “I’ve spent a lot of time on World ARC boats… it’s the details that make living on board easier. This is a technical boat, but is less dependent on systems than our old Baltic 56. On the other hand it’s great to have aircon and a lifting keel.

“Half the time spent aboard will be for long distance stuff and holidays for the two of us, but a lot of the time will be spent with friends and family too.”

Privacy at this size is a big benefit. “I have no need to have a big boat for show,” says Lindgren, “but I wanted to have the things I need.”

The retractable arm for the anchor roller is an engineering masterpiece. It rises from the anchor locker at the touch of a button

The most important features he wanted, which help explain the jump in size from his previous 56, were a furling boom, a large, practical galley, four cabins and a tender garage large enough to house a forward-facing dinghy. While his yachts have grown and become more complex, Lindgren maintains that the methodical way Baltic builds boats results in a lot fewer problems.

A carbon furling boom is an eye-watering investment, but it does make the hoisting, reefing and lowering of sails a quick and largely hassle-free procedure. It can make the difference to whether you go sailing or not. Within minutes of leaving Palma’s breakwaters, we had main and jib unfurled and were matching the 8 knot wind speeds.

Manyeleti is hull number one in the Baltic 67 series

Easy performance

The Hall carbon boom uses an electric mandrel motor that is synchronised with the halyard to avoid too much sail spilling out during a hoist. The traveller is also electric, while the sheet car pullers, backstay, vang and furlers are hydraulically-operated. The result is the ease of push-button sailing typically used on modern performance superyachts.

We spent the first few hours reaching across Palma Bay. Despite having 24 hours aboard, the most breeze we found was 11 knots, which translated to 9.5 knots boatspeed – very respectable under white sails only (fully battened main and non-overlapping jib). The majority of the time was spent close-hauled, matching the single-figure wind, even exceeding it when it dropped below 6 knots.

Neat details: the forward end of the jib car puller, which is hydraulically powered

I found myself gravitating to the side deck to sit and steer, instinctively wanting to sail the Baltic 67 like a cruiser-racer. There are good views over the low coachroof and flush foredeck, but nothing except freeboard height to prevent a wet backside if the decks ship green water.

The helmsman can also sit forward of the wheel and reach the two winches. I like the way the primary is mounted inboard, though the positioning of the turning block for the jib sheet creates an obstacle on the side deck. Baltic reasons that it helps provide the option to use either winch for the sheet.

Speed for oceans

A flying sail would have helped to get the most out of the conditions, but Lindgren was still awaiting delivery of a Code 0 and A3, both on top-down furlers. However, even when the evening breeze died to around 4-5 knots, the Baltic 67 still provided an enjoyable experience on the helm. It’s rare that you can say such a thing while only using main and jib.

The 67 is designed for potent offwind performance, to limit engine use on transocean voyages. The aggressive sail area to displacement ratio of 30.9 is possibly taking things too far: the boat has so much power to weight that it will need to be treated as a real performance cruiser and tamed accordingly (i.e. reefed early). But what our trial sail did show was how well the Baltic 67 fulfils its brief of being able to offer enjoyable sailing in light wind.

“Bluewater boats don’t usually sail in 10-15 knots downwind – and we had a lot of that,” Lindgren points out, with reference to their previous Pacific crossing. “At 150º true, this boat is sailing at 8-9 knots, which is a big difference. As long as you are over 8 knots you are properly moving through the water,” he reasons. “Below that you’re in the swell and not in control.”

The twin pedestals are well designed to site plotter screens and remote controls for powered deck functions and sail handling

With the relatively low coachroof and cockpit backrests and aft positioning of the helms, protection from the elements may be a concern. When you look at Baltic’s large new designs in build, the 142 and 146, both have lengthy deckhouses that provide plenty of protection. But it chose the more in-vogue deck design for this semi-custom size, so its solutions for cockpit protection depend largely on a retractable sprayhood and bimini. These can remain in place while sailing and have already been tested in up to 40 knots.

The cockpit area on this first Baltic 67 has been adapted according to the owners’ wishes, including a narrower space between benches and no fixed table. The Lindgrens like to be able to brace feet between benches and to be able to sleep on the sole between them when offshore. The table and carbon legs stow beneath the central saloon soleboards.

We anchored at dusk at Es Trenc beach, 25 miles to the south-east of Palma, in water so clear we could pick the spot to drop the hook between weed patches. The ability to anchor in less than 4m amply demonstrated the appeal of a lifting keel. The keel system, from the highly reputable Italian brand APM, raises the T-keel hydraulically up to 2.5m.

The anchor arrangement is another fine piece of engineering: the arm is concealed in a shallow locker and rotates over and into place at the push of a button. The roller then extends out to keep it clear of the stem. The second Baltic 67 will have a fixed roller incorporated into the bowsprit.

The furling jib and powered padeye are recessed neatly

Open transom choice

The garage houses a 3.2m dinghy stowed longitudinally, with the engine mounted, between the dual rudders. Lindgren chose an AB tender with aluminium hull (53kg). It has a 20hp outboard so can plane with four adults yet is light enough to be dragged up the beach. He also opted for an open transom that, although an unconventional choice for ocean cruising, gives easy access to the swim platform and dinghy.

There is copious stowage space throughout the Baltic 67. In addition to the tall sail locker in the forepeak, the aft quarter lockers easily swallow electric bikes, inflatable paddleboards, snorkel gear, waterskis, spare fuel and a liferaft valise. Here there’s also access to the steering gear with independent autopilots used on both quadrants.

I particularly like the way multiple Antal T-lock fittings are flush-mounted along the toerail and in the cockpit. These enable quick and easy swivelling toggles to be inserted for loops and blocks, or for harness attachments.

Weight versus noise

The following morning was windless, leaving us with a three-hour motor back to Palma. The 150hp six-cylinder Steyr was specified for its low noise and emissions, and drives a four-blade Bruntons prop via a standard shaft.

E-glass was chosen over the standard carbon hull. Lindgren’s previous Baltic 56 was carbon and he wanted the better noise insulation over the weight difference (up to one tonne). The 67 is a very quiet, relaxing boat under motor, with no need to raise voices under power.

The spacious saloon has enough room for both dining and coffee tables

Down below the Baltic is an aircon-cooled haven of charm and exquisite quality. The more time I spent aboard and the more I learned of the systems and engineering, the more I began to appreciate what sets this boat apart.

The Design Unlimited styling is elegant and tasteful, with a mahogany finish on this first boat. With four different layout configurations plenty of scope is allowed for owner customisation. But behind the scenes is what you really pay for with the Baltic. It’s the telling result of what happens when a yard goes down in model size – this 67 is built like a superyacht.

For example, the engine room, used for hot items like engine, genset and water-heater, links through to a proper mechanical/utility room abaft the galley, where equipment is mounted on three walls for easy access (including chargers, inverters, pumps, watermaker and compressors).

“The thinking is that everything should be in reach and that you should be able to maintain it easily,” says Lindgren, pointing to the Spectra watermaker (his fourth) mounted on one bulkhead.

The boat’s systems are beautifully laid out for ease of inspection and maintenance

Stowage throughout has been brilliantly conceived. The 2,000lt of water and diesel tanks, plus the batteries, are all mounted centrally, under the saloon, leaving cavernous practical stowage under the berths. Custom-made fabric bags are used under the saloon seats to maximise useable volume.

Lifting the carbon sandwich soleboards at the base of the companionway reveals the sea chests and main manifolds for fuel and water, a prime example of the meticulous and practical systems layout. The 1,440Ah of lithium gel batteries further forward have a reservoir surrounding them, which can cool the cells if necessary without flooding them. And there are custom-made drip trays below any filters to prevent mess or corrosion.

The keel uses a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to activate the hydraulics, the cylinders for which can be replaced from within the boat. All other electrics are on manual relays. The fuse locker is a work of art and opens out for full access to the wiring, with every wire and fuse numbered and labelled.

Smart cabin choice

Manyeleti ’s owner’s cabin, with adjoining heads and shower in the forwardmost section, has an offset double berth positioned aft by the main bulkhead, a relatively central area of the boat to sleep. However, on passage, Lindgren says he sleeps on deck, or in the single cabin amidships. There are also leecloths on the saloon berths, a comfortable option if guests don’t want to share the twins.

The owner’s cabin is (purposefully) the only one aboard Manyeleti to feature a double bed

There is a good reason why there is only one double bed. Lindgren often sails with male friends, hence twin and single berths are a pragmatic choice. The use of a split heads and shower shared between the twin and single cabins is also sensible.

The central section of the interior is superb, with a traditional lower saloon, a navstation beside the companionway and a formidable U-shaped galley. It was important to the Lindgrens that the galley was large enough for two to work in yet still be seamanlike. The result is a very practical area with superb chilled, dried goods and crockery stowage. Ventilation ducts keep it nice and cool, though personally I’d want to have a hatch through to the cockpit.

Lindgren swears by the dishwasher, reasoning that it uses less water than washing up and helps keep the galley tidy. This and an induction cooker would be sensible options if you had sufficient power, and would avoid the need for gas.

The exemplary finish and smaller details help furnish the boat with a top quality feel. From the hinges, light switches and showerheads to the gas sprung hatches and overall joiner work, the Baltic 67 oozes quality.

The Baltic 67 has been designed with short-handed sailing in mind

Baltic 67: the verdict

Baltic has spent the last decade building some of the finest performance superyachts. You don’t receive commissions for yachts such as Hetairos , Pink Gin VI , or My Song without a top reputation, and to get that sort of quality on a 67-footer is truly special. Attention to detail and class of engineering and finish are hallmarks of this new model.

The Baltic 67 has the performance in light airs to match her on-trend looks and is a joy to helm. The choice of a comparatively unprotected cockpit and an open transom may not sit well with conventional bluewater sailors, but times are changing and this design is aimed as much at port-hopping from Portofino as at Pacific passagemaking . It is the solutions, stowage and systems employed throughout that help make it a valid option for distance cruising.

The Baltic 67 has the legs to outrun virtually any other cruising monohull and to keep sailing fast in light apparent winds. To know you’re buying the best in terms of design and composite build – and created by the same team involved in a yacht that costs tens of millions – must help compensate for the significant initial outlay. For the rest of us, we can but dream.

Specification

LOA: 20.52m (67ft 4in)

LWL: 19.20m (62ft 12in)

Beam (max): 5.45m (17ft 11in)

Draught (max): 3.90m (12ft 10in)

Draught (telescopic): 2.50m (8ft 2in)

Displacement (lightship): 24,400kg (53,792lb)

Ballast: 9,000kg (19,841lb)

Sail Area: 255.6m2 (2,751ft2)

Berths: 7-8

Engine: 150hp

Water: 1,000lt (220gal)

Fuel: 900lt (198gal)

Sail Area/disp ratio: 30.9

Disp/LWL ratio: 96

Price: €3.95 million (ex. VAT)

Design: Judel/Vrolijk & Co and Design Unlimited

Half a century at the cutting edge

Fifty years ago in Finland five young men shared a controversial idea and an ambitious plan. They quit their jobs at Nautor and set out to create a new style of offshore cruiser racer – lighter, stiffer and faster than almost anything else on the market.

‘We just got together one day and the idea came up,’ says Per-Göran “PG” Johansson, one of the five founding fathers of Baltic Yachts back then and still one of its directors today. ‘We were not alone thinking “light is better” but most boatyards and naval architects favoured heavier designs. Some of our competitors published studies for marketing purposes arguing that heavy was better. One of their claims was “heavy does not stop in waves due to the inertia of the mass”. Another was “the client gets more kilos for his money”. We remained convinced and carried on with our lightweight, hi-tech way.’

History soon proved Johansson and his colleagues to be absolutely correct and the company they founded became a world leader in the production of large, high-performance sailing yachts.

Before any of it could happen, first they had to clear a patch of pine forest at Bosund near Jakobstad and build a shed in which to do it.

Still in use as a joinery workshop, that first shed is finally about to be decommissioned along with the whole facility that grew up around it. This year, Baltic Yachts is moving all operations to Jakobstad where a new state-of-the-art building will more than double the size of its existing waterfront location.

There’s a world of difference between the series-produced Baltics of the 1970s and the full-custom superyachts that have become the yard’s primary focus alongside its ongoing small-series, semi-custom production.

However, from the first Baltic 46 Diva (now Queen Anne) all the way to its current projects via some of the most advanced sailing yachts in each of the last three decades, the core DNA is arguably unchanged.

‘Baltic Yachts is still very much true to its original values,’ Johansson says. ‘We started as a series production yard but with more flexibility built in than most competitors, using hi-tech methods to achieve better sailing performance and handling characteristics. With time we moved over more and more to full custom projects, which required changes in our approach.

‘The projects became more individual in concept, in styling and in materials and methods used.

In that process you lose some of the things that originally earned your company its reputation. However, even our cruising projects have been very hi-tech and in that sense they’ve followed our original philosophy, “lighter is faster and better”. Some of the high-performance projects challenged us to take technology much further, increasing our know-how and potential.’

Eagerness to embrace technology prompted the founding of Baltic Yachts in the first place. Johansson was project manager of the Swan 65 when he tried and failed to convince his managers that it could be built lighter, stiffer and better using sandwich construction with unidirectional fibres instead of a single laminate with woven rovings.

The five who left Nautor – boatbuilders Jan-Erik Nyfelt and Nils Luoma, purchasing manager Ingmar Sundelin, designer Tor Hinders and Johansson – became the nucleus of Baltic Yachts.

Baltic Yachts – major milestone boats 1974-2022

1974 Baltic 46 Ahead of its time: tank tests, sandwich construction, unidirectional fibres, balanced spade rudder, epoxy bonded teak deck…

1977 Baltic 39 Most popular model, 74 in six years. From 1980, one of the first yachts to have computer-generated VPP

1979 Baltic 51 Notable for interior design innovations. First double-berth cabin under an aft cockpit, slanted bulkheads for optimal use of space

1982 Baltic 80 Midnight Sun Baltic Yachts’ first maxi racer and one of the first maxis with full glassfibre composite construction.

1985 Baltic 43 Bully The first offshore sailing yacht in the world built entirely with epoxy resin

1996 Baltic 67 Aledoa The first cruising yacht built entirely in pre-preg carbon

1996 Baltic 87 Anny First Baltic with a lifting keel, complex hydraulics and push-button sail controls

1997 Baltic 70 Vittfarne First Baltic yacht to combine classic appearance with hitech construction and modern hydrodynamics

1997 Baltic 70 Loftfari The first yacht with a fully fitted interior built entirely in pre-preg carbon and Nomex honeycomb, all invisible under the teak veneer finish

Baltic 78 Super Baltic 5 Canting keel with its entire mechanism under the cabin sole; 3.5kts faster than the same yacht with a fixed keel

2002 Baltic 147 Visione The first superyacht capable of planing at 30 knots. Packed with unique innovations, ultra-light displacement (105T) and almost literally no expense spared

2003 Baltic 141 Canica A very complex build and fitout with hi-tech materials, construction techniques and systems. The first Baltic ‘super cruiser’

2011 Baltic 197 Hetairos Largest carbon composite sailing yacht in the world at 221ft LOA. Classic look, superb finish. Hi-tech build and hydrodynamics

Baltic 175 Pink Gin The largest full carbon sloop in the world to date. Unique fold-down, through-hull platforms in the saloon and owner’s suite

2019 Baltic 142 Canova First DSS foil on an ocean cruising superyacht. First hybrid drive with full regeneration. Advanced composite engineering. A giant leap into the future

2022 Baltic 68 Pink Gin Verde First Baltic yacht built with 50% flax fibre. Advanced electric/hybrid propulsion, super efficient systems

‘They had a strong belief in themselves, courage to swim upstream and test new ideas,’ Baltic Yachts’ marketing manager Elisabet Holm explains. ‘They all had a passion for boats, a strong driving force to learn new things and research technology, and they were always ready to meet new challenges.’

The original Baltic 46 was far ahead of its time. At a time when nearly all new designs simply relied on the naval architect’s eye, experience and intuition, several different hull models were tank tested across a range of speeds, at various heel and leeway angles before the design of the 46 was finalised and only then was it built. It had a balanced spade rudder and solid rod rigging, which were then used only on hi-tech racing yachts and its teak deck was laid with epoxy resin. But the hull laminate itself was the key innovation.

‘In those days most yards building larger yachts used woven rovings with fibres bent, not straight, hence not structurally optimal and they also resulted in resin concentration,’ Johasson explains.

‘You could see the roving patterns on the surface, due to resin shrinking, so before applying the rovings they used several layers of chopped mat, which has very low structural value, especially on larger yachts, but added a lot of weight.

‘We used a very thin surface cloth and the rest of the laminate was unidirectional fibres, oriented in the direction of the stresses and perfectly straight, hence stronger and stiffer.

‘The fibres we used did not create resin concentration so there was less print-through on the hull surface. Unidirectional does not build up thickness like woven rovings so we used them with a core material in sandwich construction. This achieved much higher panel stiffness than a single laminate and gave us more flexibility for panel sizes.’

End grain balsa was the core for the 46 but Baltic soon switched to foam cores with a variety of densities and strengths. Carbon fibre was used from 1979, initially in rudder posts, beam tops and to reinforce high-stress areas of the hull where extra stiffness was needed. As stabilised foams for high-temperature cures and then Nomex for pre-preg carbon construction became available, Baltic pioneered the use of those materials.

Baltic Yachts’ early achievements belie the fact that it faced strong headwinds right from the start. 1973 was a bad year to launch a new brand of sailing yachts, with the global oil crisis looming.

The yachting industry as a whole was hit hard and by 1977 Baltic had to seek outside investment to stay in business. Ironically that same year saw their first major commercial success, selling 12 Baltic 39s at the Hamburg Boat Show, which was unheard of at the time.

Hollming, a Finnish shipbuilder, acquired Baltic. Two of the founders, Nils Luoma and Ingmar Sundelin, quit but the takeover turned out to be a positive move. Hollming provided stability and investment to help Baltic grow. A huge production hall was built, funds were provided for new model development and marketing.

An unusual aspect of Baltic Yachts that undoubtedly worked in its favour was the dual role of Johansson. It’s rare that the technical guru of a major boatbuilder is also its head of sales and marketing, yet he combined both jobs with great success for 40 years.

Even now, though officially retired, he still frequently offers a guiding hand in the development of new projects and the current EVP, Henry Hawkins, describes him as ‘an unbelievably useful sounding board and wise head’.

Baltic’s in-house designer Tor Hinders made his mark by changing the way boats are fitted out down below. His stand-out innovation, which was met with hostility when introduced in 1979 on the Baltic 51 but has since been copied by almost every sailing yacht builder in the world, was to put a double-berth cabin under an aft cockpit.

Another key factor in Baltic Yachts’ early success was its partnership with the Canadian naval architects C&C Design, whose chief engineer Rob Ball was among the first in the industry to start using computers. From 1980 he supplied VPP – polar curves and tables of numbers – for the Baltic 39, 51 and 37, with detailed instructions on how to use them. Despite being generated by 2D computing (as 3D models were not yet available), Johansson says those first VPP numbers were accurate and useful.

The yard was quick to develop its own computing expertise. ‘As soon as programmable calculators and then the Epson HX-20 computer became available we saw their potential and started to use them,’ Johansson says. ‘There was no software so we did our own coding.’ By the early 1980s they were already using these tools for displacement, flotation and trim calculations, laminate design and rating optimisation.

A huge quantity of data has been compiled since then and the initially simple programs have evolved into a sophisticated suite of software that enables the technical team to make extremely detailed weight and load calculations for the hull and rig of any new design, study engine power, prop pitch and range for electric and conventional propulsion systems, and much more. The yard has never had any ambition to design its own yachts, but is quite often asked by clients to do preliminary studies before a naval architect is appointed.

The 1980s were the peak of series production but Baltic Yachts but they also began pushing the boundaries of performance with custom builds with more scope for creative technical development.

‘A series production model is always to some degree a compromise,’ Johansson says. ‘On custom projects you can take things much further. For very knowledgeable clients looking for performance we have taken things to the edge.’

The 80ft Midnight Sun was one of the first maxis with full composite construction, launched in 1982. ‘The forward part was a large, empty sail store and we used specially designed longitudinal bulkheads and framework in the upper corner between hull and deck to create the required stiffness,’ Johansson recalls.

The Baltic 43 Bully was the first offshore yacht built entirely in epoxy resin, in 1985. In technical terms this was a spin-off from an earlier R&D project, developing ultra-strong vacuum-infused sandwich laminates for a Soviet deep-sea submarine, which ruffled diplomatic feathers when the Americans found out about it. ‘The main unit was solid steel; we built a streamlined cover around the equipment,’ he says. ‘If you send a normal laminate down to 6,000m it will not be the same afterwards. We learned a few things from that project.’

In 1990, Baltic regained its independence. Finland’s industrial sector was in recession and Hollming needed to focus on its core business. ‘They asked us to arrange a management takeover,’ Johansson explains. ‘The yard was an important workplace for the local community and to shut it would have been very destructive. We were 32 employees who got together, took over and continued the business.’

Marketing manager Lisbeth Staffans stepped up to be managing director and led Baltic Yachts for two decades from a challenging start. ‘With a bad order book and uncertain future there were sleepless nights at the beginning of this new era,’ Johansson says. ‘Lisbeth was a very good person for that job. We couldn’t afford to make any mistakes and she made sure we didn’t. But this period is the one I’m most proud of. We did a good job, moved up in the size of our projects and stayed profitable.’

Innovation continued apace with production manager Christer Lill running a remarkably tight operation as the yachts ramped up rapidly in sophistication and size. In 1996 they launched 67ft Aledoa, the world’s first pre-preg carbon cruiser, and 87ft Anny – their first with a lifting keel, twin rudders and complex hydraulics. She had full push-button sail controls and a tender could be driven straight into the automatic opening-andlowering garage in her stern.

The following year, the Baltic 70 Vittfarne heralded a new style of yacht combining classic appearance and fine traditional craftsmanship with hitech construction, light displacement and modern hydrodynamics. ‘Bill Dixon’s team did a fantastic job on the design and our carpenters performed magic in building it,’ Johansson says.

Another Baltic 70, also launched in 1997, took carbon composite sandwich construction to a new level. The fully fitted interior of Loftfari was built almost entirely in pre-preg carbon/ Nomex honeycomb as well as her hull and deck, saving a large amount of additional weight.

It looked traditional, though, with thin veneers and fillets of teak covering all of the composite surfaces. Most Baltic yachts are now fitted out in a similar way.

The 78ft Super Baltic 5, delivered in 2000, was a major feat of engineering with a canting keel whose entire mechanism was installed in the shallow bilge beneath the saloon sole. She was calculated to be at least 3.5kts faster than an identical yacht with a fixed keel.

At the turn of the millennium Loftfari’s owner came back to Baltic with an impossible design brief, ‘or so it seemed at first,’ Johansson says. ‘To build a yacht in excess of 140ft capable of planing at 30 knots or more.’

The project was an immense challenge, not least because their largest build up to then was a 97- footer. Two years of development work followed before the owner gave the green light for the build to proceed. Remarkably the yacht was delivered six months ahead of schedule and exceeded all expectations.

Packed with unique innovations and with almost literally no expense spared, the Baltic 147 Visione was far ahead of her time and despite being 20 years old she is still quite capable of taking line honours in superyacht regattas today.

In build at the same time, the 141ft Canica challenged the yard in different ways. Performance was key but a lot of equipment and systems were also required to ensure a very high level of comfort on board. ‘That was the first yacht we built with a full floating interior,’ Baltic sales director Kenneth Nyfelt, son of founder Jan- Erik, explains.

‘We installed a highly complex Siemens PLC monitoring and control system, and it was the first project where we used noise and vibration consultants.’ With half the displacement of a typical 140ft cruising yacht, the performance targets were achieved and Canica can now be regarded as the first in a gradually evolving style of high-performance Baltic ‘super cruisers’ that continues to this day. A similar and parallel evolution of successful cruiser-racers began with Nilaya in 2010.

A stand-out project delivered in 2011, at 221ft LOA the Baltic 197 Hetairos is largest carbon composite sailing yacht in the world. A true wolf in sheep’s clothing with an incredible sail area : displacement ratio and a regular winner in superyacht regattas, the 60-metre ketch is classic on deck but thoroughly modern below the waterline with a unique lifting rudder as well as a lifting keel.

Around this time, the people who had staged the 1990 management takeover began to retire so new owners were needed. Two local investors bought shares in 2010; three years later an 80 per cent stake in Baltic Yachts was acquired by the German family-owned company Otto Bock – led by Professor Hans Georg Näder, a longstanding client of Baltic Yachts – and its future was secured. Henry Hawkins, a yacht captain with vast practical experience including many thousands of ocean miles as skipper of Näder’s yachts, joined Baltic, taking on a large part of Johansson’s role.

Näder’s own 175ft Pink Gin VI is one of the most notable recent builds and currently the world’s largest carbon composite sloop with a rig 16m taller than a J Class. Her key features include fold-down platforms in her topsides just above the waterline that are large enough to walk through, one amidships in the main saloon and one forward in the owner’s suite.

While relatively easy to build on a large motor yacht, putting large apertures in highly stressed parts of a sailing yacht hull without reducing its stiffness was a major engineering challenge, solved by mechanically locking the platforms firmly in place to become structural parts of the hull.

Another recent showcase of Baltic’s innovation is the 142ft Canova, which made headlines in 2019 as the world’s first superyacht with a DSS foil to reduce pitching and heeling, plus a host of other advanced features such as an immensely strong coachroof with a featherlight look and an electric drive system that provides enough regeneration capability under sail to cross the Atlantic without using any fossil fuel – with both sailing and hotel systems running.

After four years of cruising, a wide range of what used to be bleeding-edge technologies are now proven to work reliably.

To mark Baltic Yachts’ 50th anniversary, the first Baltic 46 Queen Anne returned to the yard last spring for a refit. Two of the men who built her – Johansson and Jan-Erik Nyfelt, whose grandchildren now work at Baltic – were delighted to find her in excellent condition, which a survey duly confirmed.

‘No structural works are needed, the hull appendages are sound, as is the mast,’ Hawkins says. ‘It’s also interesting that the original propulsion setup was still operational and in good order. The enjoyment at our end was the size of everything compared to today, from fibre technology to deck fittings. There are 18 winches on that boat; a modern 100-footer uses just seven or eight!’ She will be relaunched in June after a cosmetic refit, with a new engine.

What direction is Baltic Yachts likely to take in the future? The 68ft cruiser-racer Pink Gin Verde might hold a few clues with its 50 per cent flax fibre hull and micro-turbine hybrid propulsion system, but as Baltic’s CEO Anders Kurtén puts it, ‘That all depends on where our customers want to take us.’

‘We are fortunate and honoured to build some of the most exciting, groundbreaking custom sailing yachts in the world which means the next major milestone will forever be the next launch, summer 2023 being a perfect example,’ he says. ‘My best guess for the future is ever increasing sustainable practices and yachts with diminishing lifecycle emissions, as well as quantum leaps in terms of pure sailing performance.’

Click here for more information on Baltic Yachts

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Path: On board Baltic's award-winning 45m sailing yacht

Inspired by an experienced sailor, the World Superyacht Award-winning sloop Path is a real standout, as Sam Fortescue finds out in Palma...

It takes an effort to stand out from the crowd in Palma. There are so many metres of gleaming superyachtery lined up on the quays that everything starts to look the same. Not so the latest launch from Baltic Yachts . It has the advantage of a mast, which naturally helps in a world dominated by motor yachts. But it is really the sleek, quiet purpose of 44.6 metre Path that distinguishes her. That and the flame orange crew uniforms.

With a German designer, an obsessive Finnish builder and an engaged owner, nothing on this boat has been left to chance. I am immediately grateful for the owner’s foresight as I step aboard on an uncharacteristically grey morning. With the leaden threat of rain, we congregate under the truly vast hardtop he requested, which protects the dining and lounging areas of the cockpit. It is a continuation of the coachroof, which sweeps aft a further seven metres.

“The owner took all the experience he gained from sailing round the world and put it into the new boat,” explains Henry Hawkins, executive vice president of Baltic Yachts. “His previous boat was a Baltic 112 which we call Old Path . He’s a hugely passionate sailor and competes in a couple of sports boat classes. So he was adamant he wanted a cruising boat with performance.”

And what the hardtop lacks in pure elegance, it makes up for in sheer practicality. It is just one part of the owner’s philosophy of choosing reliability over elaborate technology or flashy styling, as designer Rolf Vrolijk notes. “This owner knows very well what he wants. There was no need to go to an external designer to make a statement.”

Ease of handling was the other key brief for the judel/vrolijk team. Path has twin rudders, for instance, and a hydraulic lifting keel. This reduces her draught to 3.4 metres – enough to get into many smaller ports and anchorages, including much of the Bahamas. She also features a roller boom system from Carbo Link to make light work of furling or reefing the 558-square-metre mainsail.

On the mechanical side, she is equipped with a saildrive pod system that can rotate through 340 degrees beneath the boat to give optimum thrust and torque at almost any angle. Coupled with the bow thruster, this flexible system simplifies close quarters manoeuvring. A four-blade variable-pitch propeller also adds to efficiency across long passages under power or when motor sailing.

“When manoeuvring under power, you can set it to a high engine speed to provide hydraulic power to the thruster via a PTO,” Hawkins says. Only one thruster is needed with the rotating saildrive, he explains. “We can then add a little pitch to the blades to move forward or backwards or even sideways as needed, as this leg rotates.”

Path rows somewhat against the current with its engine. The capable 550hp Scania unit is certainly up to the job, but the power system eschews hybrid or battery-assisted technology. It is an old-fashioned mix of iron, oil and diesel with enough grunt to pull the boat along and turn the winches, while a pair of 55kW Northern Lights generators pick up the hotel loads. Of course, that is exactly what the owner wanted.

“We looked at electric propulsion, as with the majority of our boats,” Hawkins says. “But Path is set up as a world cruiser and the cornerstone had to be proven reliability.” Similarly, the Hundested main thruster pod is theoretically capable of retracting into the hull to reduce drag under sail. “The owner chose not to take the folding ability for the sake of simplicity,” he adds. “While the pod and propeller hydraulics can all be driven mechanically to return to port.”

Before anything else, though, this boat is a Baltic, and that means a fast hull with a meticulous layup in carbon fibre. By making ample use of Sprint and pre-preg materials from Gurit, Baltic has limited the displacement of this 44.6-metre yacht to 172 tonnes. Pre-preg means that precisely the right amount of epoxy resin is already right where it needs to be in the layup, eliminating the wastage of wet systems.

The lines by judel/vrolijk are as sleek as you would expect from a team that has done so much work with racing yachts. Despite her length, her beam tops out at 9.35 metres, giving Path naturally efficient proportions. The architecture is closely related to that of the Baltic 112 Canova . “These are families of hulls developed through feedback from the crew,” Vrolijk says.

A powerful masthead sloop rig gives the crew plenty of options, and again, the emphasis is on ease of handling.   “We didn’t want to go too big with a square-head main, because that creates too much complexity for a cruising guy,” Vrolijk says. No fewer than two fixed and two removable headstays permit a range of sails upwind, plus a three-metre bowsprit for setting the gennaker or dedicated reaching sail. Baltic describes the set-up as a homage to the Imoca 60, whose multi-headsail configuration make short-handed racing a reality.

Vrolijk says that the boat sails well with two headsails set – jib and staysail or storm jib and staysail, as conditions dictate. The main is reefed by putting turns on the boom, but in order not to overstrain the mandrel, the sail still has three reefing points on the luff and leech that take the strain. After sea trials in Palma, he described Path ’s handling in typically dry fashion. “It was, of course, quite nice,” he told me. “She has a balanced rudder feel, and the boat tracks very well.”

Path is designed to sail at between 11 and 16 knots in typical conditions, but she had already hit speeds approaching  20 knots on the passage down from Finland, according to Captain Daniele Cesaro. In Palma, the boat handled 35-knot gusts under full main and a staysail jib.

Sightlines from the two wheels are well thought out, with a clear view ahead down the windward side. Each helm station has its own little hardtop with a glass panel for gazing at the sail. It feels a little like the bridge of the USS Enterprise sitting here with six big Sailmon screens for boat data and six huge glass-bridge displays.

Step inside, though, and you instantly return to a past where wood, not carbon fibre, was king. With decidedly classic styling, the interior is all about panelled walls and solid furniture. Elegant cabinetry is well endowed with fiddles – this is an owner who understands the need to steady yourself as you cross the saloon on a 20-degree heel. From sofas to a robust wooden swivel chair at the navigation station, it seemingly adds weight, but says Hawkins, the furniture is foam core with a wood veneer, which allows keeping the weight under control.

Margo Vrolijk led the styling team, making it a full house for judel/vrolijk. She drew on a visit to the owner’s home and a good look at his previous Baltic. “The concept is inspired by how the family lives ashore and translating that into an easily controlled sailing yacht,” she says. “The timeless style of the interior has been achieved through symmetry in geometry and balancing the choice of neutral and natural colour palettes with classic, colourful patterns like stripes and paisley shapes.”

This approach has created a very liveable environment below, with deep, inviting sofas, plump mattresses and comfy chairs. Despite the suede and natural fabric finishes, the upholstery has been designed to be easily maintained when off the beaten track. Most surfaces are in warm teak, while the floors are in a dark stained oak that will conceal wear and tear. “You can spill anything on the fabrics and it will still remain the same colour,” says Margo Vrolijk.

More than the materials, though, it is the spaces created by the design team that intrigue. Beneath that huge main saloon lie the owner’s quarters, bang amidships. The cabin spans the full beam but is partially divided near the middle by a glass screen. Twin beds lie to starboard, with access to a large bathroom with both a shower and recessed full-length bathtub.

To starboard is a wonderful kind of parlour or snug sitting room, with two Poltrona Frau recliners and a host of convenient features within reach. Touch a button and the glass panel turns opaque, becoming a screen for projecting charts and nav information. Pull open a low cabinet and there’s a custom-built recess for a decanter of whisky and weighted crystal tumblers. The glasses are inlaid with a magnet on the base to keep them from sliding off when set down. Pilot guides and reference books line the walls – a library for settling down with a drink to figure out where to head next.

Upstairs you reach the office, on a kind of half level.  A huge array of electronics is concealed behind the panelling here, while twin VSAT domes can keep the owner as connected on board as he would be if he were sitting in the office. “The system is Starlink ready,” Hawkins says. “Then there’ll be no need for those big domes – the eggs in the rigging will disappear.”

As this space lacks a hull window, the owner requested an LED wall, the first I have seen aboard a yacht. Running the length of the hull in the office, it normally displays an aquarium scene, but can naturally be programmed to show anything. Vrolijk mocked up a full-size office and owner’s cabin to check every detail.

Although naturally on a smaller scale to the owner’s cabin, three en suite guest cabins offer heaps of space. A VIP cabin in the bow converts between double and twin and includes its own sofa area for privacy. The double just aft has an even larger snug seating area opposite. And a final guest double is in the aft accommodation. Though this puts it next to the crew area, it has its own private companionway to the saloon.

There are lots of little features which are a pleasure to discover. I liked the way that a navigation display folds up out of a burnished chart desk in the main saloon, for instance. Another display in the crew mess slides down out of an overhead cabinet to create a barrier between the navigator and the mess. It’s a smart idea that creates two distinct spaces when necessary. I also like how the doorknobs are leather bound.

With her huge aft deck and a big bathing platform for catching the sun, plus a tender well on the foredeck that serves as a pool when the Ribeye YT600 has been craned out, Path can hold her own in Mallorca and the world’s other yachting hotspots. But she won’t be here for long. Though she’s registered in Malta, this boat has no home port – no marina berth with her name on it. Her calling is as an ocean wanderer. She is going to find her own path around the world.

First published in the June 2022 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

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• Baltic Yachts Rendezvous

LEGENDARY BALTIC 39 PANGAEA

19 november 2021.

Record-setting Baltic ownership in Washington State

Mac Madenwald has owned his Baltic 39 Pangaea from new since 1978 and at the age of 81 he and his wife Wendy still race and cruise 90 days a year from their home port of Anacortes

When Mac Madenwald was trading up from his Gary Mulldesigned Ranger 33 back in 1977 his intention was to buy a C&C 40, but a strike at the boat builder and a chance sighting of the new Baltic 39 in a brochure at his local brokerage office set him on another course.

Mac on Pangaea’s foredeck anchored in the Broughton Island archipelago in British Columbia

Friends in Europe checked out the 39 at the Düsseldorf Boat Show and following rave reviews Mac bought hull number five unseen. Pangaea was shipped to Vancouver, British Columbia before being transported to Seattle for commissioning – after a telephone call to say his new yacht was on its way, he even followed the truck down the local highway as Pangaea headed for her new home port!

There’s clearly something about longevity which attracts Mac, a retired orthopaedic surgeon. He and his wife Wendy, who he met when she was crewing on another Baltic, are members of the second oldest yacht club in Washington State. The Anacortes YC was founded in 1891 making it the 4th oldest on the US west coast. And he named Pangaea after the supercontinent which eventually divided to form the geographical world we know today, 335 million years ago.

Mac and Wendy sail 90 days a year in the yacht Mac bought back in 1978

To cap it all, when Mac was invited to Jakobstad on occasion of Baltic Yachts’ 30th anniversary party in 2003, he was recognised as the longest continuous owner of a Baltic yacht worldwide. And it’s an accolade he has no intention of giving up any time soon!

Mac and Wendy continue to take part in the yacht club’s Wednesday evening ‘beer can’ races, they have completed two 2500nm Victoria to Maui races and they take advantage of the fantastic cruising grounds in the San Juan Islands, further north in British Columbia’s Salish Sea and south towards Olympia in Puget Sound.

The fabulous backdrop of Mount Baker, 10,800ft, in the Cascade mountain range in Washington State, as Pangaea sails in waters close to her home port of Anacortes

“We’re a social kind of boat and love having people aboard,” said Mac who is particularly keen to get younger people afloat so that they can experience sailing and learn. In fact, so many people have sailed with Mac that some friends presented him with a licence plate which read “Honk if you’ve sailed on Pangaea”. And as a family yacht Mac says: “She’s brought up two children, three grand-children and counting!”

Sharing their enthusiasm for sailing with the next generation, Heath and Yarrow Voegtlin, two o of their grandchildren

Mac and Wendy keep Pangaea afloat in the Port of Anacortes Marina all year round and are out cruising or racing 90 days a year. “The boat has remained in great condition and the only item that might need attention soon is the teak deck – we’ve replaced the cockpit seating teak, but the rest is original,” said Mac.

One mishap occurred at the beginning of Pangaea’s life when the Saildrive leg completely corroded away due to a commissioning mix up. “We hadn’t seen many Saildrive legs out here back then and the leg wasn’t protected by an anode,” explained Mac. “But Baltic and Volvo were great and they came over here and sorted everything out – we haven’t looked back!”.

Mac and Wendy spend a lot of time cruising in the beautiful San Juan Islands archipelago in the State of Washington lying between Anacortes and Vancouver Island

We’re constantly updating our website to bring you news of launchings, new commissions and Baltic inspired innovation.

Lifestyle I

A family affair: the baltic yachts rendezvous 2023, words: tide | images: oli riley.

September saw a special spectacle take place just off the shores of Sardinia: a vision of the latest Superyachts sailing alongside modern classic 1970s sailboats. The occasion? A four-day celebration of everything that Baltic Yachts has achieved in its half-century history so far. More guests than ever before came together, including owners, service and refit friends and industry figures – such as ourselves at TIDE – for a long weekend of sailing and feasting on fantastic Italian food, in this, the culmination of Baltic’s extended anniversary event, known as the Rendezvous.

Baltic Yachts has generated such a large, loyal client base thanks to the fact that the Finnish brand is one of the last purely custom yacht builders that works with owners and architects, incorporating modern approaches and the latest technology. Strong family connections within the yard also resonate with owners, providing a sense of community and an enjoyable build experience, as showcased by the fact that so many of them wished to both support the company and spend time with each other.

The location? Porto Rotondo, a yacht club enveloped by lush landscapes and white-sand beaches, leading to cobblestone streets and towns fizzing with energy. However, the dock was the most important place to witness during this weekend, lined with Baltic’s latest builds alongside its heritage designs, offering a one-off window into 50 years of sailing innovation. Twenty-six yachts graced the event, to be exact, spanning from the vintage Baltic 33’ of 1976 to the ultra-modern Path, a 146’ built in 2021.

Mingling between owners and crew kicked off during registration, before everyone sat down together to a welcome dinner that extended into the evening. While the Captains’ Meeting the following day hinted at the competitive spirit within the Baltic family, the atmosphere shifted to smiles and cheers as everyone headed to their yachts. The first day unfolded with a light air, and the boats presented a stunning scene as they sailed through the course. Day two brought a stronger breeze and heightened action, creating ideal conditions for enjoyable, all-level sailing. Attendees then celebrated the winners under the Sardinian stars, honouring the Baltic team. Although PG, Baltic’s founder, couldn’t be there in person, his inspiring speech played out via a screen, in which he emphasised the unity he knew was being experienced throughout the weekend and beyond.

Sunday began with a packed breakfast scene, the espresso machine working overtime, followed by a long and lazy beach barbecue. The common conversation? When would all those at this Rendezvous, rendez-vous once more? A talking point that underlined the authentic and social spirit of this special weekend away with the loyal and far-reaching Baltic family.

Further Reading

Travel I number 07

The kamalame cay.

Under the careful watch of the Hew family, an untouched strip of sand in the Bahamas was transformed into Kamalame Cay, a laidback private-island resort

Design I number 07

From land to sea.

Featuring a contemporary, warm and crafted look by Swedish architects Andreas Martin-Löf Arkitekter, the 34m sailing yacht ZEMI is a fine example of how shore-side designers can adapt to create stunning, boundary-pushing yacht interiors

Environment I number 07

Dominica and the whales.

With a massive decline in the global Sperm whale population caused by a combination of hunting, pollution and climate change, the species is in grave danger. But things are set to change thanks to an ambitious plan by an unlikely ally

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Baltic Yachts | What’s going on in Finland

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]irst presented at the 2017 Düsseldorf Boat Show, Baltic Motor Yachts is a new division of Baltic Yachts, the shipyard situated in Ostrobothnia, Finland, a region steeped in eight centuries of fine ship and yacht building history. Baltic Yachts, renowned for its sailing yachts and exceptional levels of engineering and build technology, with light displacement, quiet running and true seaworthiness at the heart of luxury comfort and ease of operation, is now ready to extend these attributes into the luxury motor yachting sector and for the occasion introduces two new ranges of individually tailored motor yachts: the  Motor Yacht range  with the 27-metre Baltic MY88, 34-metre Baltic MY112 and 41-metre Baltic MY135; and the  Day Boat range  with the 15-metre Baltic MY49 and 17-metre Baltic MY56.

This new range development is driven by requests from current owners  seeking diversity  and requiring the same high-end finish detail and craftsmanship, and is also inspired by Baltic’s recent, restoration of the delightful 25m/82ft motor cruiser Sunny Day for the company’s owner, Professor Hans Georg Näder, a serial Baltic yacht owner himself. This new programme comes also at a time when Baltic Yachts has a full forward order book for sailing yachts, so marks a significant new capital investment and development in the company’s growth.

“We are leaders, not followers,” says  Professor Näder . “The Baltic Yachts name conveys quality, prestige and performance, and Baltic Motor Yachts extends this experience and reputation into a new area of yachting.  The refit of our family motor yacht, Sunny Day, stimulated me also to initiate our own Ligurian styled motor yacht line, using our superb facilities and state of the art technologies for safe reliable motor cruising with superb quality, as we have done for decades in sailing.”

As to the sailing yachts production, orders for three new carbon composite performance sailing yachts measuring between 85ft and 142ft have filled the order book at Baltic Yachts as the company prepares to launch  Pink Gin VI , the biggest carbon composite sloop in the world.

Baltic Yachts CEO  Henry Hawkins  said that in tough market conditions over recent months the company had appealed to a number of clients. “This success is a result of a dedicated Baltic Yachts team effort building on our expertise in the custom sailing yacht arena,” he said. The new projects (Baltic 85 Custom, Baltic 112 Custom, Baltic 142 Custom) , which will start building in 2017, involve world-leading designers and stylists some of whom are new to Baltic Yachts, among them award-winning naval architect Malcolm McKeon and renowned interior specialists Mark Whiteley and Lucio Micheletti. The Baltic Yachts Family very much looks forward to working with this new injection of talent now and in the future.

presentation about deforestation

Encyclopedic entry.

Deforestation.

Deforestation is the intentional clearing of forested land.

Biology, Ecology, Conservation

Trees are cut down for timber, waiting to be transported and sold.

Photograph by Esemelwe

Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been razed to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.

Deforestation has greatly altered landscapes around the world. About 2,000 years ago, 80 percent of Western Europe was forested; today the figure is 34 percent. In North America, about half of the forests in the eastern part of the continent were cut down from the 1600s to the 1870s for timber and agriculture. China has lost great expanses of its forests over the past 4,000 years and now just over 20 percent of it is forested. Much of Earth’s farmland was once forests.

Today, the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring in tropical rainforests, aided by extensive road construction into regions that were once almost inaccessible. Building or upgrading roads into forests makes them more accessible for exploitation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a big contributor to deforestation in the tropics. With this agricultural method, farmers burn large swaths of forest, allowing the ash to fertilize the land for crops. The land is only fertile for a few years, however, after which the farmers move on to repeat the process elsewhere. Tropical forests are also cleared to make way for logging, cattle ranching, and oil palm and rubber tree plantations.

Deforestation can result in more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. That is because trees take in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis , and carbon is locked chemically in their wood. When trees are burned, this carbon returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide . With fewer trees around to take in the carbon dioxide , this greenhouse gas accumulates in the atmosphere and accelerates global warming.

Deforestation also threatens the world’s biodiversity . Tropical forests are home to great numbers of animal and plant species. When forests are logged or burned, it can drive many of those species into extinction. Some scientists say we are already in the midst of a mass-extinction episode.

More immediately, the loss of trees from a forest can leave soil more prone to erosion . This causes the remaining plants to become more vulnerable to fire as the forest shifts from being a closed, moist environment to an open, dry one.

While deforestation can be permanent, this is not always the case. In North America, for example, forests in many areas are returning thanks to conservation efforts.

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Related Resources

Deforestation 101: everything you need to know.

Earth has lost more than 1 billion acres of forest to deforestation since 1990. Image:  Unsplash/roya ann miller

Cristen Hemingway Jaynes

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Stay up to date:.

• Deforestation is the clearing of forested land with the purpose of converting it for use in another way, such as agriculture, mining or raising livestock.
• Earth has lost more than 1 billion acres of forest to deforestation since 1990.
• Here’s a round-up of key facts and impacts related to deforestation.

What is Deforestation?

Trees have been around for about 370 million years. Today, there are about three trillion trees and ten billion acres of forest on Earth. That may sound like a lot, but the planet has lost more than one billion acres of forest to deforestation since 1990.

Deforestation is the clearing of forested land with the purpose of converting it to be used for something other than forest, including the raising of livestock , agriculture, mining, development or other non-forest uses.

The biggest human causes of deforestation are farming , especially unsustainable practices such as slash-and-burn agriculture — where forests are burned and cleared for planting — raising cattle for dairy and meat and the uncontrolled cultivation of crops like rubber and palm oil .

Quick Facts

• More than 30 percent of the Earth’s land is covered by forests.
• The Earth loses about 38,610 square miles of forest every year.
• Ninety-six percent of global deforestation occurs in tropical forests .
• More than half of the planet’s tropical rainforests have been destroyed or degraded.
• Due to deforestation, as many as 28,000 species are predicted to become extinct by 2050.
• Forty-one percent of deforestation can be attributed to the clearing of land for cattle and other livestock, with 80 percent of that land located in the Amazon .
• Nearly half of tropical deforestation occurs in Indonesia and Brazil .
• Twelve percent of deforestation is due to soy production, and most soy produced globally is used for animal feed.
• Palm oil, used in products from chocolate and cookies to potato chips, is a major contributor to deforestation.
• More than 100 countries have made a commitment to end and reverse deforestation by 2030.

Have you read?

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Human Impacts

The ancient forests of our planet have been evolving for thousands of years to provide individualized habitats for millions of species of plants and animals. Millions of people also call Earth’s forests home, and their survival and livelihoods depend on them.

The livelihoods of an estimated 1.6 billion people are dependent on forests, while forests are essential for the subsistence of 60 million Indigenous Peoples.

The choices we make in what we consume, buy and support have a direct impact on the world’s forests. We can’t afford to continue to destroy such an essential part of the health of our planet.

Halting deforestation is essential to avoiding the worst effects of global climate change.

The destruction of forests creates almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as global road travel, and yet it continues at an alarming rate.

In 2012, we brought together more than 150 partners working in Latin America, West Africa, Central Africa and South-East Asia – to establish the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 : a global public-private partnership to facilitate investment in systemic change.

The Alliance, made up of businesses, governments, civil society, indigenous people, communities and international organizations, helps producers, traders and buyers of commodities often blamed for causing deforestation to achieve deforestation-free supply chains.

The Commodities and Forests Agenda 2020 , summarizes the areas in which the most urgent action is needed to eliminate deforestation from global agricultural supply chains.

The Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 i s gaining ground on tackling deforestation linked to the production of four commodities: palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper.

Get in touch to join our mission to halt to deforestation.

Climate Impacts

Earth’s rainforests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, stabilize the Earth’s environment and act as carbon sinks by storing the carbon in their wood and soil. One of the most devastating results of deforestation is that, due to the loss of trees, the enormous amount of carbon they have sequestered gets released back into the atmosphere.

Some tropical forests now release more carbon than they capture, meaning that they no longer operate as carbon sinks.

Less trees and more carbon means faster global heating, which leads to shifting weather patterns and extreme weather , heat waves , droughts , wildfires and floods .

Palm oil and other products that contribute to deforestation, like soy and cocoa, are major contributors to the climate crisis and are causing irretrievable worldwide biodiversity loss. In order to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid mass extinction of species and deforestation, major restoration of forests is imperative.

Biodiversity Impacts

Deforestation is a threat to the planet’s biodiversity. The loss of tropical rainforests is of particular concern because they are the most biologically diverse of the planet’s land-based ecosystems.

The largest tropical rainforest in the world, the Amazon rainforest , is home to about 427 mammal species, 1,300 species of birds , 40,000 species of plants and 2.5 million insect species. The loss of their forest home can lead to the extinction of many species.

Water and Soil Impacts

Trees help keep the balance of water in the atmosphere and on land. Deforestation can cause disruptions to this balance that can lead to shifts in river flow and precipitation.

Deforestation disrupts the natural water cycle by lowering the amount of water that comes from a process called evapotranspiration — the evaporation of water that comes from the surfaces of land, plants and their leaves. This process is crucial for the maintenance of a healthy water cycle, which is responsible for precipitation. If the cycle gets disrupted, it can lead to droughts.

Losing established forests through deforestation means losing the trees’ anchors in the soil — their roots — which are key to stopping erosion. Erosion can put surviving plants in greater danger of fire as the forest becomes drier and more open instead of moist and protected. When soil health is reduced, along with the volume of water it can contain, it increases the chance of floods.

What’s Happening and Why?

Humans have been clearing forests to make way for crops or the raising of livestock for thousands of years, and these activities are the biggest cause of deforestation. Soybean production and cattle ranching on an industrial scale have become progressively bigger contributors to deforestation in the Amazon. Tropical forests have also increasingly been converted into palm tree plantations for the commercial production of biofuels in Sumatra and Borneo.

Logging and the harvesting of wood for fuel and charcoal, as well as urbanization and the expansion of infrastructure, also contribute to deforestation.

Forest degradation is different from total deforestation, and is the progressive decline of a forested area that can be caused by a variety of reasons, including illegal logging or unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change that can lead to pest infestations, disease and forest fires.

Accidental fires can occur after forests become degraded and more fire-prone, leading to them to eventually become deforested by recurrent unintentional fires.

Industrial Agriculture

Agriculture is the cause of nearly 90 percent of deforestation around the world and the cause of most habitat destruction . Not only is animal agriculture — including livestock and their feed — a substantial contributor to deforestation, it produces about 60 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions . The food system overall makes up as much as 37 percent of human-produced emissions.

According to the 2019 United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land, the overhaul of the global food system and the protection and restoration of forests are essential remedies to the compounding climate, food security and biodiversity emergencies facing our society and planet.

We must slow down and stop the rampant production of products that are considered “ high-risk commodities ” — such as palm oil, corn and soy — that cause forest degradation, deforestation and abuses of human rights.

So far, we have been going in the wrong direction. Since 2010, palm oil production in Indonesia has increased by 75 percent, the carbon footprint of cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire has increased by 80 percent and Brazil’s agricultural area for soy production has expanded by 45 percent. If we don’t curb this trend, palm and soy production will continue to increase.

Agricultural Expansion

The expansion of the global agricultural system to meet the increasing demand for dairy and meat products and plant-based biofuels is adding to the burden on forests and escalating ecosystem destruction.

The growth of agricultural operations is the cause of almost all global deforestation, with forests cleared for animal grazing making up 40 percent.

Raising animals for consumption is extraordinarily inefficient. The production of beef as a food source requires 25 calories of feed for each calorie of beef. It takes nine calories of feed for each calorie of chicken.

Palm oil — which comes from the fruits of the oil palm tree — is a main ingredient in many common products found in supermarkets worldwide, from shampoo and crackers to pie crusts and cookies.

Most of the palm oil produced in the world comes from Indonesia, where soaring demand for the product in the late 1990s led to it becoming one of the primary forces behind the country’s disappearing rainforests.

The forest clearing and slash and burn tactics that are used to make enormous plantations of the sought-after fruit have caused orangutans , koalas , birds, reptiles and other wildlife to lose their habitat and be pushed to the edge of extinction. The natural habitat of the orangutan has been almost totally decimated to make way for palm oil farms. These industrial-scale plantations also cause local rural and Indigenous Peoples to be displaced and workers to suffer human rights abuses and exploitation.

The producers and traders of palm oil — multinational corporations that profit off of the anguish and loss of others — are aware of the issues surrounding their product and have been for decades, but have not done anything to remedy them, despite assurances that they will do so.

Companies that use palm oil have also made promises to make sure nothing in their supply chain is the result of deforestation, but these assurances have also come up empty.

Cattle Ranching

In nearly every Amazon country, cattle ranching and growing soy for feed are the most significant sources of deforestation. Recently, scientists found that the Amazon rainforest, once a carbon sink, has become a carbon dioxide emitter.

Globally, 340 million tons of carbon — 3.4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions — are released annually as a result of deforestation to make way for cattle ranching, mostly in the Amazon.

Commercial Logging

While deforestation is the total elimination of the forest, along with the habitat and ecosystems it supports, logging is the cutting down of trees to make commercial goods.

The logging industry itself is not sustainable in the long-term as it makes millions of dollars by destroying forests to meet people’s insatiable need for paper products, inexpensive lumber for building homes and furniture and for use as domestic fuel and charcoal. Paper towels alone are responsible for the equivalent of around 27 soccer fields of trees being destroyed every minute.

Some day, logging may become less prevalent as new eco-friendly and sustainable building materials are developed — like bamboo, recycled bottles, mud, mushroom-based Myco-board , recycled steel, prefabricated concrete, reclaimed wood and insulation foam made of hemp, kelp or bamboo — but for now, logging is a seemingly necessary evil of modern society and a major contributor to global deforestation.

Some logging companies comply with governmental regulations for the number of trees they are permitted to cut down, but they are few and far between. Reckless logging companies demolish trees as they bore their way into forests to get at as many of the highest-value trees as possible that will bring in the highest profit.

The trucks used to fell and transport trees also contribute to soil erosion and lower soil quality.

In addition to the billions of trees lost each year to logging, the destructive practice is the cause of 60 percent of forest degradation.

Illegal Logging

What forests remain are being devastated by illegal land clearing and logging. The resulting deforestation, biodiversity loss and release of greenhouse gasses — not to mention the loss of the mitigation of emissions that forests provide — generate disputes with local and Indigenous communities that can lead to crime, violence and human exploitation.

Rates for illegal logging in timber producing nations range from 50 percent in Cameroon between 1999 and 2004 to around 60 to 80 percent in the Brazilian Amazon and an estimated 90 percent in Indonesia.

International security can be threatened when profits from illegal logging are used to finance money laundering, organized crime and civil wars. Legal timber operations are impeded by illegal ones that can undersell them and cause them to be less competitive.

It is estimated that timber-producing countries lose between $10 and $15 billion per year to illegal logging, more than one-tenth of the entire worldwide timber trade.

Illegal logging can be the result of corruption and other government failings in the countries where timber is produced. And when countries that purchase the timber — like the U.S., Japan and EU member states — fail to ban the import of timber that is illegally or irresponsibly cut down, it can lead to the continued exploitation of ancient forests by timber companies and traders.

The EU does not have any import bans on illegal timber. The development of laws that could incorporate a ban have been recommended by the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade project, but for the time being only voluntary action has been encouraged by the European Commission, which is not sufficient or realistic to protect our forests.

Infrastructure Expansion

Deforestation is also caused by the use of slash and burn techniques and other methods to make way for the expansion of infrastructure. Infrastructure expansion occurs for many reasons, such as when urban sprawl leads to forests being encroached upon by cities; when people flee urban areas in order to build in more rural, forested settings; to make way for mining operations; and for the expansion of farmland.

As the demand for energy derived from renewable sources increases, Earth’s forests are in greater danger, since many of the minerals required for wind turbines, solar panels and battery storage are mined in vulnerable forested areas like the Congo Basin . The dichotomy between the need for minerals to produce renewable energy in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the destruction of forests through mining for them is a major cause for concern and presents a new set of challenges that has yet to be resolved.

In the next three decades, worldwide demand for minerals like graphite and cobalt is expected to soar to five times the current rate.

Climate Change and Deforestation

Deforestation is itself also a prime contributor to human-caused climate change. The release of carbon from the clearing and burning of forests contributes directly to global heating .

The three biggest tropical rainforests in the world are found in Southeast Asia, the Amazon River Basin of South America and the Congo. In the past two decades, Southeast Asian forests have become a net source of carbon due to peat soil drainage, the clearing of forests for plantations and rampant fires.

Parts of South America’s Amazon River basin are now a source of carbon rather than a net carbon sink . Deforestation in this region has intensified in recent years because of degradation from forest fires , land clearing to make way for cattle and increasing temperatures that lead to drier conditions.

The tropical rainforest in the Congo is the only one of the world’s big three tropical rainforests that can still be considered a strong net carbon sink. It sequesters more than 600 million tons more carbon annually than it releases, equal to about a third of the carbon dioxide emissions from all transportation in the U.S.

Where Are the Main Places Deforestation Is Happening Around the World?

One of the main places is South America, where farm animal grazing accounts for 75 percent of deforestation. In Brazil, deforestation has increased despite 1.5 million square miles of the Amazon rainforest being protected. The government weakened the environmental protections in 2018, and since then deforestation caused by logging, industrial agriculture and other industries has increased.

Nigeria, Honduras and the Philippines are also experiencing some of the most severe deforestation on the planet. From 2001 to 2021, Nigeria lost 2.82 million acres of tree cover and has lost more than 90 percent of its forests. Between 1990 and 2005, forests in Honduras declined by 37 percent, and the Philippines now only has 35 percent of its former tree cover.

How Can We Combat Deforestation?

As a Society

One of the strategies to turn the tide on deforestation is to implement different types of policy solutions , such as:

• Reducing profits from agricultural methods that contribute to deforestation.
• Establishing protected areas.
• Expanding protective forest strategies like changing the ownership and management of forests.

In Our Own Lives

Some ways we can reduce our own forest footprints include:

• Reducing our need for wood-based goods
• Using less paper
• Using less energy
• Purchasing second-hand furniture
• Buying forest friendly goods, like certified wood products
• Demanding better certified and sustainable labeling of wood products
• Buying wood-based products that have been recycled and recycling them again
• Supporting companies that are dedicated to reducing deforestation
• Reducing or eliminating our consumption of meat, dairy, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, soy and sugar, all of which contribute to deforestation.
• Recycling paper, cardboard and other wood-based products
• Encouraging local governments to protect forests and oppose urban sprawl
• Supporting forest friendly NGOs Volunteering with a local parks department or land trust
• Considering a conservation easement for privately owned, forested land
• Advocating for climate change solutions
• Spending time in forests and sharing our love of forests with others
• Helping to educate our communities

Going vegan is another great way to reduce your forest footprint. Since almost 90 percent of deforestation is caused by the clearing of land for animal grazing and agriculture — much of which is crops grown for animal feed — when you reduce or eliminate your intake of animal products, including dairy, you substantially reduce how much your diet contributes to deforestation.

Deforestation is robbing the world of much of its rich biodiversity and contributing to global warming. If the current rate of deforestation continues, just 10 percent of rainforests will remain by 2030. And if the trend carries on beyond that, all the rainforests on Earth will be gone within a century , causing untold cataclysmic effects on the climate and wiping out most plant and animal species.

Our daily choices and those of other consumers, policymakers and landowners around the world can help turn the tide from destruction to replenishment.

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• ENVIRONMENT

Why deforestation matters—and what we can do to stop it

Large scale destruction of trees—deforestation—affects ecosystems, climate, and even increases risk for zoonotic diseases spreading to humans.

As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change , preserve wildlife, and support more than eight billion people , trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees—deforestation—continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain of fuel, and materials for manufacturing and construction.

We need trees for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that they absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases that human activities emit. As those gases enter the atmosphere, global warming increases, a trend scientists now prefer to call climate change.

There is also the imminent danger of disease caused by deforestation. An estimated 60 percent of emerging infectious diseases come from animals, and a major cause of viruses’ jump from wildlife to humans is habitat loss, often through deforestation.

But we can still save our forests. Aggressive efforts to rewild and reforest are already showing success. Tropical tree cover alone can provide 23 percent of the climate mitigation needed to meet goals set in the Paris Agreement in 2015, according to one estimate .

Causes of deforestation

Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but they are disappearing at an alarming rate. Since 1990, the world has lost more than 420 million hectares or about a billion acres of forest, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations —mainly in Africa and South America. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise . The organization Amazon Conservation reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020 , a loss the size of Israel.

Farming, grazing of livestock, mining, and drilling combined account for more than half of all deforestation . Forestry practices, wildfires and, in small part, urbanization account for the rest. In Malaysia and Indonesia, forests are cut down to make way for producing palm oil , which can be found in everything from shampoo to saltine crackers. In the Amazon, cattle ranching and farms—particularly soy plantations—are key culprits .

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Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also fell countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally , also build roads to access more and more remote forests—which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl as land is developed for homes.

Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees.

Why it matters

There are some 250 million people who live in forest and savannah areas and depend on them for subsistence and income—many of them among the world’s rural poor.

Eighty percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests , and deforestation threatens species including the orangutan , Sumatran tiger , and many species of birds. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and retains heat at night. That disruption leads to more extreme temperature swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.

With wild habitats destroyed and human life ever expanding, the line between animal and human areas blurs, opening the door to zoonotic diseases . In 2014, for example, the Ebola virus killed over 11,000 people in West Africa after fruit bats transmitted the disease to a toddler who was playing near trees where bats were roosting.

( How deforestation is leading to more infectious diseases in humans .)

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Some scientists believe there could be as many as 1.7 million currently “undiscovered” viruses in mammals and birds, of which up to 827,000 could have the ability to infect people, according to a 2018 study .

Deforestation’s effects reach far beyond the people and animals where trees are cut. The South American rainforest, for example, influences regional and perhaps even global water cycles, and it's key to the water supply in Brazilian cities and neighboring countries. The Amazon actually helps furnish water to some of the soy farmers and beef ranchers who are clearing the forest. The loss of clean water and biodiversity from all forests could have many other effects we can’t foresee, touching even your morning cup of coffee .

In terms of climate change, cutting trees both adds carbon dioxide to the air and removes the ability to absorb existing carbon dioxide. If tropical deforestation were a country, according to the World Resources Institute , it would rank third in carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions, behind China and the U.S.

What can be done

The numbers are grim, but many conservationists see reasons for hope . A movement is under way to preserve existing forest ecosystems and restore lost tree cover by first reforesting (replanting trees) and ultimately rewilding (a more comprehensive mission to restore entire ecosystems).

( Which nation could be the first to be rewilded ?)

Organizations and activists are working to fight illegal mining and logging—National Geographic Explorer Topher White, for example, has come up with a way to use recycled cell phones to monitor for chainsaws . In Tanzania, the residents of Kokota have planted more than 2 million trees on their small island over a decade, aiming to repair previous damage. And in Brazil, conservationists are rallying in the face of ominous signals that the government may roll back forest protections.

( Which tree planting projects should you support ?)

Stopping deforestation before it reaches a critical point will play a key role in avoiding the next zoonotic pandemic. A November 2022 study showed that when bats struggle to find suitable habitat, they travel closer to human communities where diseases are more likely to spillover. Inversely, when bats’ native habitats were left intact, they stayed away from humans. This research is the first to show how we can predict and avoid spillovers through monitoring and maintaining wildlife habitats.

For consumers, it makes sense to examine the products and meats you buy, looking for sustainably produced sources when you can. Nonprofit groups such as the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance certify products they consider sustainable, while the World Wildlife Fund has a palm oil scorecard for consumer brands.

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Deforestation and Forest Loss

Explore long-term changes in deforestation, and deforestation rates across the world today., which countries are gaining, and which are losing forest.

Before we look at trends in deforestation across the world specifically, it's useful to understand the net change in forest cover. The net change in forest cover measures any gains in forest cover – either through natural forest expansion or afforestation through tree-planting – minus deforestation.

This map shows the net change in forest cover across the world. Countries with a positive change (shown in green) are regrowing forest faster than they're losing it. Countries with a negative change (shown in red) are losing more than they're able to restore.

A note on UN FAO forestry data

Data on net forest change, afforestation and deforestation is sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Forest Resources Assessment . Since year-to-year changes in forest cover can be volatile, the UN FAO provide this annual data averaged over five-year periods.

How much deforestation occurs each year?

Net forest loss is not the same as deforestation – it measures deforestation plus any gains in forest over a given period.

Over the decade since 2010, the net loss in forests globally was 4.7 million hectares per year. 1 However, deforestation rates were much significantly higher.

The UN FAO estimate that 10 million hectares of forest were cut down each year.

This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world.

Many people think of environmental concerns as a modern issue: humanity’s destruction of nature and ecosystems as a result of very recent population growth and increasing consumption . This is true for some problems, such as climate change. But it’s not the case for deforestation. Humans have been cutting down trees for millennia.

How much forest has the world lost? When in history did we lose it?

In the chart we see how the cover of the earth’s surface has changed over the past 10,000 years. This is shortly after the end of the last great ice age, through to the present day. 2

Let’s start at the top. You see that of the 14.9 billion hectares of land on the planet, only 71% of it is habitable – the other 29% is either covered by ice and glaciers, or is barren land such as deserts, salt flats, or dunes. I have therefore excluded these categories so we can focus on how habitable land is used.

The bar chart just below shows the earth’s surface cover just after the end of the last ice age. 3 10,000 years ago 57% of the world’s habitable land was covered by forest. That’s 6 billion hectares .  Today, only 4 billion hectares are left. The world has lost one-third of its forest – an area twice the size of the United States.

Only 10% of this was lost in the first half of this period, until 5,000 years ago. The global population at this time was small and growing very slowly – there were fewer than 50 million people in the world. The amount of land per person that was needed to produce enough food was not small – in fact, it was much larger than today. But a small global population overall meant there was little pressure on forests to make space for land to grow food, and as wood for energy.

If we fast-forward to 1700 when the global population had increased more than ten-fold, to 603 million. The amount of land used for agriculture – land to grow crops as well as grazing land for livestock – was expanding. You will notice in the chart that this was not only expanding into previously forested land, but also other land uses such as wild grasslands and shrubbery. Still, more than half of the world’s habitable land was forested.

The turn of the 20th century is when global forest loss reached the halfway point: half of total forest loss occurred from 8,000 BC to 1900; the other half occurred in the last century alone. This emphasises two important points.

First, it reiterates that deforestation is not a new problem: relatively small populations of the past were capable of driving a large amount of forest loss. By 1900, there were 1.65 billion people in the world (five times fewer than we have today) but for most of the previous period, humans were deforesting the world with only tens or hundreds of millions. Even with the most basic of lifestyles compared to today’s standards, the per capita footprint of our ancestors would have been large. Low agricultural productivity and a reliance on wood for fuel meant that large amounts of land had to be cleared for basic provisions.

Second, it makes clear how much deforestation accelerated over the last century. In just over 100 years the world lost as much forest as it had in the previous 9,000 years. An area the size of the United States. From the chart we see that this was driven by the continued expansion of land for agriculture. When we think of the growing pressures on land from modern populations we often picture sprawling megacities. But urban land accounts for just 1% of global habitable land. Humanity’s biggest footprint is due to what we eat, not where we live.

How can we put an end to our long history of deforestation?

This might paint a bleak picture for the future of the world’s forests: the United Nations projects that the global population will continue to grow , reaching 10.8 billion by 2100. But there are real reasons to believe that this century doesn’t have to replicate the destruction of the last one.

The world passed ‘peaked deforestation’ in the 1980s and it has been on the decline since then – we take a look at rates of forest loss since 1700 in our follow-up post. Improvements in crop yields mean the per capita demand for agricultural land continues to fall. We see this in the chart. Since 1961, the amount of land we use for agriculture increased by only 7% . Meanwhile, the global population increased by 147% – from 3.1 to 7.6 billion. 4 This means that agricultural land per person more than halved, from 1.45 to 0.63 hectares.

In fact, the world may have already passed ‘peak agricultural land’ [we will look at this in more detail in an upcoming post] . And with the growth of technological innovations such as lab-grown meat and substitute products, there is the real possibility that we can continue to enjoy meat or meat-like foods while freeing up the massive amounts of land we use to raise livestock.

If we can take advantage of these innovations, we can bring deforestation to an end. A future with more people and more forest is possible.

Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Can we bring it to an end?

Since the end of the last great ice age – 10,000 years ago – the world has lost one-third of its forests. 5 Two billion hectares of forest – an area twice the size of the United States – has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood.

In a previous post we looked at this change in global forests over the long-run. What this showed was that although humans have been deforesting the planet for millennia, the rate of forest loss accelerated rapidly in the last few centuries. Half of global forest loss occurred between 8,000BC and 1900; the other half was lost in the last century alone.

To understand this more recent loss of forest, let’s zoom in on the last 300 years. The world lost 1.5 billion hectares of forest over that period. That’s an area 1.5-times the size of the United States.

In the chart we see the decadal losses and gains in global forest cover. On the horizontal axis we have time, spanning from 1700 to 2020; on the vertical axis we have the decadal change in forest cover. The taller the bar, the larger the change in forest area. This is measured in hectares, which is equivalent to 10,000 m².

Forest loss measures the net change in forest cover: the loss in forests due to deforestation plus any expansion of forest through afforestation. 6

Unfortunately there is no single source that provides consistent and transparent data on deforestation rates over this period of time. Methodologies change over time, and estimates – especially in earlier periods – are highly uncertain. This means I’ve had to use two separate datasets to show this change over time. As we’ll see, they produce different estimates of deforestation for an overlapping decade – the 1980s – which suggests that these are not directly comparable. I do not recommend combining them into a single series, but the overall trends are still applicable and tell us an important story about deforestation over the last three centuries.

The first series of data comes from Williams (2006), who estimates deforestation rates from 1700 to 1995. 7 Due to poor data resolution, these are often given as average rates over longer periods – for example, annual average rates are given over the period from 1700 to 1849, and 1920 to 1949. That’s why these rates look strangely consistent over long period of time.

The second series comes from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It produces a new assessment of global forests every 5 years. 8

The rate and location of forest loss changed a lot. From 1700 to 1850, 19 million hectares were being cleared every decade. That’s around half the size of Germany.

It was most temperate forests across Europe and North America that were being lost at this time. Population growth meant that today’s rich countries needed more and more resources such as land for agriculture, wood for energy, and for construction. 9

Moving into the 20th century there was a stepwise change in demand for agricultural land and energy from wood. Deforestation rates accelerated. And the hotspot of deforestation changed from the equivalent to the area of South Africa. This increase was mostly driven by tropical deforestation as countries across Asia and Latin America.

Global forest loss appears to have reached its peak in the 1980s. The two sources do not agree on the magnitude of this loss: Williams (2006) estimates a loss of 150 million hectares – an area half the size of India – during that decade.

Interestingly, the UN FAO 1990 report also estimated that deforestation in tropical ‘developing’ countries was 154 million hectares. But, it estimated that regrowth of old forests offset some of these losses, leading to a net loss of 102 million hectares. 10

The latest UN Forest Resources Assessment estimates that the net loss in forests has declined in the last three decades, from 78 million hectares in the 1990s to 47 million hectares in the 2010s.

This data maps an expected pathway based on what we know from how human-forest interactions evolve.

As we explore in more detail in our related article , countries tend to follow a predictable development in forest cover, a U-shaped curve. 11 They lose forests as populations grow and demand for agricultural land and fuel increases, but eventually they reach the so-called ‘forest transition point’ where they begin to regrow more forests than they lose.

That is what has happened in temperate regions: they have gone through a period of high deforestation rates, before a slowing and reversal of this trend.

However, many countries – particularly in the tropics and sub-tropics – are still moving through this transition. Deforestation rates are still very high.

Deforestation rates are still high across the tropics

Large areas of forest are still being lost in the tropics today. This is particularly tragic because these are regions with very high concentrations of biodiversity.

Let’s look at estimates of deforestation from the latest UN Forest report. This shows us raw deforestation rates, without any adjustment for the regrowth or plantation of forests, which is arguably not as good for ecosystems or carbon storage.

This is shown in the chart below.

We can see that the UN does estimate that deforestation rates have fallen since the 1990s. However, there was very little progress from the 1990s to 2000s, and an estimated 26% drop in rates in the 2010s. In 2022, the FAO published a separate assessment based on Remote Sensing methods; it did not report data for the 1990s, but also estimated a 29% reduction in deforestation rates from early 2000s to the 2010s.

This is progress, but it needs to happen much faster. The world is still losing large amounts of primary forests every year. To put these numbers in context: during the 1990s and first decade of the 2000s, an area almost the size of India was deforested. 12 Even with the ‘improved’ rates in the 2010s, this still amounted to an area around twice the size of Spain. 13

The regrowth of forests is a positive development. In the chart below, we see how this affects the net change in global forests. Forest recovery and plantation ‘offsets’ a lot of deforestation such that the net losses are around half the rates of deforestation alone.

But we should be cautious here: it’s often not the case that the ‘positives’ of regrowing one hectare of forest offset the ‘losses’ of one hectare of deforestation. Cutting down one hectare of rich, tropical rainforest cannot be completely offset by the plantation of forest in a temperate country.

Forest expansion is positive, but does not negate the need to finally end deforestation.

The history of deforestation is a tragic one, in which we not only lost these wild and beautiful landscapes but also the wildlife within them. But, the fact that forest transitions are possible should give us confidence that a positive future is possible. Many countries have not only ended deforestation, but actually achieved substantial reforestation. It will be possible for our generation to achieve the same on the global scale and bring the 10,000 year history of forest loss to an end.

If we want to end deforestation we need to understand where and why it’s happening; where countries are within their transition; and what can be done to accelerate their progress through it. We need to pass the transition point as soon as possible, while minimising the amount of forest we lose along the way.

In this article I look at what’s driving deforestation: that helps us understand what we need to do to solve it.

Forest definitions and comparisons to other datasets

There is no universal definition of what a ‘forest’ is. That means there are a range of estimates of forest area, and how this has changed over time.

In this article, in the recent period I have used data from the UN’s Global Forest Resources Assessment (2020). The UN carries out these global forest stocktakes every five years. These forest figures are widely-used in research, policy, and international targets, such as in the Sustainable Development Goals .

The UN FAO has a very specific definition of a forest. It’s “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 0.5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ.”

In other words, it has criteria for the area that must be covered (0.5 hectares), the minimum height of trees (0.5 meters) and a density of at least 10%.

Compare this to the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which uses forest estimates to calculate land use carbon emissions, and for its REDD+ programme, where low-to-middle income countries can receive finance for verified projects that prevent or reduce deforestation. It defines a forest as having a density of 10-30%, a minimum tree height of 2-5 meters, and a smaller area of 0.1 hectares.

It’s not just forest definitions that vary between sources. What is measured (and not measured) differs too. Global Forest Watch is an interactive online dashboard that tracks ‘tree loss’ and ‘forest loss’ across the world. It measures this in real-time, and can provide better estimates of year-to-year variations in rates of tree loss.

However, the UN FAO and Global Forest Watch do not measure the same thing.

The UN FAO measures deforestation based on how land is used. It measures the permanent conversion of forested land to another use, such as pasture, croplands, or urbanization. Temporary changes in forest cover, such as losses through wildfire, or small-scale shifting agriculture are not included in deforestation figures, because it is assumed that they will regrow. If the use of land has not changed, it is not considered deforestation.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) measures temporary changes in forests. It can detect changes in land cover , but does not differentiate the underlying land use. All deforestation would be considered tree loss, but a lot of tree loss would not be considered as deforestation.

As GFW describes in its definition of ‘forest loss’: “Loss” indicates the removal or mortality of tree cover and can be due to a variety of factors, including mechanical harvesting, fire, disease, or storm damage. As such, “loss” does not equate to deforestation.”

We therefore cannot directly compare these sources. This article from Global Forest Watch gives a good overview of the differences between the UN FAO and GFW methods.

Since GFW uses satellite imagery, its methods continually improve. This makes its ability to detect changes in forest cover even stronger. But it also means that comparisons over time are more difficult. It currently warns against comparing pre-2015 and post-2015 data since there was a significant methodological change at that time. Note that this is also a problem in UN FAO reports, as I’ll soon explain.

What data from GFW makes clear is that forest loss across the tropics is still very high, and in the last few years, little progress has been made. Since UN FAO reports are only published in 5-year intervals, they miss these shorter-term fluctuations in forest loss. The GFW’s shorter-interval stocktakes of how countries are doing will become increasingly valuable.

One final point to note is that UN FAO estimates have also changed over time, with improved methods and better access to data.

I looked at how net forest loss rates in the 1990s were reported across five UN reports: 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020.

Estimated rates changed in each successive report:

• 2000 report : Net losses of 92 million hectares
• 2005 report : 89 million hectares
• 2010 report : 83 million hectares
• 2015 report : 72 million hectares
• 2020 report : 78 million hectares

This should not affect the overall trends reported in the latest report: the UN FAO should – as far as is possible – apply the same methodology to its 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s estimates. However, it does mean we should be cautious about comparing absolute magnitudes across different reports.

This is one challenge in presenting 1980 figures in the main visualization in this article. Later reports have not updated 1980 figures, so we have to rely on estimates from earlier reports. We don’t know whether 1980s rates would also be lower with the UN FAO’s most recent adjustments. If so, this would mean the reductions in net forest loss from the 1980s to 1990s were lower than is shown from available data.

Forest Transitions: why do we lose then regain forests?

Globally we deforest around ten million hectares of forest every year. 14 That’s an area the size of Portugal every year. Around half of this deforestation is offset by regrowing forests, so overall we lose around five million hectares each year.

Nearly all – 95% – of this deforestation occurs in the tropics . But not all of it is to produce products for local markets. 14% of deforestation is driven by consumers in the world’s richest countries – we import beef, vegetable oils, cocoa, coffee and paper that has been produced on deforested land. 15

The scale of deforestation today might give us little hope for protecting our diverse forests. But by studying how forests have changed over time, there’s good reason to think that a way forward is possible.

Many countries have lost then regained forest over millennia

Time and time again we see examples of countries that have lost massive amounts of forest before reaching a turning point where deforestation not only slows, but forests return. In the chart we see historical reconstructions of country-level data on the share of land covered by forest (over decades, centuries or even millennia depending on the country). I have reconstructed long-term data using various studies which I’ve documented here .

Many countries have much less forest today than they did in the past. Nearly half (47%) of France was forested 1000 years ago; today that’s just under one-third (31.4%). The same is true of the United States; back in 1630 46% of the area of today’s USA was covered by forest. Today that’s just 34%.

1000 years ago, 20% of Scotland’s land was covered by forest. By the mid-18th century, only 4% of the country was forested. But then the trend turned, and it moved from deforestation to reforestation. For the last two centuries forests have been growing and are almost back to where they were 1000 years ago. 16

Forest Transitions: the U-shaped curve of forest change

What’s surprising is how consistent the pattern of change is across so many countries; as we’ve seen they all seem to follow a ‘U-shaped curve’. They first lose lots of forest, but reach a turning point and begin to regain it again.

We can illustrate this through the so-called ‘Forest Transition Model’. 17 This is shown in the chart. It breaks the change in forests into four stages, explained by two variables: the amount of forest cover a region has, and the annual change in cover (how quickly it is losing or gaining forest). 18

Stage 1 – The Pre-Transition phase is defined by having high levels of forest cover and no or only very slow losses over time. Countries may lose some forest each year, but this is at a very slow rate. Mather refers to an annual loss of less than 0.25% as a small loss.

Stage 2 – The Early Transition phase is when countries start to lose forests very rapidly. Forest cover falls quickly, and the annual loss of forest is high.

Stage 3 – The Late Transition phase is when deforestation rates start to slow down again. At this stage, countries are still losing forest each year but at a lower rate than before. At the end of this stage, countries are approaching the ‘transition point’.

Stage 4 – The Post-Transition phase is when countries have passed the ‘transition point’ and are now gaining forest again. At the beginning of this phase, the forest area is at its lowest point. But forest cover increases through reforestation. The annual change is now positive.

Why do countries lose then regain forest?

Many countries have followed this classic U-shaped pattern. What explains this?

There are two reasons that we cut down forests:

• Forest resources: we want the resources that they provide – the wood for fuel, building materials, or paper;
• Land: – we want to use the land they occupy for something else – farmland to grow crops; pasture to raise livestock; or land to build roads and cities.

Our demand for both of these initially increases as populations grow and poor people get richer . We need more fuelwood to cook, more houses to live in, and importantly, more food to eat.

But, as countries continue to get richer this demand slows. The rate of population growth tends to slow down. Instead of using wood for fuel we switch to fossil fuels , or hopefully, more renewables and nuclear energy . Our crop yields improve and so we need less land for agriculture.

This demand for resources and land is not always driven by domestic markets. As I mentioned earlier, 14% of deforestation today is driven by consumers in rich countries.

The Forest Transition therefore tends to follow a ‘development’ pathway. 19 As a country achieves economic growth it moves through each of the four stages. This explains historical trends we see for countries across the world today. Rich countries – such as the USA, France and the United Kingdom – have had a long history of deforestation but are now passed the transition point. Most deforestation today occurs in low-to-middle income countries.

Where are countries in the transition today?

If we look at where countries are in their transition today we can understand where we expect to lose and gain forest in the coming decades. Most of our future deforestation is going to come from countries in the pre- or early-transition phase.

Several studies have assessed the stage of countries across the world. 20 The most recent analysis to date was published by Florence Pendrill and colleagues (2019) which looked at each country’s stage in the transition, the drivers of deforestation but also the role of international trade. 21 To do this, they used the standard metrics discussed in our theory of forest transitions earlier: the share of land that is forested, and the annual change in forest cover.

In the map we see their assessment of each country’s stage in the transition. Most of today’s richest countries – all of Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea – have passed the turning point and are now regaining forest. This is also true for major economies such as China and India. That these countries have recently regained forests is also visible in the long-term forest trends above.

Across sub-tropical countries we have a mix: many upper-middle income countries are now in the late transition phase. Brazil, for example, went through a period of very rapid deforestation in the 1980s and 90s (its ‘early transition’ phase) but its losses have slowed, meaning it is now in the late transition. Countries such as Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are in the early transition phase and are losing forests quickly. Some of the world’s poorest countries are still in the pre-transition phase. In the coming decades this is where we might expect to see the most rapid loss of forests unless these countries take action to prevent it, and the world supports them in the goal.

Not all forest loss is equal: what is the difference between deforestation and forest degradation?

15 billion trees are cut down every year. 22 The Global Forest Watch project – using satellite imagery – estimates that global tree loss in 2019 was 24 million hectares. That’s an area the size of the United Kingdom.

These are big numbers, and important ones to track: forest loss creates a number of negative impacts, ranging from carbon emissions to species extinctions and biodiversity loss. But distilling changes to this single metric – tree or forest loss – comes with its own issues.

The problem is that it treats all forest loss as equal. It assumes the impact of clearing primary rainforest in the Amazon to produce soybeans is the same as logging planted forests in the UK. The latter will experience short-term environmental impacts, but will ultimately regrow. When we cut down primary rainforest we are transforming this ecosystem forever.

When we treat these impacts equally we make it difficult to prioritize our efforts in the fight against deforestation. Decisionmakers could give as much of our attention to European logging as to destruction of the Amazon. As we will see later, this would be a distraction from our primary concern: ending tropical deforestation. The other issue that arises is that ‘tree loss’ or ‘forest loss’ data collected by satellite imagery often doesn’t match the official statistics reported by governments in their land use inventories. This is because the latter only captures deforestation – the replacement of forest with another land use (such as cropland). It doesn’t capture trees that are cut down in planted forests; the land is still forested, it’s now just regrowing forest.

In the article we will look at the reasons we lose forest; how these can be differentiated in a useful way; and what this means for understanding our priorities in tackling forest loss.

Understanding and seeing the drivers of forest loss

‘Forest loss’ or ‘tree loss’ captures two fundamental impacts on forest cover: deforestation and forest degradation .

Deforestation is the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use such as agriculture, mining, or towns and cities. It results in a permanent conversion of forest into an alternative land use. The trees are not expected to regrow . Forest degradation measures a thinning of the canopy – a reduction in the density of trees in the area – but without a change in land use. The changes to the forest are often temporary and it’s expected that they will regrow.

From this understanding we can define five reasons why we lose forests:

• Commodity-driven deforestation is the long-term, permanent conversion of forests to other land uses such as agriculture (including oil palm and cattle ranching), mining, or energy infrastructure.
• Urbanization is the long-term, permanent conversion of forests to towns, cities and urban infrastructure such as roads.
• Shifting agriculture is the small to medium-scale conversion of forest for farming, that is later abandoned so that forests regrow. This is common of local, subsistence farming systems where populations will clear forest, use it to grow crops, then move on to another plot of land.
• Forestry production is the logging of managed, planted forests for products such as timber, paper and pulp. These forests are logged periodically and allowed to regrow.
• Wildfires destroy forests temporarily. When the land is not converted to a new use afterwards forests can regrow in the following years.

Thanks to satellite imagery, we can get a birds-eye view of what these drivers look like from above. In the figure we see visual examples from the study of forest loss classification by Philip Curtis et al. (2018), published in Science . 23

Commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization are deforestation : the forested land is completely cleared and converted into another land use – a farm, mining site, or city. The change is permanent. There is little forest left. Forestry production and wildfires usually result in forest degradation – the forest experiences short-term disturbance but if left alone is likely to regrow. The change is temporary. This is nearly always true of planted forests in temperate regions – there, planted forests are long-established and do not replace primary existing forests. In the tropics, some forestry production can be classified as deforestation when primary rainforests are cut down to make room for managed tree plantations. 21

'Shifting agriculture’ is usually classified as degradation because the land is often abandoned and the forests regrow naturally. But it can bridge between deforestation and degradation depending on the timeframe and permanence of these agricultural practices.

One-quarter of forest loss comes from tropical deforestation

We’ve seen the five key drivers of forest loss. Let’s put some numbers to them.

In their analysis of global forest loss, Philip Curtis and colleagues used satellite images to assess where and why the world lost forests between 2001 and 2015. The breakdown of forest loss globally, and by region, is shown in the chart. 23

Just over one-quarter of global forest loss is driven by deforestation. The remaining 73% came from the three drivers of forest degradation: logging of forestry products from plantations (26%); shifting, local agriculture (24%); and wildfires (23%).

We see massive differences in how important each driver is across the world. 95% of the world’s deforestation occurs in the tropics [we look at this breakdown again later]. In Latin America and Southeast Asia in particular, commodity-driven deforestation – mainly the clearance of forests to grow crops such as palm oil and soy, and pasture for beef production – accounts for almost two-thirds of forest loss.

In contrast, most forest degradation – two-thirds of it – occurs in temperate countries. Centuries ago it was mainly temperate regions that were driving global deforestation [we take a look at this longer history of deforestation in a related article ] . They cut down their forests and replaced it with agricultural land long ago. But this is no longer the case: forest loss across North America and Europe is now the result of harvesting forestry products from tree plantations, or tree loss in wildfires.

Africa is also different here. Forests are mainly cut and burned to make space for local, subsistence agriculture or for fuelwood for energy. This ‘shifting agriculture’ category can be difficult to allocate between deforestation and degradation: it often requires close monitoring over time to understand how permanent these agricultural practices are.

Africa is also an outlier as a result of how many people still rely on wood as their primary energy source. Noriko Hosonuma et al. (2010) looked at the primary drivers of deforestation and degradation across tropical and subtropical countries specifically. 24  The breakdown of forest degradation drivers is shown in the following chart. Note that in this study, the category of subsistence agriculture was classified as a deforestation driver, and so is not included. In Latin America and Asia the dominant driver of degradation was logging for products such as timber, paper and pulp – this accounted for more than 70%. Across Africa, fuelwood and charcoal played a much larger role – it accounted for more than half (52%).

This highlights an important point: less than 20% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to clean fuels for cooking, meaning they still rely on wood and charcoal. With increasing development, urbanization and access to other energy resources, Africa will shift from local, subsistence activities into commercial commodity production – both in agricultural products and timber extraction. This follows the classic ‘forest transition’ model with development, which we look at in more detail in a related article .

Tropical deforestation should be our primary concern

The world loses almost six million hectares of forest each year to deforestation. That’s like losing an area the size of Portugal every two years. 95% of this occurs in the tropics. The breakdown of deforestation by region is shown in the chart. 59% occurs in Latin America, with a further 28% from Southeast Asia. In a related article we look in much more detail at what agricultural products, and which countries are driving this.

As we saw previously, this deforestation accounts for around one-quarter of global forest loss. 27% of forest loss results from ‘commodity-driven deforestation’ – cutting down forests to grow crops such as soy, palm oil, cocoa, to raise livestock on pasture, and mining operations. Urbanization, the other driver of deforestation accounts for just 0.6%. It’s the foods and products we buy, not where we live, that has the biggest impact on global land use.

It might seem odd to argue that we should focus our efforts on tackling this quarter of forest loss (rather than the other 73%). But there is good reason to make this our primary concern.

Philipp Curtis and colleagues make this point clear. At their Global Forest Watch platform they were already presenting maps of forest loss across the world. But they wanted to contribute to a more informed discussion about where to focus forest conservation efforts by understanding why forests were being lost. To quote them, they wanted to prevent “a common misperception that any tree cover loss shown on the map represents deforestation”. And to “identify where deforestation is occurring; perhaps as important, show where forest loss is not deforestation”.

Why should we care most about tropical deforestation? There is a geographical argument (why the tropics?) and an argument for why deforestation is worse than degradation.

Tropical forests are home to some of the richest and most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Over half of the world’s species reside in tropical forests. 25 Endemic species are those which only naturally occur in a single country. Whether we look at the distribution of endemic mammal species , bird species , or amphibian species , the map is the same: subtropical countries are packed with unique wildlife. Habitat loss is the leading driver of global biodiversity loss. 26 When we cut down rainforests we are destroying the habitats of many unique species, and reshaping these ecosystems permanently. Tropical forests are also large carbon sinks, and can store a lot of carbon per unit area. 27

Deforestation also results in larger losses of biodiversity and carbon relative to degradation. Degradation drivers, including logging and especially wildfires can definitely have major impacts on forest health: animal populations decline, trees can die, and CO 2 is emitted. But the magnitude of these impacts are often less than the complete conversion of forest. They are smaller, and more temporary. When deforestation happens, almost all of the carbon stored in the trees and vegetation – called the ‘aboveground carbon loss’ –  is lost. Estimates vary, but on average only 10-20% of carbon is lost during logging, and 10-30% from fires. 28 In a study of logging practices in the Amazon and Congo, forests retained 76% of their carbon stocks shortly after logging. 29 Logged forests recover their carbon over time, as long as the land is not converted to other uses (which is what happens in the case of deforestation).

Deforestation tends to occur on forests that have been around for centuries, if not millennia. Cutting them down disrupts or destroys established, species-rich ecosystems. The biodiversity of managed tree plantations which are periodically cut, regrown, cut again, then regrown is not the same.

That is why we should be focusing on tropical deforestation. Since agriculture is responsible for 60 to 80% of it, what we eat, where it’s sourced from, and how it is produced is our strongest lever to bring deforestation to an end.

Do rich countries import deforestation from overseas?

There is a marked divide in the state of the world’s forests. In most rich countries, across Europe, North America and East Asia, forest cover is increasing , whilst in many low-to-middle income countries it’s decreasing.

But, it would be wrong to think that the only impact rich countries have on global forests is through changes in their domestic forests. They also contribute to global deforestation through the foods they import from poorer countries.

Today, most deforestation occurs in the tropics. 71% of this is driven by demand in domestic markets, and the remaining 29% for the production of products that are traded. 40% of traded deforestation ends up in high-income countries, meaning they are responsible for 12% of deforestation. 30

Let’s take a look at which countries are causing deforestation overseas and the size of this impact.

Which countries are causing deforestation overseas?

How much do people in rich countries contribute to deforestation overseas?

To investigate this question, researchers Florence Pendrill et al. (2019) quantified the deforestation embedded in traded goods between countries. 21 They did this by calculating the amount of deforestation associated with specific food and forestry products, and combining it with a trade model.

In the map we see the net deforestation embedded in trade for each country. This is calculated by taking each country’s imported deforestation and subtracting its exported deforestation. Net importers of deforestation (shown in brown) are countries that contribute more to deforestation in other countries than they do in their home country. The consumption choices of people in these countries cause deforestation elsewhere in the world.

For example, after we adjust for all the goods that the UK imports and exports, it caused more deforestation elsewhere than it did domestically. It was a net importer. Brazil, in contrast, caused more deforestation domestically in the production of goods for other countries than it imported from elsewhere. It was a net exporter.

Although there is some year-to-year variability [you can explore the data use the timeline on the bottom of the chart from 2005 to 2013] we see a reasonably consistent divide: most countries across Europe and North America are net importers of deforestation i.e. they’re driving deforestation elsewhere; whilst many subtropical countries are partly cutting down trees to meet this demand from rich countries.

Most deforestation occurs for the production of goods that are consumed within domestic markets. 71% of deforestation is for domestic production. Less than one-third (29%) is for the production of goods that are traded.

High-income countries were the largest 'importers' of deforestation, accounting for 40% of it. This means they were responsible for 12% of global deforestation. 31 It is therefore true that rich countries are causing deforestation in poorer countries.

Are countries importing more deforestation than they’re regrowing domestically?

Many rich countries are driving deforestation in other parts of the world, but are regrowing forests domestically. 79% of exported deforestation ended up in those countries that had stopped losing domestic forests.

How do these two measures compare? Are they causing more deforestation elsewhere than they are regenerating in forests at home?

Let’s take an example. Imagine some temperate country was responsible for the deforestation of 25,000 hectares in tropical countries but was restoring its own forests at a rate of 50,000 hectares per year. On balance, it would still have a positive impact on the size of global forests; its net contribution would be increasing forest area by 25,000 hectares. 32 However, this country might still be causing more damage than this for a couple of reasons. Not all forest is equal. Tropical forests are often more productive than temperate forests, meaning they store more carbon. They are also richer sites of biodiversity. And, we might place more value on preserving primary, native forests that haven’t yet been deforested over regrowing forests that have lost their previous ecosystems. Hence, we should keep in mind that forest area is not the only aspect that matters – where that forest is and how rich in life it is matters too.

It would be good if there was data available that would capture these additional aspects. We manage to capture some of these differences in carbon in our related article on deforestation emissions embedded in trade . Without reliable metrics that capture all of these differences, we will have to stick with total changes in forest area for now. But we should keep these important aspects in mind when comparing forest losses and gains.

In the chart we see the comparison between the change in domestic forest area, and deforestation driven by imported goods. 33 On the vertical axis we have the domestic change in forest area: this is shown only for countries where the forest area is increasing. Since there is often year-to-year variability in deforestation or reforestation rates, this is shown as the five-year average. On the x-axis we have imported deforestation. The grey line marks where the area of domestic regrowth of forests is exactly equal to imported deforestation. Countries that lie along this line would have a net-neutral impact on global forests: the area they are causing to deforestation overseas is exactly as large as the area they are regrowing at home.

Countries which lie above the grey line – such as the United States, Finland, China – restore more forest each year domestically than they import from elsewhere. For example, the US ‘imported’ 64,000 hectares of deforested land, but increased its domestic forest area by 275,000 hectares. More than four times as much. On balance, they add to the global forest stock.

Countries below the line – such as the UK and Germany – are not growing forests fast enough to offset the deforestation they’re creating elsewhere. The UK ‘imported’ 34,000 hectares of deforestation but increased its domestic forests by only 19,000 hectares. These countries might have high levels of afforestation at home, but they’re still having a net negative impact on the size of the world’s forests.

Rich countries need to be more conscious of how they’re contributing to global deforestation

After seeing this data, people might argue that we should cut back on trade. If poorer countries are cutting down forests to make food for rich consumers, then we should just stop trading these goods.

But the solution is not so simple. There are other aspects to consider. International trade is important for socioeconomic development. Many farmers rely on international buyers to earn a living and improve their livelihoods. Not only would this be bad for people, it might also be bad for forests.

One of the reasons poorer countries clear forest to make room for farmland is that they achieve low crop yields . If you struggle to increase crop yields but want to produce more food, then expanding your agricultural land is the only option. This often comes at the cost of forests. Improvements in agricultural productivity tends to both drive and follow economic growth . International trade plays an important role in this growth, and may allow farmers to see the yield gains they need to produce more food using less land.

So, what can we do?

One option is to adopt stricter guidelines on what suppliers to source from, and implementing zero-deforestation policies that stop the trade of goods that have been produced on deforested land. Another way that richer countries can contribute is by investing in technologies – such as improved seed varieties, fertilizers and agricultural practices – that allow farmers to increase yields. That’s both an economic and environmental win.

The first step in doing this is for rich countries to monitor their deforestation impacts overseas more closely. They should keep their domestic reforestation targets in perspective with their net impact on global forests. Sometimes these restoration programmes pale in comparison to the deforestation they’re driving elsewhere.

Carbon emissions from deforestation: are they driven by domestic demand or international trade?

95% of global deforestation occurs in the tropics. Brazil and Indonesia alone account for almost half. After long periods of forest clearance in the past, most of today’s richest countries are increasing tree cover through afforestation.

This might put the responsibility for ending deforestation solely on tropical countries. But, supply chains are international. What if this deforestation is being driven by consumers elsewhere?

Many consumers are concerned that their food choices are linked to deforestation in some of these hotspots. Since three-quarters of tropical deforestation is driven by agriculture, that’s a valid concern. It feeds into the popular idea that ‘eating local’ is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint. In a previous article I showed that the types of food you eat matter much more for your carbon footprint than where it comes from – this is because transport usually makes up a small percentage of your food’s emissions, even if it comes from the other side of the world. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, reducing meat and dairy intake – particularly beef and lamb – has the largest impact.

But, understanding the role of deforestation in the products we buy is important. If we can identify the producer countries, importing countries, and specific products responsible, we can direct our efforts towards interventions that will really make a difference.

One-third of CO 2 emissions from deforestation are embedded in international trade

In a study published in Global Environmental Change , Florence Pendrill and colleagues investigated where tropical deforestation was occurring; what products were driving this; and, using global trade models, they traced where these products were going in international supply chains. 34

They found that tropical deforestation – given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 – was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO 2 per year. That was 6.5% of global CO 2 emissions. 35

International trade was responsible for around one-third (29%) of these emissions. This is probably less than many people would expect. Most emissions – 71% – came from foods consumed in the country that they were produced. It’s domestic demand, not international trade, that is the main driver of deforestation.

In the chart we see how emissions from tropical deforestation are distributed through international supply chains. On the left-hand side we have the countries (grouped by region) where deforestation occurs, and on the right we have the countries and regions where these products are consumed. The paths between these end boxes indicate where emissions are being traded – the wider the bar, the more emissions are embedded in these products.

Latin America exports around 23% of its emissions; that means more than three-quarters are generated for products that are consumed within domestic markets. The Asia-Pacific region – predominantly Indonesia and Malaysia – export a higher share: 44%. As we will see later, this is dominated by palm oil exports to Europe, China, India, North America and the Middle East. Deforestation in Africa is mainly driven by local populations and markets; only 9% of its emissions are exported.

Since international demand is driving one-third of deforestation emissions, we have some opportunity to reduce emissions through global consumers and supply chains. But most emissions are driven by domestic markets – this means policies in the major producer countries will be key to tackling this problem.

How much deforestation emissions is each country responsible for?

Let’s now focus on the consumers of products driving deforestation. After we adjust for imports and exports, how much CO 2 from deforestation is each country responsible for?

Rather than looking at total figures by country [if you’re interested, we have mapped them here ] we have calculated the per capita footprint. This gives us an indication of the impact of the average person’s diet. Note that this only measures the emissions from tropical deforestation – it doesn’t include any other emissions from agricultural production, such as methane from livestock, or rice, or the use of fertilizers.

In the chart we see deforestation emissions per person, measured in tonnes of CO 2 per year. For example, the average German generated half a tonne (510 kilograms) of CO 2 per person from domestic and imported foods.

At the top of the list we see some of the major producer countries – Brazil and Indonesia. The fact that the per capita emissions after trade are very high means that a lot of their food products are consumed by people in Brazil and Indonesia. The diet of the average Brazilian creates 2.7 tonnes of CO 2 from deforestation alone. That’s more than the country’s CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels , which are around 2.2 tonnes per person.

But we also see that some countries which import a lot of food have high emissions. Luxembourg has the largest footprint at nearly three tonnes per person. Imported emissions are also high for Taiwan, Belgium and the Netherlands at around one tonne.

The average across the EU was 0.3 tonnes CO 2 per person. To put this in perspective, that would be around one-sixth of the total carbon footprint of the average EU diet. 36

Beef, soybeans and palm oil are the key drivers of deforestation

We know where deforestation emissions are occurring, and where this demand is coming from. But we also need to know what products are driving this. This helps consumers understand what products they should be concerned about, but also allows us to target specific supply chains.

As we covered in a previous article , 60% of tropical deforestation is driven by beef, soybean and palm oil production. We should not only look at where these foods are produced, but also where the consumer demand is coming from.

In the chart here we see the breakdown of deforestation emissions by product for each consumer country. The default is shown for Brazil, but you can explore the data for a range of countries using the “Change country” button.

We see very clearly that the large Brazilian footprint is driven by its domestic demand for beef. In China, the biggest driver is demand for ‘oilseeds’ – which is the combination of soy imported from Latin America and palm oil, imported from Indonesia and Malaysia.

Across the US and Europe the breakdown of products is more varied. But, overall, oilseeds and beef tend to top the list for most countries.

Bringing all of these elements together, we can focus on a few points that should help us prioritise our efforts to end deforestation. Firstly, international trade does play a role in deforestation – it’s responsible for almost one-third of emissions. By combining our earlier Sankey diagram, and breakdown of emissions by product, we can see that we can tackle a large share of these emissions through only a few key trade flows. Most traded emissions are embedded in soy and palm oil exports to China and India; and beef, soy and palm oil exports to Europe. The story of both soy and palm oil are complex – and it’s not obvious that eliminating these products will fix the problem. We therefore look at them both individually in more detail, to better understand what we can do about it.

But international markets alone cannot fix this problem. Most tropical deforestation is driven by demand for products in domestic markets. Brazil’s emissions are high because Brazilians eat a lot of beef. Africa’s emissions are high because people are clearing forests to produce more food. This means interventions at the national-level will be key: this can include a range of solutions including policies such as Brazil’s soy moratorium, the REDD+ programme to compensate for the opportunity costs of preserving these forests, and improvements in agricultural productivity so countries can continue to produce more food on less land.

FAO. 2020. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 – Key findings. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8753en

The data used in this chart comes from several sources.

Forests – this data is primarily sourced from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It provides long-term estimates on forest cover in 10,000 and 5,000 years BP. Its State of the World’s Forests report provides estimates of global forest cover today, and rates of change over previous decades. In a related post we have combined this FAO data with global deforestation rates from Williams (2003) to document forest change over the last 300 years – this gives us data on forest change from 1700 onwards.

The definition of 'forest' can vary depending on aspects such as tree density and height. Absolute estimates of forest cover from other sources may differ for this reason. However, most align on the relative change in forests over this period. For example, Ellis et al. (2020). estimate a 35% loss of global forest cover since 10,000. This is very close to our estimate of a one-third loss.

Agricultural and urban land – The UN FAO Statistical database provides data on global agricultural and urban land from 1961 onwards. Pre-1961 land use is sourced from the work of Ellis et al. (2020).

FAO and UNEP. 2020. The State of the World’s Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people . Rome.

Williams, M. (2003). Deforesting the earth: from prehistory to global crisis. University of Chicago Press.

Ellis, E. C., Beusen, A. H., & Goldewijk, K. K. (2020). Anthropogenic Biomes: 10,000 BCE to 2015 CE . Land , 9(5), 129.

Estimates vary, but most date the end of the last great ice age to around 11,700 years ago.Kump, L. R., Kasting, J. F., & Crane, R. G. (2004). The Earth System (Vol. 432) . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

We can calculate this increase as [(7.63 billion - 3.09 billion) / 3.09 billion * 100 = 147%].

Estimates vary, but most date the end of the last great ice age to around 11,700 years ago.

Kump, L. R., Kasting, J. F., & Crane, R. G. (2004). The Earth System (Vol. 432). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Year-to-year data on forest change comes with several issues: either data at this resolution is not available, or year-to-year changes can be highly variable. For this reason, data sources – including the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – tend to aggregate annual losses as the average over five-year or decadal periods.

The data for 1990 to 2000 is from the altest assessment: the UN’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020.

FAO (2020). Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Main report. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9825en .

Mather, A. S., Fairbairn, J., & Needle, C. L. (1999). The course and drivers of the forest transition: the case of France. Journal of Rural Studies, 15(1), 65-90.

Mather, A. S., & Needle, C. L. (2000). The relationships of population and forest trends. Geographical Journal, 166(1), 2-13.

It estimated that the net change in forests without plantations was 121 million hectares. With plantations included – as is standard for the UN’s forest assessments – this was 102 million hectares.

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., … & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries. Environmental Research Letters, 7(4), 044009.

The area of India is around 330 million hectares. The combined losses in the 1990s and 2000s was 309 million hectares. Just 6% less than the size of India.

The area of Spain is around 51 million hectares. Double this area is around 102 million hectares – a little under 110 million hectares.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forest Resources Assessment estimates global deforestation, averaged over the five-year period from 2015 to 2020 was 10 million hectares per year.

If we sum countries’ imported deforestation by World Bank income group , we find that high-income countries were responsible for 14% of imported deforestation; upper-middle income for 52%; lower-middle income for 23%; and low income for 11%.

Mather, A. S. (2004). Forest transition theory and the reforesting of Scotland . Scottish Geographical Journal, 120(1-2), 83-98.

England is similar: in the late 11th century, 15% of the country was forested, and over the following centuries two-thirds were cut down. By the 19th century the forest area was reduced to a third of what it once was. But it was then that England reached its transition point and since then, forests have doubled in size.

National Inventory of Woodland and Trees, England (2001). Forestry Commission. Available here .

This was first coined by Alexander Mather in the 1990s.Mather, A. S. (1990). Global forest resources . Belhaven Press.

This diagram is adapted from the work of Hosonuma et al. (2012).

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7 (4), 044009.

Rudel, T. K. (1998). Is there a forest transition? Deforestation, reforestation, and development . Rural Sociology , 63 (4), 533-552.

Rudel, T. K., Coomes, O. T., Moran, E., Achard, F., Angelsen, A., Xu, J., & Lambin, E. (2005). Forest transitions: towards a global understanding of land use change . Global Environmental Change , 15 (1), 23-31.

Cuaresma, J. C., Danylo, O., Fritz, S., McCallum, I., Obersteiner, M., See, L., & Walsh, B. (2017). Economic development and forest cover: evidence from satellite data . Scientific Reports , 7 , 40678.

Noriko Hosonuma et al. (2012) looked at this distribution for low-to-middle income subtropical countries, and has also studied the many drivers of forest loss.Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7 (4), 044009.

Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., & Kastner, T. (2019). Deforestation displaced: trade in forest-risk commodities and the prospects for a global forest transition . Environmental Research Letters , 14 (5), 055003.

Crowther, T. W., Glick, H. B., Covey, K. R., Bettigole, C., Maynard, D. S., Thomas, S. M., ... & Tuanmu, M. N. (2015). Mapping tree density at a global scale . Nature , 525 (7568), 201-205.

Curtis, P. G., Slay, C. M., Harris, N. L., Tyukavina, A., & Hansen, M. C. (2018). Classifying drivers of global forest loss . Science , 361 (6407), 1108-1111.

Hosonuma, N., Herold, M., De Sy, V., De Fries, R. S., Brockhaus, M., Verchot, L., ... & Romijn, E. (2012). An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries . Environmental Research Letters , 7(4), 044009.

Hosonuma et al. (2012) gathered this data from a range of sources including country submissions as part of their REDD+ readiness activities, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) country profiles, UNFCCC national communications and scientific studies.

Scheffers, B. R., Joppa, L. N., Pimm, S. L., & Laurance, W. F. (2012). What we know and don’t know about Earth's missing biodiversity . Trends in Ecology & Evolution , 27(9), 501-510.

Maxwell, S. L., Fuller, R. A., Brooks, T. M., & Watson, J. E. (2016). Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers . Nature, 536(7615), 143.

Lewis, S. L. (2006). Tropical forests and the changing earth system . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 361(1465), 195-210.

Tyukavina, A., Hansen, M. C., Potapov, P. V., Stehman, S. V., Smith-Rodriguez, K., Okpa, C., & Aguilar, R. (2017). Types and rates of forest disturbance in Brazilian Legal Amazon, 2000–2013 . Science Advances , 3 (4), e1601047.

Lewis, S. L., Edwards, D. P., & Galbraith, D. (2015). Increasing human dominance of tropical forests . Science , 349 (6250), 827-832.

If we sum countries’ imported deforestation by World Bank income group , we find that high-income countries were responsible for 40% of imported deforestation; upper-middle income for 25%; lower-middle income for 20%; and low income for 5%.

We then get high-income countries' share of deforestation as: [40% of the 29% that is traded], which is equal to 12%.

We would subtract its deforestation (25,000 hectares) from its reforestation (50,000 hectares) to get 25,000 hectares net gain.

Data on the annual change in domestic forests is sourced from the UN FAO’s Forest Resources Assessment .

To do this, they quantified where deforestation was occurring due to the expansion of croplands, pasture and tree plantations (for logging), and what commodities were produced on this converted land. Then, using a physical trade model across 191 countries and around 400 food and forestry products, they could trace them through to where they are physically consumed, either as food or in industrial processes.

Pendrill, F., Persson, U. M., Godar, J., Kastner, T., Moran, D., Schmidt, S., & Wood, R. (2019). Agricultural and forestry trade drives large share of tropical deforestation emissions . Global Environmental Change , 56 , 1-10.

In 2012 – the mid-year of this period – global emissions from fossil fuels, industry and land use change was 40.2 billion tonnes. Deforestation was therefore responsible for [2.6 / 40.2 * 100 = 6.5%].

The carbon footprint of diets across the EU vary from country-to-country, and estimates vary depending on how much land use change is factored into these figures. Notarnicola et al. (2017) estimate that the average EU diet, excluding deforestation, is responsible for 0.5 tonnes CO 2 per person. If we add 0.3 tonnes to this figure, deforestation would account for around one-sixth [0.3 / (1.5+0.3) * 100 = 17%].

Notarnicola, B., Tassielli, G., Renzulli, P. A., Castellani, V., & Sala, S. (2017). Environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe . Journal of Cleaner Production , 140 , 753-765.

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How to tackle the global deforestation crisis

Imagine if France, Germany, and Spain were completely blanketed in forests — and then all those trees were quickly chopped down. That’s nearly the amount of deforestation that occurred globally between 2001 and 2020, with profound consequences.

Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, producing between 6 and 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2009 study. Meanwhile, because trees also absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere, they help keep the Earth cooler. And climate change aside, forests protect biodiversity.

“Climate change and biodiversity make this a global problem, not a local problem,” says MIT economist Ben Olken. “Deciding to cut down trees or not has huge implications for the world.”

But deforestation is often financially profitable, so it continues at a rapid rate. Researchers can now measure this trend closely: In the last quarter-century, satellite-based technology has led to a paradigm change in charting deforestation. New deforestation datasets, based on the Landsat satellites, for instance, track forest change since 2000 with resolution at 30 meters, while many other products now offer frequent imaging at close resolution.

“Part of this revolution in measurement is accuracy, and the other part is coverage,” says Clare Balboni, an assistant professor of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE). “On-site observation is very expensive and logistically challenging, and you’re talking about case studies. These satellite-based data sets just open up opportunities to see deforestation at scale, systematically, across the globe.”

Balboni and Olken have now helped write a new paper providing a road map for thinking about this crisis. The open-access article, “ The Economics of Tropical Deforestation ,” appears this month in the Annual Review of Economics . The co-authors are Balboni, a former MIT faculty member; Aaron Berman, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Economics; Robin Burgess, an LSE professor; and Olken, MIT’s Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics. Balboni and Olken have also conducted primary research in this area, along with Burgess.

So, how can the world tackle deforestation? It starts with understanding the problem.

Replacing forests with farms

Several decades ago, some thinkers, including the famous MIT economist Paul Samuelson in the 1970s, built models to study forests as a renewable resource; Samuelson calculated the “maximum sustained yield” at which a forest could be cleared while being regrown. These frameworks were designed to think about tree farms or the U.S. national forest system, where a fraction of trees would be cut each year, and then new trees would be grown over time to take their place.

But deforestation today, particularly in tropical areas, often looks very different, and forest regeneration is not common.

Indeed, as Balboni and Olken emphasize, deforestation is now rampant partly because the profits from chopping down trees come not just from timber, but from replacing forests with agriculture. In Brazil, deforestation has increased along with agricultural prices; in Indonesia, clearing trees accelerated as the global price of palm oil went up, leading companies to replace forests with palm tree orchards.

All this tree-clearing creates a familiar situation: The globally shared costs of climate change from deforestation are “externalities,” as economists say, imposed on everyone else by the people removing forest land. It is akin to a company that pollutes into a river, affecting the water quality of residents.

“Economics has changed the way it thinks about this over the last 50 years, and two things are central,” Olken says. “The relevance of global externalities is very important, and the conceptualization of alternate land uses is very important.” This also means traditional forest-management guidance about regrowth is not enough. With the economic dynamics in mind, which policies might work, and why?

The search for solutions

As Balboni and Olken note, economists often recommend “Pigouvian” taxes (named after the British economist Arthur Pigou) in these cases, levied against people imposing externalities on others. And yet, it can be hard to identify who is doing the deforesting.

Instead of taxing people for clearing forests, governments can pay people to keep forests intact. The UN uses Payments for Environmental Services (PES) as part of its REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) program. However, it is similarly tough to identify the optimal landowners to subsidize, and these payments may not match the quick cash-in of deforestation. A 2017 study in Uganda showed PES reduced deforestation somewhat; a 2022 study in Indonesia found no reduction; another 2022 study, in Brazil, showed again that some forest protection resulted.

“There’s mixed evidence from many of these [studies],” Balboni says. These policies, she notes, must reach people who would otherwise clear forests, and a key question is, “How can we assess their success compared to what would have happened anyway?”

Some places have tried cash transfer programs for larger populations. In Indonesia, a 2020 study found such subsidies reduced deforestation near villages by 30 percent. But in Mexico, a similar program meant more people could afford milk and meat, again creating demand for more agriculture and thus leading to more forest-clearing.

At this point, it might seem that laws simply banning deforestation in key areas would work best — indeed, about 16 percent of the world’s land overall is protected in some way. Yet the dynamics of protection are tricky. Even with protected areas in place, there is still “leakage” of deforestation into other regions. 

Still more approaches exist, including “nonstate agreements,” such as the Amazon Soy Moratorium in Brazil, in which grain traders pledged not to buy soy from deforested lands, and reduced deforestation without “leakage.”

Also, intriguingly, a 2008 policy change in the Brazilian Amazon made agricultural credit harder to obtain by requiring recipients to comply with environmental and land registration rules. The result? Deforestation dropped by up to 60 percent over nearly a decade. 

Politics and pulp

Overall, Balboni and Olken observe, beyond “externalities,” two major challenges exist. One, it is often unclear who holds property rights in forests. In these circumstances, deforestation seems to increase. Two, deforestation is subject to political battles.

For instance, as economist Bard Harstad of Stanford University has observed, environmental lobbying is asymmetric. Balboni and Olken write: “The conservationist lobby must pay the government in perpetuity … while the deforestation-oriented lobby need pay only once to deforest in the present.” And political instability leads to more deforestation because “the current administration places lower value on future conservation payments.”

Even so, national political measures can work. In the Amazon from 2001 to 2005, Brazilian deforestation rates were three to four times higher than on similar land across the border, but that imbalance vanished once the country passed conservation measures in 2006. However, deforestation ramped up again after a 2014 change in government. Looking at particular monitoring approaches, a study of Brazil’s satellite-based Real-Time System for Detection of Deforestation (DETER), launched in 2004, suggests that a 50 percent annual increase in its use in municipalities created a 25 percent reduction in deforestation from 2006 to 2016.

How precisely politics matters may depend on the context. In a 2021 paper, Balboni and Olken (with three colleagues) found that deforestation actually decreased around elections in Indonesia. Conversely, in Brazil, one study found that deforestation rates were 8 to 10 percent higher where mayors were running for re-election between 2002 and 2012, suggesting incumbents had deforestation industry support.

“The research there is aiming to understand what the political economy drivers are,” Olken says, “with the idea that if you understand those things, reform in those countries is more likely.”

Looking ahead, Balboni and Olken also suggest that new research estimating the value of intact forest land intact could influence public debates. And while many scholars have studied deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia, fewer have examined the Democratic Republic of Congo, another deforestation leader, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Deforestation is an ongoing crisis. But thanks to satellites and many recent studies, experts know vastly more about the problem than they did a decade or two ago, and with an economics toolkit, can evaluate the incentives and dynamics at play.

“To the extent that there’s ambuiguity across different contexts with different findings, part of the point of our review piece is to draw out common themes — the important considerations in determining which policy levers can [work] in different circumstances,” Balboni says. “That’s a fast-evolving area. We don’t have all the answers, but part of the process is bringing together growing evidence about [everything] that affects how successful those choices can be.”

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What is deforestation – and is stopping it really possible?

As world leaders prepare to commit to halting the destruction of forests, here’s everything you need to know about some of the planet’s most biodiverse places

F orests and nature are centre stage at Cop26. On the second day of the Glasgow summit, world leaders are announcing a commitment to halting and reversing deforestation. As the second largest source of greenhouse gases after energy, the land sector accounts for 25% of global emissions, with deforestation and forest degradation contributing to half of this.

But why do forests matter to the climate, and how can we halt deforestation?

What is a forest?

There are an estimated three trillion trees on Earth . Some form part of enormous forest ecosystems like the Congo rainforest, while others stand in sparsely populated landscapes such as on the edges of the Sahara desert. Of the 60,000 known tree species, nearly a third are threatened with extinction , according to a recent assessment.

Scientists cannot decide on a single definition of a forest due to disagreements over tree density, height and canopy cover. But the Food and Agriculture Organization’s version is commonly used: “Land with a tree canopy cover of more than 10% and area of more than 0.5 hectares.” Forest covered almost a third of the world’s landmass in 2020, with more than half found in just five countries: Russia, Brazil, Canada, the US and China. The taiga – also known as northern boreal forest – is the world’s largest, stretching around the northern hemisphere through Siberia, Canada and Scandinavia.

Temperate, tropical and boreal are the three main types of forest that include a great diversity of ecosystems: cloud forest, rainforest, mangrove swamps, and tropical dry forest, among many others.

Why do forests matter for the climate?

Forests are among the most biodiverse places on the planet and form an enormous carbon store, regulating the world’s weather and climate. They hold about 861 gigatons of carbon – equivalent to nearly a century’s worth of annual fossil fuel emissions at the current rate – and absorbed twice as much carbon as they emitted in the last two decades. More carbon is stored in soil (44%) than living biomass (42%), with the rest found in dead wood (8%) and forest litter (5%). Forests like the Congo basin rainforest – the world’s second largest – affect rainfall thousands of miles away around the Nile. Billions of humans rely on forests for food, building materials and shelter.

But they are being cleared at a relentless pace. About 10% of tree cover has been lost since 2000, according to Global Forest Watch. Although estimates vary, the land sector is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for around a quarter of emissions, according to the IPCC , of which deforestation is a major component. Many scientists say it will not be possible to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels without halting deforestation.

“There are two main points on forests and carbon,” says Yadvinder Malhi, a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford. “Forests are a carbon store, meaning that when you deforest, you’re releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. The other thing is that intact forests have been shown to be a carbon sink, absorbing carbon over time. And if our sink is disappearing, you’re losing the service that the biosphere provides – an assumption that such a sink will continue is built into almost all of our climate model scenarios for this century.”

Do all forests store the same amount of carbon?

No. Old-growth forests that are free from human industrial interference and pollution are especially important for the climate and biodiversity. They are called primary forests and are ancient, carbon-dense ecosystems bursting with life such as parts of the Amazon, the Białowieża Forest in Poland and Papua New Guinea. With some of the largest trees and the biggest variety of life, conservationists place extra emphasis on their protection from logging, wildfires and human industry as they only account for one-third of the planet’s forest cover . Young or recovering forests store much less carbon and can sometimes take several years before they become effective sinks.

Tropical rainforests, mangrove and peat swamp forests – such as those found in south-east Asia – play a disproportionally important role in regulating the climate due to the amount of carbon they store, their cooling effect and the protection they provide from flooding. Boreal forests, which are covered in snow for large parts of the year, reflect more heat back into the atmosphere and have a net warming effect on the climate. Agricultural tree plantations with very few species are much less carbon-dense and support much less life.

What is deforestation?

Deforestation is the human-driven conversion to another land use of a forest, such as cattle ranching or soya bean production, that is often clearcut with machinery then burnt. It is not the same as logging: trees can be selectively taken out of a standing forest. Deforestation has gone hand in hand with human development for centuries. Nearly all the temperate rainforest that once covered large parts of the British Isles was cleared for agriculture, roads and human settlements, for example.

As well as being a major source of carbon emissions, land use change is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, which scientists warn is driving the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. From space, deforestation often follows a “fishbone pattern” where land is cleared along the edges of roads and rivers. Over time, the fishbone fills in as more of the forest is cleared. On a large scale, the process can become self-perpetuating, such as the Amazon switching from rainforest to savannah , as so much of it has been destroyed.

Last year, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bolivia, Indonesia and Peru were the top five countries for tropical primary forest loss . About 12m hectares (30m acres) of tree cover was lost in the tropics. This includes 4.2m hectares of primary forests, an area the size of the Netherlands, releasing the equivalent to the annual emissions of 570m cars.

Why do people clear forests?

While there are many local factors, experts say the main reason is financial: forests are worth more dead than alive in monetary terms. In Brazil, large parts of the Amazon have been cleared for beef production . In Indonesia, forests and peatlands have been cleared and drained for oil palm plantations. In other areas, coffee, cocoa, bananas, pineapples, coca leaves and subsistence farming have driven land-clearing. Most deforestation hotspots are in tropical regions, which are also profitable areas for farming.

“The largest factor is the expansion of agricultural industries: cattle ranching, soya bean farming and oil palm,” says Malhi. “A second factor is poverty. In many parts of Africa, such as Madagascar, where there is demographic pressure, a lot of poor, rural settlers are just looking to make a living on the frontier as populations increase. The same is true in parts of South America and south-east Asia.”

Can we really stop deforestation?

It will not be easy, but there are reasons to be hopeful. Alongside the commitment from world leaders in Glasgow at Cop26, it is hoped big producers and consumers of commodities linked to deforestation will sign up to eradicating them from the global supply chain. China – one of the world’s largest consumers – is taking deforestation more seriously and is looking at “greening” its supply chain.

“We really need to start thinking about forest loss – especially tropical forest loss – in the same way people are now talking about coal,” says Frances Seymour, a forest and governance expert at the World Resources Institute (WRI). “There was a big celebration that China had committed to no longer financing new coal abroad. But we need to be looking for similar commitments from all countries to stop financing projects that lead to deforestation abroad.”

Are there any examples we can learn from?

Costa Rica is the only tropical country to successfully halt and reverse deforestation. It did so, in part, with payments from an ecosystem services programme that put an economic value on standing forests and biodiversity. The country won the first Earthshot prize this year for the scheme, reversing one of the highest deforestation rates in Latin America in the 70s and regrowing large areas of forest .

On a larger scale, Brazil had considerable success at reducing deforestation in the Amazon in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Environmental laws, improved surveillance of slash-and-burn illegal logging and a soya moratorium in the Amazon were credited with the fall. However, there have since been large spikes in deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Indonesia has had success in recent years slowing deforestation with a palm oil expansion moratorium, although experts warn it is fragile for the same reasons: the economic incentives to clear forest have not changed.

A UN scheme that provides financial incentives to protect forests – known as Redd+ – has been agreed by countries. It allows developing countries to sell carbon credits to preserve carbon sinks. Although there is still division over the rules for carbon markets , it is hoped these will be sorted at Cop26. Countries like Gabon, with low deforestation rates and large forest cover, say that they also need funding to protect forests . Gabon is the chair of the African group of negotiators for Cop26.

Why are indigenous communities so important for stopping deforestation?

Studies show indigenous communities are the best protectors of forests. Many landscapes thought to be wilderness have actually been managed by indigenous communities for centuries. This year, a UN review of more than 250 studies found that in Latin America, deforestation rates were lower in their territories than elsewhere. Despite this, many indigenous and tribal peoples face persecution, racism and violence.

In July, a two-year trial using remote sensors to alert indigenous communities in Peru to early deforestation found a decrease in tree loss of 37% overall for both years, compared to the control group. Researchers say that if this was scaled up, it could have a big effect on reducing deforestation.

Jessica Webb, senior manager for global engagement at Global Forest Watch, says: “A third of the Amazon rainforest falls within approximately 3,300 formally acknowledged territories of indigenous peoples. Based on modelling we did with our partner Rainforest Foundation US, as a result of this study, we predict that an additional 123,000 hectares a year of deforestation could be prevented by scaling this approach to other communities within the Amazon. It would be the equivalent of taking 21m cars off the road for a year.”

Can satellites protect forests?

Ecosystem monitoring is experiencing a technological revolution. Deforestation is easier to track through a dataset developed by researchers at the University of Maryland, Nasa and Google. As image resolutions improve, we are close to being able to monitor deforestation in real time .

But “there are still gaps on being able to monitor restoration and degradation”, says Crystal Davis, director at the Land & Carbon Lab , a WRI initiative that aims to provide information on how the world can meet climate and biodiversity commitments and the needs of 10 billion humans. “We also need a better understanding of the accuracy of global datasets. They are not consistent across geography,” she says.

What about reforestation?

The world needs to restore forests to meet climate and biodiversity goals . But scientists say halting deforestation is an urgent task as it emits carbon immediately whereas it takes decades for nature to recover and sequester carbon. Primary forests that have stood for thousands of years cannot be replaced by tree-planting schemes.

What if we don’t stop deforestation?

Cutting emissions from fossil fuels is the most urgent task to avoid more global heating. But if the world continues to lose forests, we risk triggering tipping points with unintended consequences. The Amazon could turn into savannah , boreal forests could die back and carbon stores that took thousands of years to sequester could be released. What this would mean for food security, weather systems and millions of other species is unlikely to be good news, experts warn.

Robert Nasi, head of the Center for International Forestry Research, says: “We would have climatic change that is cascading: the drying of the Amazon, the Congo Basin … there is a lot of risk of a domino effect. If we don’t protect the forests, people will migrate, there will be climate refugees.”

With thanks to:

Crystal Davis, director at the Land & Carbon Lab Frances Seymour, distinguished senior fellow, World Resources Institute Luiz Amaral, director, global solutions for commodities and finance, World Resources Institute Robert Nasi, director general at the Center for International Forestry Research Yadvinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford Jessica Webb, senior manager for global engagement at Global Forest Watch

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

• The age of extinction
• Deforestation
• Trees and forests
• Conservation
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Biodiversity

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Deforestation. We Wish to Learn: What is “deforestation”? How have old growth forests been affected by humans? What are the consequences of loss of forest habitats and ecosystems? What management strategies are in place to preserve and restore forests?. Area of Forest Ecosystems.

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Deforestation We Wish to Learn: • What is “deforestation”? • How have old growth forests been affected by humans? • What are the consequences of loss of forest habitats and ecosystems? • What management strategies are in place to preserve and restore forests?

Area of Forest Ecosystems World total: ~ 34 million km2

Definitions • Deforestation: The conversion of forest to another land use or the long-term reduction of the tree canopy cover below a 10 percent threshold. Deforestation implies the long-term or permanent loss of forest cover and its transformation into another land use. • Primary forest: is a forest that has never been logged and has developedfollowing natural disturbances and under natural processes, regardless of its age. • Secondary forests: are forests regenerating largely through natural processes after significant human or natural disturbance, and which differ from primary forests in forest composition and/or canopy structure. • Disturbed forests: Any forest type that has in its interior significant areas of disturbance by people, including clearing, felling for wood extraction, anthropogenic fires, road construction, etc. • Frontier forests: large, ecologically intact, and relatively undisturbed forests that support the natural range of species and forest functions (WRI definition). • Forest plantation is one established by planting or/and seeding in the process of afforestation or reforestation. It consists of introduced species or, in some cases, indigenous species.

Frontier Forests of the World Frontier forests Today Current non-frontier forests Frontier forests 8,000 years ago

Deforestation - A Global Pattern

Virgin Forests 1600 Virgin Forests 1993 Old-growth forests in the United States and Canada: Since 1600, 90% of the virgin forests that once covered much of the lower 48 states have been cleared away. Most of the remaining old-growth forests in the lower 48 states and Alaska are on public lands. In the Pacific Northwest about 80% of this forestland is slated for logging. Source: Wilderness Society, U.S. Forest Service, and Atlas Historique du Canada

Forest Area Change in Illinois Million Acres 1820: 13.8 1924: 3.02 1948: 4.00 1962: 3.87 1985: 4.26 1998: 4.33 Note regrowth since 1920s, of second-growth forest (Iverson 1991)

Deforestation Rates Note similarity of present deforestation rates in the tropics and past deforestation rates in Illinois. (Iverson et al. 1991)

Worldwide Distribution of Tropical Forests Tropical evergreen forest once covered ~ 16 million km2; today they cover about half their original extent.

Brazil contains about 3.5 million km2 of tropical forest, ~30% of the world's total. • Almost all of Brazil's standing tropical forests are in the Amazon Basin, • ~50% of Amazonia comprises upland areas: tropical rain forest. • Perhaps another 0.5 million km2 consist of transitional forests. • In addition, there are large areas of savanna in the southern reaches of Amazonia. Amazonia

Images of Amazonia Sloth in tree Macaw with Brazil nut http://www.junglephotos.com/ See the GC1 lecture (www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/)

Satellite image analysis reveals increasing rates of deforestation in Amazonia, and transformation of forest land into agriculture and pasture

Brazil in the News Rondonia from Space, 1992 WASHINGTON POST, Feb 23, 1998 Statistics released this year show that in 1995 destruction of the Amazonian rain forest reached an all-time high. Just five years before, in 1990, some 11,000 square kilometers of forest were cleared in the Amazon. By 1995 that figure had almost tripled, to more than 29,000 square kilometers -- equivalent to 6 1/2 million football fields. REUTERS, Feb 3, 1998: Brasilia,   Brazil — Brazil has created seven new national forests in the Amazon to foster sustainable logging and slow the destruction of rain forests. A decree signed by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso turns a total of 6.67 million acres of public land into areas which the Brazilian government may lease to loggers, the government's Environmental Institute (IBAMA) said in a statement. “With the decree … the government hopes to discourage the purchase of private land in the Amazon and at the same time encourage state governments to create their own networks of public forests”

Forest Functions • Source of wood products, including fuelwood (83% of all wood), building and non-wood products • Influence climate conditions, affecting rainfall patterns and temperature • Store nutrients and influence soil fertility • Store carbon and act as potential CO2 “sink” • Support natural ecological systems and helps to protect life diversity • Provide recreational benefits

Wood and Non-Wood Products • roundwood - wood in its natural state. May be used for building or processed into lumber, pulp, panels, paper & plywood • food: nuts and fruits • bark, dyes, fibers, gums, incense, latexes, oils, resins, shellac, tanning compounds & waxes Brazil nut harvesters (Castañeros) harvest the mature fruits after they fall to the forest floor http://www.bertholletia.org

Forest Ecosystem Services • protect watersheds and ensure perennial supplies of fresh water • reduce sedimentation by mitigating erosion due to winds and surface run off • prevent floods • improve air quality • enrich soil through plant litter and nitrogen fixation • protect biodiversity Photo of muddy flood waters

Trees provide shade and their root systems hold soil

Endangered Species • In June 1990, the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as an threatened species • Lives in old-growth coniferous forests at the top of the food chain (needs to range widely) • Logging in the Pacific Northwest takes place on public as well as private lands • U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies are caught between their traditional role, which includes permitting forest harvest, and growing desire to protect species and wildlands The Numbat - a marsupial lives off insects that inhabit decaying trees in old-growth forests

Causes of Deforestation • Growing economies and consumption • Population growth and demand for new land • Bad economic policies • Short-sighted political decisions • Corruption and illegal trade • Poverty and landlessness

Tropical hardwoods are highly valuable - ebony, teak, rosewood, etc. Their sale earns dollars for exporting countries, and enriches timber barons.

Economics of Timber Harvest • Due to the slow renewal of a forest, and the high value of timber, it may be more profitable to sell the timber and invest the money, than to harvest the forest sustainably • Due to political corruption, economic inequity and the powerless position of the poor, wealthy elites are able to pursue their short-term gain • Long-range policies and environmental concerns often lack support among the wealthy and the poor • When regulatory policies exist, they may rarely be enforced

Landlessness and Population Growth • Many tropical countries with extensive forest are experiencing substantial population growth and urban migration. • Historical discrepancies between wealthy landowners and poor peasants are reflected in political power structure, and so no land is available to give poor people work in the countryside • Opening of forests to the landless poor is a social safety valve, reducing urban migration and conflicts between rich and poor.

Roads and Their Consequences • Network of roads built into forests is extensive. One square km can have 20 km of roads • In the U.S. forest system, there are 600,000 km of roads, built to facilitate timber harvest • Road networks have serious consequences • As forests are opened up, they become drier and more susceptible to fires. Fires in tropical forests were very rare. In 1997 severe fires raged in Brazil and Indonesia (remember the smoke problems in Indonesia) • Bushmeat harvest enabled by road networks is depleting tropical forests of their wildlife

Forest fragmentation by roads in Central Africa. This study shows that 42% of forest area in the six countries is within 10 km of a road and more than 90% is within 50 km of a road. WRI Earthtrends

Forest Management and Recovery • Forest management may have many goals - to maximize harvest, to provide recreational opportunities, or to maximize multiple uses of the forest • Forest restoration may seek to restore the system to a near-natural or completely natural state, or to restore many aspects of the structure and function of an undisturbed forest

Some U.S. Forest Management Issues 2000 was the biggest wildfire year since the 1950s and advent of Smokey the bear. Today we have 50 years of wildfire suppression, coupled with the spread of humans into wildland interfaces. Trends in wildlife area burned in wildfire in U.S. Iverson, L.R. 2002. Biological trends in the United States: an annotated on-line review. http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/delaware/biotrends/biotrends.html

Fire and Thinning to Restore Oak Communities Fire suppression plays a role in the impending “maple takeover” and “oak bottleneck” in the East. Oaks and hickory dominate the overstory, but maples will eventually take over, unless management actions can help regenerate oaks.

Prescribed Fires Prescribed burns help to kill maple saplings and may benefit oak regeneration. However, a more open canopy also is needed.

Thinning Thinning plus fire may help to recover oak forests

Timescales for Recovery 100+ yrs to resemble uncut forest uncut forest cut or burn farmed 2-3 yrs) 2 yrs pioneers emerge 15 yrs primaries emerge • Time scales are such that it takes 100’s of years for a forest to regenerate • If small plots of forests are cut, burned, farmed for a few years and then allowed to lie fallow, forest structure and biodiversity may persist • If biomass is bulldozed away the forest may never regenerate

Restoration Ecology - natural recovery vs a “helping hand” Scientists and others are experimenting with tropical forest restoration in many locations. • Based on scientific understanding of forest dynamics, including light gaps, seed dispersal, and recruitment dynamics • Even in very degraded areas, fragments of intact systems can be found in margins of altered areas • Timescale of recovery is uncertain - no observational record of a full recovery to “old growth” conditions Tree nursery and planting seedlings, http://www.tropicalforestry.com/

Forest Stewardship in Developing Countries • Manage for long-term benefits • Create economic opportunities for all parties • Develop a balanced land-use plan based on sound science • Have clear role for government and enforced regulations • Involve all local stakeholders • Conserve special areas

Tropical Forest “Hot Spots” These 17 areas, believed to be unusually rich storehouses of biodiversity, are being deforested rapidly. Source: Norman Myers and Conservation International

Summary • Forest ecosystems provide valuable human products and ecosystem services • Deforestation has already removed about half of the world’s forests, and in your lifetime threatens to eliminate most of the remaining tropical forests. Many temperate forests are re-growing, however • Forests are managed for multiple uses, to restore as much of possible of natural ecosystem function, and in some cases to attempt to restore “old-growth” or pre-disturbance conditions

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Deforestation is the process of clearing or removing forests on a large scale, primarily due to human activities. It has significant environmental implications, including habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Understanding the causes and consequences of deforestation is crucial for promoting sustainable practices and preserving our planet's natural resources. Let's explore the topic of deforestation to raise awareness, inspire conservation efforts, and work towards a greener future. Our template will be a perfect match if you want to explain what Deforestation is.

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19. Control of Deforestation • Reforestation:- Many countries in the world have started reforestation and forestry, and East Asian nations are leading in this regard. Many East Asian countries, including China, have successfully managed to reverse deforestation. • Legislation :- By making suitable changes in the law, so that cutting trees in a forest will not only lead to deforestation ...

Clearing land to build housing 2. Felling trees for wood 4. Other land uses • Countries resort to deforestation to cope with the increasing demand for housing brought about by the growing population • Logging, or simply cutting down trees for timbre is one of the main causes of deforestation 3.

Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been razed to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.. Deforestation has greatly altered landscapes around the world. About 2,000 years ago, 80 percent of Western Europe was forested; today the figure is 34 percent.

deforestation, the clearing or thinning of forests by humans. Deforestation represents one of the largest issues in global land use.Estimates of deforestation traditionally are based on the area of forest cleared for human use, including removal of the trees for wood products and for croplands and grazing lands. In the practice of clear-cutting, all the trees are removed from the land, which ...

More than 30 percent of the Earth's land is covered by forests. The Earth loses about 38,610 square miles of forest every year. Ninety-six percent of global deforestation occurs in tropical forests.; More than half of the planet's tropical rainforests have been destroyed or degraded.; Due to deforestation, as many as 28,000 species are predicted to become extinct by 2050.

Stopping deforestation before it reaches a critical point will play a key role in avoiding the next zoonotic pandemic. A November 2022 study showed that when bats struggle to find suitable habitat ...

The primary causes of forest degradation are logging activities, livestock grazing, and the construction of roads. Deforestation is a particular concern in tropical rain forests because these forests are home to much of the world's biodiversity. In the Amazon alone, around 17% of the forest has been lost in the last 50 years, mainly due to ...

Free Google Slides theme and PowerPoint template. Forests and jungles are irreplaceable and provide countless benefits to all living beings. However, deforestation has unfortunately become a major threat to these vital ecosystems, and its consequences are both far-reaching and devastating. Raise awareness about this important problem that we ...

Forests cover about 30% of the planet, but deforestation is clearing these essential habitats on a massive scale. What is deforestation? Find out the causes,...

Global deforestation peaked in the 1980s. Can we bring it to an end? Since the end of the last great ice age - 10,000 years ago - the world has lost one-third of its forests. 5 Two billion hectares of forest - an area twice the size of the United States - has been cleared to grow crops, raise livestock, and use for fuelwood. In a previous post we looked at this change in global forests ...

Deforestation is the human-driven conversion to another land use of a forest, such as cattle ranching or soya bean production, that is often clearcut with machinery then burnt. It is not the same ...

30 per cent of emissions from industry and fossil fuels are soaked up by forests and woodlands. Yet every year the world loses 10 million hectares of forest. Deforestation and forest degradation accounts for 11 per cent of carbon emissions. The Green Gigaton Challenge catalyzes public and private funds to combat deforestation and thereby cut annual emissions by 1 gigaton by 2025.

Agriculture. Number one cause of deforestation. Farmers need land to grow crops and raise animals. They cut down the trees to make room for farms. They also burn the forest to make room for farms. .

Free Google Slides theme and PowerPoint template. Educate your audience on the pressing issue of deforestation with this fully editable Google Slides and PowerPoint template. This slide deck features modern tree illustrations in vivid green and brown hues. Personalize text, adjust colors, and move objects around to suit your unique message ...

Deforestation - A Global Pattern. Virgin Forests 1600 Virgin Forests 1993 Old-growth forests in the United States and Canada: Since 1600, 90% of the virgin forests that once covered much of the lower 48 states have been cleared away. Most of the remaining old-growth forests in the lower 48 states and Alaska are on public lands.

Premium Google Slides theme and PowerPoint template. Deforestation is the purposeful clearing of forested land. Throughout history and into modern times, forests have been razed to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction. Deforestation can result in more carbon dioxide being ...

Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. of Earth's land surface is covered by forests. 31% Effects The ... Use this Prezi sales presentation template to create an engaging, memorable tech pitch presentation your audience will love. Like all our tech presentation templates, it's easily customized.

Describe the large-scale clearing of trees from forested land for building properties and facilitating human activities with the easy-to-modify Deforestation presentation template for MS PowerPoint and Google Slides. Leverage this brilliant deck to provide a creative flair to your monotonous presentation. Educate your viewers on the causes and ...

Amazon Rainforest Deforestation Awareness Presentation . Multi-purpose . Free Google Slides theme and PowerPoint template . In the world we live, and more and more, it is necessary to raise awareness about the importance of the environment and its preservation. This template is perfect for all those issues related to the natural environment.

Deforestation Presentation Slides. Deforestation is the process of clearing or removing forests on a large scale, primarily due to human activities. It has significant environmental implications, including habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. Understanding the causes and consequences of deforestation is crucial for ...

Tropical deforestation is a complex issue that is the result of economic, social, and political problems, exacerbated by special characteristics of tropical topography, soils, and other physical features. Many of the causes of tropical deforestation originate from the actions of individuals, corporations, and governments in developed countries ...

sailboat atlantic crossing record

Transatlantic sailing record. Banque Populaire V, current record holder. Since the five-week voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, quickly and safely, between Europe and the Americas has always been an important issue. Today, the route has become a classic one among skippers.

Comanche, the 100ft maxi racing yacht built to break records for Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze-Clark, has set an astonishingly fast new transatlantic record. In making the crossing in just 5 days, 14 ...

The 30.48m (100ft) VPLP Design/Verdier Maxi Comanche, skippered by Mitch Booth, has taken Monohull Line Honours in the 2022 RORC Transatlantic Race, winning the magnificent IMA Trophy. Comanche has set a new race record for the 3,000nm race from Lanzarote to Grenada of 7 days 22 hours 1 minute 4 seconds. Comanche's new Monohull Race Record has ...

Record attempt for the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic. Andrew Bedwell is planning to smash the record for sailing the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic. His vessel, Big C is just over 1m/3.2ft long. The smallest boat to cross the Atlantic was 5ft 4inches, sailed by American sailor, Hugo Vihlen in 1993. Many have tried but failed to break ...

Sailing superyacht Comanche has set a new record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean after completing her latest Transat on July 28.. The 30.45 metre carbon-fibre yacht sailed from New York's Ambrose Lighthouse to the UK's Lizard Point in 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes and 25 seconds.

(July 28, 2016) - Comanche, the 100 foot racing yacht owned by Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze-Clark, has successfully set a new monohull transatlantic record of 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes 25 seconds.

Andrew Bedwell's 3'3" sailboat is tiny, especially for the Atlantic. But the Englishman plans to break the record for smallest boat crossing.

The 30.48 metre sailing yacht Comanche has set a new monohull race record after taking Monohull Line Honours in the 2022 RORC Transatlantic Race.. Skippered by Mitch Booth, Comanche and its crew completed the 3,000 nautical mile race from Lanzarote to Grenada in seven days, 22 hours, 1 minute and 4 seconds (that's two days quicker than the previous record holder).

Small boat Atlantic crossing records are always fascinating. What motivates a skipper to test the limits by sailing offshore in a 21ft yacht?. For American sailor Jay Thompson it is his desire to highlight that the Mini 6.50 is a seaworthy boat, and that this popular French class has potential beyond the Mini Transat. 'The whole point of the Mini 6.50 class is to innovate and prove that it ...

British solo sailor Alex Thomson smashed the single-handed monohull trans-Atlantic record by more than 24 hours crossing the finish line July 26 at Lizard Point, off Falmouth in Cornwall, England, reports Soundings Trade Only. The 38-year-old crossed the line at 18:17 British Standard Time, setting the new time at 8 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes.

Andrew Bedwell's one-metre long boat sank very early in his attempted trek from St. John's to England. »»» Subscribe to CBC NL to watch more videos: https://...

Transatlantic Crossing in Record Time. Here are the records for the fastest crossings of the Atlantic in a Sailboat. Crewed: Time: Boat Name: Hull: Year: Speed: 5d 14h 21min 25s : Comanche : Monohull: 2016: 21.44 knots (39.71 km/h) 3d 15h 25min 48s: Banque Populaire V : Trimaran: 2009: 32.94 knots (61.00 km/h)

Holly Overton gets the inside track from her captain and crew. Black Pearl was designed to push the boundaries of technology and what was thought to be possible for a 106.7-metre under sail. But even for her captain, Christian Truter, carving through the busy waters of St Barths at 14 knots was a bold move. She was an unexpected guest and her ...

ARC: Three Decades of Atlantic Crossings. Duncan Kent. Updated: Aug 2, 2017. Original: Feb 15, 2017. The 2016 ARC fleets sets sail for St. Lucia under clear skies. Every year since 1986, a group of around 200 cruising boats has gathered in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, ready to set forth across the Atlantic Ocean—their destination, the ...

A sailor's record-setting quest to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the smallest boat ever ended in tears when the 3-foot 10-inch boat began taking on water shortly after his departure and smashed…

Record-Breaking Atlantic Crossings: Several remarkable records have been set for the fastest solo and crewed Atlantic crossings. These record-breaking achievements showcase the extraordinary capabilities of both sailors and vessels. ... An Atlantic crossing on a sailboat takes an average of 20 to 25 days, but can be completed in two weeks if ...

Sail World - The world's largest sailing news network; sail and sailing, cruising, boating news. Please select your home edition ... The Atlantic crossing record by Project 100 Communications on 23 Jul 2000 PlayStation (105'), launched in December 1998, set a 24 hour distance ...

Fun Fact: The longest sailboat ever constructed, known as the yacht "A," has set a world record with a length overall of 143 meters (469 feet). Displacement. Edited . ... In this section, we will delve into key considerations for an Atlantic-crossing sailboat, providing insights and advice to ensure a safe and enjoyable voyage. So, grab ...

Page 2- Seaplanes shot down in Baltic 1916 Aircraft

These recorded times exemplify the incredible speed and efficiency of sailboats crossing the Atlantic. The sailboat "Comanche" holds the record for the fastest time between Lizard Point in the UK and Ambrose Light in the USA, completing the journey in just 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes, and 25 seconds.Meanwhile, the sailboat "IDEC Sport" holds the record for the fastest west to east ...

A record number of migrants crossed the Channel on Wednesday as Downing Street warned of a "migration emergency" amid a three-week delay to its Rwanda Bill.. More than 500 migrants arrived on ...

The running total for Channel crossings in 2024 to 4,043 - 10% higher than this time last year (3,683). It is also 25% higher than the total at this stage in 2022 when there were 3,229 arrivals ...

July 14, 2020 featured in Display. Bold Color Cool Creative Cyrillic Geometric Neon Outlined Retro. Download Moscow Metro font, a multi-line display typeface in two styles, inspired by the Moscow underground map. Moscow Metro is ideal for posters and headlines, neon signage and other artworks.

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The information about Lysenko's record achievements: Rafting (I) During 1990-1992 (additionally 1996) Vladimir became the first man all over the world, who had rafted down all fourteen more-than-8,000-meters peaks over the world. There is the list of rivers rafted by him from all more-than-8,000meters peaks: 1. Everest(8848m) -