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Data

Humid tropical primary forest lost each year

Hectares of tree cover lost each year since 2001 inside the humid tropical primary forest that stood in 2001: mature natural forest that had not been cleared and regrown in recent history, mapped by the University of Maryland.

Latest value

4,286,331ha

Countries and territories (GADM's country codes, mapped to ISO 3166-1) and the world, which also includes areas GADM codes separately (XAD, Z01, Z06, Z07). Only countries with humid tropical primary forest have rows., 2025. Version GFC-2025-v1.13, WRI table gadm__tcl__iso_change v20260424.

Humid tropical primary forest lost each year (hectares)

25 values from 2001 to 2025.
Show as a table
Humid tropical primary forest lost each year, every value
PeriodValue (ha)Status
2001991,709final
20022,664,450final
20032,486,881final
20043,398,479final
20053,329,365final
20062,813,469final
20072,904,216final
20082,713,625final
20092,801,335final
20103,305,940final
20112,750,544final
20123,596,084final
20132,638,971final
20143,587,016final
20152,932,021final
20166,127,897final
20175,001,321final
20183,647,936final
20193,750,992final
20204,208,494final
20213,748,247final
20224,115,364final
20233,737,210final
20246,731,253final
20254,286,331final
Calculated by Environment Dashboard from Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA (Global Forest Change v1.13), accessed through Global Nature Watch (WRI table gadm__tcl__iso_change v20260424) on 2026-10-05. Tree cover loss due to fire: UMD/GLAD (Tyukavina et al. 2022). Tree cover loss by dominant driver: WRI/Google DeepMind (Sims et al. 2025). Primary humid tropical forest: Turubanova et al. (2018). CC BY 4.0. Changes: Summed WRI's country table by country and year at a tree canopy cover in 2000 of at least 30 percent; world totals of primary forest loss and of loss by driver summed by Environment Dashboard. CC BY 4.0.

Where it comes from

Producer
University of Maryland GLAD lab with Google, USGS and NASA; tabulated and served by World Resources Institute · Tree cover loss, Global Forest Change v1.13 (via Global Nature Watch)
Version
GFC-2025-v1.13, WRI table gadm__tcl__iso_change v20260424
File
https://data-api.globalforestwatch.org/dataset/gadm__tcl__iso_change/v20260424/download/csv?sql=SELECT%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%2C%20SUM%28umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%29%20AS%20umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%2C%20SUM%28umd_tree_cover_loss_from_fires__ha%29%20AS%20umd_tree_cover_loss_from_fires__ha%20FROM%20data%20WHERE%20umd_tree_cover_density_2000__threshold%20%3D%2030%20GROUP%20BY%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%20ORDER%20BY%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year
Fetched
2026-10-05 (automatically), 1,620 bytes
Fingerprint
sha256 79b791bcb241093320fc0e6297babf3c468e58027c31dc8213c328f68c46053e
Copies
No Wayback copy recorded yet.Our copy of the exact file
Cite the producer
Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013. High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change. Science 342 (15 November): 850-53. Data available on-line from: https://glad.earthengine.app/view/global-forest-change. Sims, M.J., R. Stanimirova, A. Raichuk, M. Neumann, J. Richter, F. Follett, J. MacCarthy, K. Lister, C. Randle, L. Sloat, E. Esipova, J. Jupiter, C. Stanton, D. Morris, C. M. Slay, D. Purves, and N. Harris. 2025. "Global Drivers of Forest Loss at 1 Km Resolution." Environmental Research Letters 20 (7): 074027. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/add606.
Producer
University of Maryland GLAD lab with Google, USGS and NASA; tabulated and served by World Resources Institute · Tree cover loss, Global Forest Change v1.13 (via Global Nature Watch)
Version
GFC-2025-v1.13, WRI table gadm__tcl__iso_change v20260424
File
https://data-api.globalforestwatch.org/dataset/gadm__tcl__iso_change/v20260424/download/csv?sql=SELECT%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%2C%20SUM%28umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%29%20AS%20umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%20FROM%20data%20WHERE%20umd_tree_cover_density_2000__threshold%20%3D%2030%20AND%20is__umd_regional_primary_forest_2001%20%3D%20true%20GROUP%20BY%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%20ORDER%20BY%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year
Fetched
2026-10-05 (automatically), 79,567 bytes
Fingerprint
sha256 ddb6c3ad59a6e7b84bd718059effd180490b745b58c70ae5d4a6cb1d1a23d37a
Copies
No Wayback copy recorded yet.Our copy of the exact file
Cite the producer
Hansen, M. C., P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend. 2013. High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change. Science 342 (15 November): 850-53. Data available on-line from: https://glad.earthengine.app/view/global-forest-change. Sims, M.J., R. Stanimirova, A. Raichuk, M. Neumann, J. Richter, F. Follett, J. MacCarthy, K. Lister, C. Randle, L. Sloat, E. Esipova, J. Jupiter, C. Stanton, D. Morris, C. M. Slay, D. Purves, and N. Harris. 2025. "Global Drivers of Forest Loss at 1 Km Resolution." Environmental Research Letters 20 (7): 074027. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/add606.

What was done to it

  1. Read loss-primary-forest-country-annual: WRI's table gadm__tcl__iso_change v20260424 queried through the Global Forest Watch Data API with the SQL in the file's URL (https://data-api.globalforestwatch.org/dataset/gadm__tcl__iso_change/v20260424/download/csv?sql=SELECT%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%2C%20SUM%28umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%29%20AS%20umd_tree_cover_loss__ha%20FROM%20data%20WHERE%20umd_tree_cover_density_2000__threshold%20%3D%2030%20AND%20is__umd_regional_primary_forest_2001%20%3D%20true%20GROUP%20BY%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year%20ORDER%20BY%20iso%2C%20umd_tree_cover_loss__year), at a tree canopy cover in 2000 of at least 30 percent. Hectares as in the file, not rounded.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/gfw_tree_cover_loss.py · code sha256 15a82e1f48690b7a… · inputs 79b791bcb241… ddb6c3ad59a6…

  2. A country and year with no row in the file has no loss recorded for it; nothing is filled in.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/gfw_tree_cover_loss.py · code sha256 15a82e1f48690b7a… · inputs 79b791bcb241… ddb6c3ad59a6…

  3. World: the sum of every row of the file by year, including the codes left out below.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/gfw_tree_cover_loss.py · code sha256 15a82e1f48690b7a… · inputs 79b791bcb241… ddb6c3ad59a6…

  4. Not published as countries: GADM codes with no entity in our table (Z07 97,129 ha, all years together). Their loss is included in the world totals.

    Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/nature/gfw_tree_cover_loss.py · code sha256 15a82e1f48690b7a… · inputs 79b791bcb241… ddb6c3ad59a6…

What it covers

Geography
Countries and territories (GADM's country codes, mapped to ISO 3166-1) and the world, which also includes areas GADM codes separately (XAD, Z01, Z06, Z07). Only countries with humid tropical primary forest have rows.
Basis
Tree cover loss: stand-replacing disturbance, or the complete removal of tree cover canopy, of vegetation taller than 5 m, mapped each year from Landsat at 30 m (Hansen/UMD, Global Forest Change v1.13), where tree canopy cover was at least 30 percent in 2000. Loss is not deforestation: it includes plantation harvest, fire and natural disturbance, and regrowth is not subtracted. Method changes from 2011 and 2015 make early and late years less comparable. Primary forest: the 2001 extent of humid tropical primary forest (Turubanova et al. 2018); loss outside the humid tropics is not counted.
Unit
hectares (ha)