Deforestation “has not meaningfully declined” despite a global pledge to halt forest destruction, but next month’s UN climate summit in the Amazon could mark a turning point, experts said Tuesday.

Last year an area of the world’s forests larger than Scotland was cleared primarily to make way for agriculture, according to an annual deforestation assessment by a broad global coalition of researchers and activists.

Tropical primary forests — particularly carbon rich and ecologically biodiverse environments — were the hardest hit, with 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) lost in 2024.

The report also highlighted persistent but overlooked levels of forest degradation, where land is damaged but not razed entirely, mostly owing to logging, road building and fires lit to clear land.

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