Donate

Forests

Primary forest

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports at least 1.18 billion hectares of primary forest, 29 percent of all forest: naturally regenerating forest of native tree species with no clearly visible signs of human activity.

Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 · at least 1.18 billion hectares · 29 percent of forest

Old-growth oak, linden and hornbeam forest in the Białowieża Forest, Poland, with orange bracket fungi and moss at the base of a large trunk.

Old-growth oak, linden and hornbeam forest in the Białowieża Forest, Podlaskie, Poland, with a large tree trunk carrying orange bracket fungi and moss at its base.

Photo: Bouke ten Cate, via Wikimedia Commons, licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

What it is

The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that primary forests cover at least 1.18 billion hectares, which is 29 percent of the total forest area. The assessment defines primary forest as naturally regenerating forest of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activities and with ecological processes that are largely undisturbed. The definition includes forests where Indigenous Peoples and local communities carry out traditional stewardship, and forests that show the effects of natural disturbances such as storms, drought, wildfire or insect outbreaks.

Why it matters

The assessment says that primary forests, especially primary tropical moist forests, are highly species-rich, diverse ecosystems and that their extent is an important environmental indicator. Primary forest accounts for 49 percent of the total forest area in South America, 38 percent in Africa, 37 percent in North and Central America, 32 percent in Europe, 21 percent in Oceania and 15 percent in Asia.

How to read it

By region, Europe has the largest primary forest area, 311 million hectares, followed by South America with 299 million and North and Central America with 280 million. Africa has an estimated 163 million hectares, Asia 85.2 million and Oceania 38.3 million. The Europe figure includes the Russian Federation; without it, Europe has 4.32 million hectares. The area of primary forest worldwide decreased by 110 million hectares between 1990 and 2025. The average annual rate of net loss was 3.48 million hectares in 1990 to 2000, 3.92 million in 2000 to 2015 and 1.61 million in 2015 to 2025, less than half the rate of 2000 to 2015.

Limits

The 1.18 billion hectares is a minimum. In all, 168 countries and areas, representing 85 percent of the world forest area, reported primary forest for 2025, and among those reporting countries and areas primary forest is 33 percent of the forest area. The assessment names inconsistent interpretation and application of definitions as the biggest obstacle to reporting, which raises concerns about how well the data compare between countries. The data record the net change in area, so a decrease can come from deforestation or from conversion to other forest types such as naturally regenerating or planted forest.

Sources

Open the source