But Africa has the highest rate of forest loss in the world. About 3.9 million hectares of African forest—the size of about 381 million soccer fields—was destroyed every year between 2010 and 2020.
Africa's forests are located in the tropical moist regions of central and parts of west Africa. They are dominated by the Congo Basin rainforest and the vast Miombo woodlands, a warm, dry forest area in southern Africa. Deforestation has been caused by the need for agricultural land, unsustainable fuelwood harvesting, logging, and mining.
As a forest ecologist who has researched tropical forests for 40 years, I have found that deforestation is impossible to fully eradicate. There are many reasons why forests are destroyed, including for financial gain or because it is required for development and cannot be avoided. This means that Africa's people and forests face an urgent crisis, which demands concerted action.
South Africa currently holds the presidency of the G20—the group of 19 of the world's largest economies and the African Union. The theme of South Africa's 2025 G20 presidency—"Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability"—lends itself to finding solutions to forest loss.
As G20 president, South Africa should focus on mobilizing finance to protect forests, championing sustainable agriculture and community forestry, and making sure that new technologies that protect forests are available to African countries.
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Africa's deforestation problem
Deforestation degrades land. This affects the most impoverished communities. It also disrupts water resources by reducing rainfall and making weather less predictable. Socially, it harms the 1.2 billion people globally who rely on agroforestry (growing crops in forests without harming the trees). These include rural communities dependent on forests for income, food and medicine.
An example of this is the deforestation of the Miombo woodlands. This is a 2.7 million square kilometer area of warm, dry forest in southern Africa. It loses over 1.27 million hectares yearly. In Mozambique, this has resulted in an income loss of up to 92% for households who get their livelihoods from the Miombo woodlands.
In the Congo Basin alone, about 37.1 million hectares of forest, or an area just smaller than Zimbabwe, was destroyed between 2000 and 2018. Deforestation and forest degradation aggravate the loss of biodiversity on the continent. When forests are destroyed, this also makes climate change more severe, because deforestation causes about 12% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
Forest destruction makes poverty and food insecurity worse and sparks a cycle of degradation and reduced resilience. Health risks increase when people get poorer and have less food. Living on degraded land can also fuel instability and migration.
