Use of <i>devegetation</i> in framing vegetation loss rather than <i>deforestation</i>

The loss of native vegetation is a global, critical, yet unevenly addressed environmental problem with profound implications for biodiversity, ecosystem function, climate regulation, and human well-being. Although tropical rainforests have long been a conservation focus, many structurally open biomes, such as savannas, grasslands, and shrublands (i.e., open ecosystems), are also declining because of increasing anthropogenic impacts. However, degradation of open ecosystems is frequently overlooked in scientific, policy, and public discourse. We argue that the use of deforestation as a blanket term for vegetation loss reinforces a forest-centric perspective in conservation, resulting in policy and protection biases. This linguistic framing shapes conservation priorities, restoration strategies, management interventions, and funding decisions. It can also prompt inappropriate actions, such as afforesting naturally open ecosystems. Terminology per se does not drive vegetation loss; rather, terminology influences perceptions of the biophysical, institutional, and economic drivers of vegetation loss. We propose adopting devegetation as a more ecologically inclusive term to describe vegetation loss across all terrestrial biomes. This terminology shift can help reframe conservation discourse, promote more balanced policy making, and ensure that open ecosystems receive adequate and appropriate attention. Use of this more accurate and representative term could enhance communication with policy makers and strengthen global strategies to mitigate devegetation. Native vegetation loss is primarily driven by anthropogenic activities tied to large-scale agriculture, urbanization, forestry, and infrastructure development (Curtis et al., 2018). At finer scales, vegetation loss is also affected by livelihood-based activities, including harvesting of wood fuel, construction materials, and nontimber products (e.g., fruits, tubers, gums) and charcoal production (Angelsen et al., 2014), but these activities have far more limited impacts on net vegetation loss than large-scale land-use change (Hosonuma et al., 2012). Currently, 95% of vegetation loss occurs in tropical regions (Ritchie, 2021), which harbor much of the planet's biodiversity in iconic rainforests and in savannas, grasslands, and shrublands (Olson & Dinerstein, 1998). Despite the diversity of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, debates about native vegetation loss overwhelmingly revolve around the blanket term deforestation. Although deforestation is etymologically appropriate for forests and other tree-dominated, closed-canopy ecosystems, it became the standard language for referring to all forms of vegetation loss, regardless of ecosystem type. Moreover, global conservation and land-use policies have long prioritized forests. This focus has resulted in the systematic neglect of open ecosystems (a more precise term than nonforest ecosystems), that is, structurally open biomes (e.g., grasslands, savannas, shrublands, prairies, steppes). Even under conservative estimates, open ecosystems are also declining significantly (Dudley et al., 2020). We argue that the continued use of deforestation obscures how vegetation loss is perceived and addressed in open ecosystems, ultimately contributing to policy biases and inappropriate ecological interventions. To overcome this forest-centric framing, we propose using devegetation as an alternative, ecologically inclusive term to describe native vegetation loss across all terrestrial biomes, irrespective of ecosystem structure. Open ecosystems cover 30.6% of Earth's land surface, slightly exceeding forests’ global coverage (29.2%) (Figure 1a). From 1992 to 2022, forest area declined by 1.7%, whereas open natural ecosystems increased marginally by 0.2% (FAOSTAT, 2023) (Figure 2a). Both trends remained directionally consistent across four alternative baseline years (1992, 2000, 2010, 2016), all yielding similar proportional land-cover change estimates (Appendix S1). This minimal net increase in open ecosystems does not necessarily signal coverage stability or recovery. It likely reflects well-documented cross-class transitions in global land-cover datasets. Following forest loss or disturbance, pixels are often reclassified into shrub, grass, or mixed woody–herbaceous categories (Ghimire et al., 2025; Stahl et al., 2023), causing aggregated time series to record forest contraction as apparent gains in open vegetation (Hansen et al., 2013; Song et al., 2018). Much of the apparent signal for open ecosystems is driven by grassland class (Figure 2a). Although recent European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Land Cover refinements improved separation of grasslands from croplands, confidently distinguishing native grasslands from degraded, disturbed, or regenerating herbaceous remains technically challenging at a global scale (ESA CCI, 2017; Herold et al., 2008). The observed post-2010 rebound in open natural areas thus plausibly stems from this artifact (Figure 2b). Finally, open ecosystems exhibit greater seasonal and spectral variability (Slingsby et al., 2020), making actual losses harder to detect and yielding conservative lower-bound estimates. These limitations indicate that the apparent stability of open ecosystems is a monitoring artifact and that their losses can be more extensive than global statistics imply. Country-level patterns (Appendix S2), nonetheless, reveal widespread declines in forests and open natural areas, even after excluding countries with minimal baselines. The contrast between tropical biomes in South America exemplifies this disparity in attention between forests and open ecosystems. Across nearly 500 years, but most intensively in recent centuries, the Atlantic Forest declined to 12.4% of its original extent (FSOSMA & INPE, 2024). In contrast, the Cerrado, a 200-million-ha savanna biome and the second largest in South America, lost nearly half of its area in just a few decades, largely since the 1970s agricultural boom (Klink & Machado, 2005). In 2023–2024, the Cerrado lost over 1 million ha of vegetation, nearly twice the area cleared in the Brazilian Amazon (SADCerrado, 2025). Vegetation loss in the Cerrado is four times higher than in Amazon forests, and the Cerrado is roughly half the size of the Amazon, making this loss more critical. Other biomes, such as the Caatinga shrubland, the Pantanal wetland, and the Pampa grassland, also continue to experience significant degradation annually (MapBiomas Alertas, 2024). However, their loss rarely elicits the same public or political concern, despite being comparable to or greater than the loss of Brazilian forests. Brazil's monitoring history reinforces this underrecognition. Although Amazon deforestation has been tracked officially since 1988, comparable efforts for the Cerrado began in the 2000s and for the Caatinga and Pantanal in 2022. The Pampa still lacks a dedicated monitoring program. Declines in open ecosystems are not unique to South America. North American prairies and Eurasian steppes have also declined greatly, driven by agriculture and grazing. Historically, open ecosystems were targeted for conversion to agriculture and livestock production because of their open characteristics (Wang et al., 2023). Their loss due to anthropogenic pressure continues, particularly in the tropics (Dudley et al., 2020). Estimates of open-ecosystem losses are likely conservative because detecting and quantifying change in grassy and shrubby systems via remote sensing is more challenging than for closed forests and has traditionally received less attention (Skowno et al., 2021; Slingsby et al., 2020). Current understanding of open ecosystems is as extensive as that for forests (Bond, 2019). It is known where they are globally distributed (Figure 1b), how they function, what makes them ecologically unique, and why they are increasingly endangered. However, this extensive knowledge is not applied consistently in policy, restoration practice, or public discourse. Entrenched perceptions of forests as the default natural state of land cover often mean that open ecosystems are treated as degraded lands in need of afforestation (Dasgupta, 2021). It is conceptually inaccurate to describe the loss of vegetation in open ecosystems (i.e., grasslands, shrublands, savannas) as deforestation because these ecosystems are not forests. Linguistic framing affects how people perceive, prioritize, and act on environmental issues (Lakoff, 2010; Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). Word choice shapes how problems are categorized (Boroditsky, 2011), how relevant they appear to society (Nisbet, 2009), and which interventions are deemed appropriate (Hansen, 2018). In environmental communication, terminology can guide public and policy perceptions of ecological risks and management approaches (De Vries, 2020; Pezzullo & Cox, 2025), ultimately influencing institutional agendas and resource allocation (Guber & Bosso, 2012). Forest-centric and inadequate terminology for native vegetation loss obscures the needs and importance of open ecosystems in conservation agendas and drives inappropriate ecological interventions when ecosystem-specific knowledge is poorly applied. A concrete example is the spread of misguided restoration practices, such as afforestation, in which trees are planted in open ecosystems under the assumption that doing so restores them, despite it being ecologically damaging (Fernandes et al., 2016). These programs often involve non-native species, such as eucalypts or pines, which can degrade soil quality, displace native biodiversity, and disrupt ecosystem functions (Bremer & Farley, 2010). Forest-centered restoration agendas can further reinforce this bias. For example, Williams et al. (2024) emphasize natural forest regeneration as a low-cost climate change solution, but, due to their framing, they narrow down the restoration agenda to forests only. Open ecosystems are not early successional forests. They are ancient, disturbance-maintained biomes that store substantial carbon belowground (e.g., root systems), thereby warranting equal attention as a nature-based solution (Bond, 2022). Framing restoration solely around forests sidelines devegetation in systems like the Brazilian Cerrado and can steer policy toward afforestation instead of conserving native open vegetation. This bias also demonstrates the need for global initiatives (e.g., the Bonn Challenge and REDD+) to broaden their scope to include the structural and functional diversity of all tropical ecosystems, not just forests. A forest-centric conservation narrative skews global funding. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) biodiversity finance frameworks contain numerous forest-specific categories (e.g., forest carbon finance, sustainable forestry certification, etc.) but lack equivalent classifications for open ecosystems, rendering them invisible in financial tracking. Indeed, OECD's (2020) global biodiversity finance document mentions forest over 40 times but makes no reference to open ecosystems. In terms of funding allocation, countries with arid or semiarid open ecosystems are among the most severely underfunded for biodiversity conservation (Waldron et al., 2013). Contrastingly, international conservation aid in South America consistently follows forest-rich areas and forest protected areas, whereas open biomes (e.g., Caatinga, Pampas, Chaco, Chiquitano) have historically received little support (Qin et al., 2024). Consequently, iconic forest ecosystems, such as the Amazon, attract a disproportionate share of resources, whereas equally critical but less visible biomes are underfunded (Overbeck et al., 2015). This forest-centric framing was recently evident at COP30, where the launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) reinforced a forest-focused conservation agenda through a new global financial mechanism (Government of Brazil, 2025), sidelining the ecosystem services provided by open ecosystems (Bengtsson et al., 2019). Another telling example is Madagascar, a global biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000), where 80% of the land is open ecosystems but conservation initiatives overwhelmingly focus on forests and lemurs (Silander et al., 2024). This imbalance has led to restoration projects that introduced non-native trees to Madagascar's savannas and grasslands to the detriment of endemic species (Baohanta et al., 2012). To address these issues, we propose adopting the term devegetation to describe the process of native vegetation loss across all terrestrial ecosystems. Devegetation offers an inclusive, complementary, and ecologically accurate alternative to deforestation. A useful parallel can be drawn with defaunation, a term introduced by Dirzo and Miranda (1991) and later popularized by Dirzo et al. (2014) to describe declines in animal populations across taxa and habitats and since increasingly used in scientific and policy discourse (Krause & Nielsen, 2019; Poulsen et al., 2023). Like defaunation, devegetation frames ecosystem degradation more holistically and helps drive ecosystem-specific interventions and metrics. Devegetation also ensures greater alignment with global frameworks, such as the Paris Agreement, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and UN Sustainable Development Goals. In many instances, vegetation loss is followed by recovery. This process warrants extending devegetation terminology to coverage gains. As a counterpart, revegetation should denote the recovery of native plant cover and structure in devegetated landscapes, emphasizing biome-appropriate gains instead of afforestation of naturally open systems. Importantly, revegetation is urgently needed in regions that have been extensively devegetated, such as the Brazilian Cerrado, but the ultimate goal must be recovery of biodiversity and landscape connectivity. The loss of connectivity has been even more critical than the loss of vegetation per se in the Cerrado (Grande et al., 2020). Our objective is not to demonstrate causality. If anything, we highlight terminology as one of several mechanisms shaping conservation priorities. Despite our evidence being consistent with the view that terminology influences conservation agendas, it is not a formal causal test. We acknowledge that successful open-ecosystem conservation initiatives exist (e.g., long-term savanna management in South Africa [Biggs & Rogers, 2003]), just as some forest conservation initiatives have failed (e.g., continued forest loss in the Congo basin [Tyukavina et al., 2018]). The point is that open ecosystems are most effectively conserved when they are explicitly recognized and managed as such. We, therefore, advocate for terminology that reflects ecological reality, giving open ecosystems long-overdue attention and helping prevent inappropriate interventions in such systems. Our proposition by no means diminishes the urgency of conserving forests, where losses remain severe. Addressing global devegetation requires balanced conservation measures that actively protect forests and open ecosystems, recognizing their complementarity and irreplaceability in sustaining global biodiversity. Shifting to devegetation goes beyond a linguistic choice because it implies a conceptual reframing of how environmental loss is understood and addressed. Recognizing devegetation as a distinct and widespread phenomenon should thus encourage more equitable and ecologically grounded conservation strategies. We invite scientists, conservationists, the public, and policy makers to embrace this terminology shift, which can help ensure that open ecosystems are no longer ignored or the victims of unwarranted afforestation. L.M.S.A. developed the original idea and concept for the paper. L.M.S.A. and R.B.C. further envisioned and structured the manuscript. L.M.S.A. and R.B.C. outlined the analytical approach. R.B.C. identified the data sources, conducted the analyses, and prepared the figures. R.D. provided input on framing the paper. L.M.S.A., R.B.M., and R.D. supervised the work. All authors contributed to writing and revising the manuscript. We dedicate this work to the memory of William J. Bond, whose pioneering contributions to the ecology of open ecosystems transformed how we understand and value global vegetation and whose ideas inspired this contribution. We appreciate the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and Ellen Main for editorial guidance, which strengthened this piece and improved its readability. We also thank the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for providing research grants to R.B.M. (process 311116/2022-1) and L.M.S.A. (309893/2023-2). All data used to generate the figures in this article were retrieved from the publicly available Land Cover—Data dataset of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization through FAOSTAT (2023) (https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/LC). Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.