Recent trends in tropical forest loss continue to challenge global sustainability and conservation efforts

Tropical forests are central to global sustainability, underpinning biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and disaster risk reduction. Yet, it remains unclear whether recent efforts have reduced tropical forest loss (TFL) and improved protection of ecologically and socially important areas. This study provides a global, spatially explicit assessment of TFL before (2011–2015) and after (2016–2022) the mid-2010s, a period coinciding with major global sustainability, climate, and biodiversity commitments. It examines how TFL relates to climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and disaster (landslide) risk reduction using an integrated ecosystem co-benefit index, as well as to tropical terrestrial protected areas (PAs). Although annual TFL exhibited a statistically significant downward trend during 2016–2022, average annual TFL was 34% higher than in 2011–2015, increasing from 11.69 ± 2.13 to 15.69 ± 2.45 Mha/year, with significant increases in tropical South America and Africa. Across both periods, higher TFL consistently occurred in areas with moderate ecosystem co-benefits. Despite an 8% expansion of PAs and their greater representation in high co-benefit areas, the average annual TFL within PAs increased by 71%, from 1.12 ± 0.19 to 1.92 ± 0.41 Mha/year, while the average annual share of TFL within PAs rose from 9.6 ± 0.5% to 12.2 ± 0.9%. These findings indicate that recent slowdowns in TFL are modest and insufficient to offset persistent pressures. This underscores the need to strengthen sustainable forest management by addressing the broader socio-economic and institutional conditions that drive and perpetuate TFL.