Annual changes in tropical rainforest cover and edge area, 1990–2023

Tropical rainforests are major global shelters of biodiversity, but are increasingly threatened by human activities. Forest cover correlates with population persistence, and forest edge area correlates with tree mortality. Documenting both indicators simultaneously across landscapes is critical for guiding conservation, yet remains a challenge. Using annual land-use maps (1990–2023), we present a global assessment of changes in tropical forest cover and tropical forest edge area, at a 0.4° × 0.4° resolution (ca. 1500 km 2 ). Globally, we observed an 18.1% decline in forest cover of undisturbed tropical rainforests. This varied by continent: − 25.0% in Asia, − 14.8% in Africa and − 14.5% in the Americas. Losses were notably high for South-East Asia (− 39.7%), West Africa (− 37.9%), the Amazonian deforestation arc (− 32.1%) and Central America (− 24.0%). Forest area within 100 m of an edge increased globally by + 6.6%, led by Asia (+ 7.2%), the Americas (+ 6.6%) and Africa (+ 6.0%). Our results provide a quantitative assessment of the impact of deforestation on forest cover loss and edge effects in the tropical rainforest biome over the 33-year study period, emphasizing the relevance of land cover change for biodiversity conservation strategies. We provide this dataset for tropical rainforests (1990–2023) at the pantropical scale as open-access raster products.