Overall, there was a net decrease in global forest area of 3% between 1990 and 2015, from 4128 M ha to 3999 M ha, with natural and human-induced deforestation being offset by increases in forest area that had both natural and human causes (Table 1).
The annual rate of net forest loss halved over the 25 year period, falling from 7.3 M ha y1 in the 1990s to 4.6 M ha y1 between 2000 and 2005, and to 3.4 M ha y1 and 3.3 M ha y1 for 2005–10 and 2010–15, respectively (Table 4). While this reduced rate of net forest loss is encouraging, it should not be regarded as equivalent to reduced rates of human-induced deforestation (see Section