Research
Deforestation in the Congo Basin and Brazilian Amazon, 2010–2025
A comparative assessment of what drives forest loss across two of the world's great tropical basins — and what each region can learn from the other.
Abstract
This study compares deforestation and forest degradation trends across the Congo Basin and the Brazilian Amazon between 2010 and 2025, drawing on 56 peer-reviewed and institutional sources. It evaluates the socio-political, economic, and environmental drivers behind divergent trajectories and asks what cross-continental lessons hold for tropical-forest frontiers.
Key findings
- Governance quality and land tenure security explain more of the difference between the two basins than commodity prices alone.
- Infrastructure expansion is a leading indirect driver in both regions, opening frontiers to settlement and extraction.
- Indigenous and community tenure, where legally recognised, correlates with lower loss — a pattern with direct implications for REDD+ and biodiversity credit design.
- International climate finance reaches the two basins unevenly, shaping the incentives that govern forest use.
Methodology
Structured comparative review of 56 peer-reviewed and institutional sources, synthesising remote-sensing-derived loss data with socio-political and economic analysis of drivers.