Forest degradation
Forest degradation is a reduction in a forest's ecological integrity or its capacity to provide functions and services without necessarily converting the land to another use. There is no single globally agreed operational definition: assessments vary by purpose and may examine biomass, structure, species composition, productivity, resilience, or other indicators against a stated baseline.
In simple terms
A forest may remain classified as forest while becoming less able to store carbon, support biodiversity, regulate water, supply livelihoods, or recover from disturbance. Causes can include unsustainable harvesting, repeated fire, grazing, fragmentation, invasive species, pests, pollution, or interacting climate pressures. Because institutions define and measure degradation differently, a claim or dataset should state its forest definition, reference condition, indicators, thresholds, spatial scale, and period. The EUDR uses a specific legal definition for its own product rules; that definition is not a global standard.
Why it matters
Degradation can be extensive yet remain invisible in statistics focused only on forest-area loss. It affects carbon stocks, habitat, water security, resilience, and forest-dependent people, and can increase later deforestation risk. Clear definitions prevent incomparable estimates and help organizations select monitoring evidence that matches their decisions, commodities, geographies, and legal duties.
Example
A concession remains mapped as forest, but repeated selective logging removes large trees, opens the canopy, increases fire exposure, and reduces habitat quality. The assessor reports changes in biomass, canopy structure, and indicator species against a documented baseline instead of assuming that unchanged forest area means no degradation.
How it differs
Deforestation
Deforestation converts forest to another land use or removes forest cover under a stated definition, whereas forest degradation reduces forest condition or function while the land may still qualify as forest.
References
Current status
- As of
- Issuer
- European Union
- Jurisdiction
- European Union
- Instrument or version
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1115
- Status
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 provides an instrument-specific legal definition of forest degradation for its deforestation-free product rules.
Applicability: The EUDR definition applies within that legal framework and should not be treated as a universal scientific or monitoring definition. Assessments elsewhere must identify the definition, baseline, indicators, geography, forest type, and time period they use.