Regardless of a drop in logging in 2025, forest losses accumulate in the Mekong

BANGKOK– Over the course of 2025, the Mekong nations of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined 746,168 hectares (1.8 million acres) of tree cover, a location approximately comparable to the size of the Bangkok Metropolitan Area, according to Mongabay’s analysis *.

Information released by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD)lab at the University of Maryland, in collaboration with Global Nature Watch (GNW) — previously Global Forest Watch– reveals that of the overall 746,168 hectares of tree cover lost, more than 154,000 hectares (380,000 acres) was main forest. Mongabay’s analysis discovered that simply shy of 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) of the overall were lost from the area’s secured locations.

While these numbers might paint a bleak image for the Mekong’s forests, the rate of local logging has actually stopped by nearly 25% from that taped by GNW in 2024, continuing a decrease that, according to the information, started in 2023.

Less wildfires, greater rains, more stringent police and lower market rates for products might all aspect into a drop in the Mekong’s logging rate for 2025 when compared to 2024. Professionals caution that short-term drops do not constantly represent a more comprehensive pattern in logging.

Every nation in the Mekong saw a fall in logging rates from 2024 to 2025, however each still comes to grips with a variety of difficulties to safeguarding the area’s staying forests

Precarious defense in Cambodia

In 2025, GNW information programs Cambodia’s tree cover losses covered more than 59,000 hectares(146,000 acres)– approximately 0.33%of its overall acreage– making it the very best year for the nation’s forests because 2003. While this shows an approximately 50%drop in tree cover loss compared to 2023, Cambodia still lost more than 23,000 hectares(57,000 acres)of main forest in 2025, which accounted for almost 40 %of the nation’s overall losses that year.

Mongabay’s analysis of logging information from GLAD reveals that of the 59,000 hectares lost in Cambodia in 2025, almost 32,000 hectares(79,000 acres ), approximately 54%, disappeared from safeguarded locations, where logging must be more securely managed. The ongoing advancement of roadways, energy facilities and mining operations– both legal and otherwise– position significant challenges for Cambodia’s secured location management, which has actually long been stymied by the frequency of logging.

The worst afflicted secured location was Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary in northern Cambodia, with more than 4,400 hectares (11,000 acres) lost. A few of the tree cover loss reported there might consist of the felling of rubber trees because some 77% of the safeguarded sanctuary has actually been transformed from natural forest to land for growing a single crop like rubber, or monocropping, in between 2002 and 2025.

In Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, among Cambodia’s the majority of renowned and beleaguered safeguarded locations, 4,068 hectares (10,000 acres )of tree cover were lost in 2025, compared to 9,340 hectares(23,000 acres) in 2024. The 3rd worst impacted secured location in Cambodia was Virachey National Park, which lost 3,216 hectares(7,947 acres )of forest cover, marking the worst year on record for among Cambodia’s earliest national forests.

“Forests gradually pass away by destruction, death by a thousand cuts, 90%of forest loss occurs by it long before the supreme clearcut, “Marcus Hardtke, an experienced forest activist, informed Mongabay in a phone interview. Clearcutting is the logging practice that eliminates all trees from a location at the same time. Hardtke worried the requirement for on-the-ground examinations into what the logging information is revealing.

” Protected location management in Cambodia still struggles with systemic issues, like arranged corruption at all levels which weakens mentioned policy,”he included.

For Moeu Chandara, president of the Cambodian Youth Network, the information are both” motivating “at the nationwide level and “disconcerting” for private safeguarded locations. The decrease, he informed Mongabay in a phone interview, might be due to milder dry spell conditions, less wildfires than in 2024, slower rates of land cleaning due to farming financial investments, and the loss or deterioration of lots of available forests in previous years.

“Having secured status alone isn’t enough if enforcement efforts are weak, resources are limited and prohibited logging or land getting continue without responsibility,” he stated.

The unnoticeable hand of the marketplace at work in Laos

Laos taped the greatest rate of logging within the Mekong area for the year, with 230,200 hectares( 569,000 acres )of tree cover lost in 2025– comparable to 1% of the nation’s acreage. Even this represented a 34%drop compared to information for 2024.

For 2025, about one third of the overall 230,200 hectares lost was main forest, according to GNW informationwhile Mongabay’s analysis discovered almost 146,000 hectares (363,000 acres)of tree cover was lost from secured locations.

The lower rate of logging in 2025 compared to 2024 may look outstanding, however it’s worth keeping in mind that 2023 was the worst year on record for tree cover loss in Laos when the nation lost almost 2%of its staying main forests in a single year.

Secured locations in the main province of Bolikhamxay and the northern province of Luang Prabang saw the worst logging in 2025, according to Mongabay’s analysis utilizing GLAD information and safeguarded location limits shared by a source who asked for privacy owing to worry of retaliation from the federal government.

According to Phuc Xuan To, a senior expert at environment financing not-for-profit Forest Trends, forest clearance connected to farming products has most likely overtaken the lumber trade as a motorist of logging in Laos. Cassava, bananasrubbercoffee, durian and other crops– much of which are exported to China — have all led to extensive logging over the last few years.

The changes in supply and need for cassava, Phuc stated, might discuss why Laos’s logging rate dropped so considerably from 2024 to 2025. Cassava was an essential chauffeur of logging throughout the Covid-19 pandemicwith cassava growing locations broadening for domestic usage in Laos and Cambodia, since farmers didn’t have enough to consume. After the pandemic, worldwide trade recommenced and, having actually broadened growing locations, both Laos and Cambodia needed to increase exports of cassava. The increased supply likewise saw the crop’s rate dropin 2024, leading to a downturn of cassava planting throughout the area.

“So I believe the pattern of forests being reduced, paving the way to cassava, has actually decreased,”he stated.”Because the production was greater than need in 2024, we didn’t see a great deal of growth in 2025 any longer.”

By contrast, wood exports from Laos to Vietnam have actually fallen from some million cubic meters annually in the late 2000s to around 10,000 cubic meters each year now, stated Phuc. He included that the need for high-end lumber has actually decreased in tandem with its diminishing schedule and availability in natural forests throughout Laos and Cambodia. Whole towns in Vietnam were devoted to importing — and frequently smuggling– high-end wood from Laos and Cambodia to feed the Chinese furnishings market. Based upon Phuc’s observations, nevertheless, these traders have actually given that changed professions as the trade has actually lessened in the last few years.

Illegal economies capitalize Myanmar’s forests

Myanmar, the biggest nation in the Mekong area by acreage– almost 4 times the size of Cambodia, 3 times the size of Laos and more than two times the size of Vietnam– had just the 2nd greatest rate of tree cover loss in 2025, according to GNW informationThe GNW information reveal almost 227,000 hectares(561,000 acres) were lost, comparable to 0.34% of the nation’s overall acreage. Of the year’s losses, near 33,000 hectares (81,500 acres) or around 14% was main forest.

Mongabay’s analysis discovered that tree cover loss throughout the 62 safeguarded locations that were developed before the 2021 coup was very little, representing simply 2.5% of the overall tape-recorded in 2025. The Myanmar armed force has actually lost control of the nation’s biggest forested locations therefore the present status of these safeguarded locations stays challenging to identify.

The overall tree cover loss taped by GNW shows an approximately 18% drop from 2024 figures, however Shan State, in the nation’s east, saw just limited decreases in logging rates, with more than 78,500 hectares (194,000 acres) lost throughout 2025. This was more than Chin and Karen states, the 2nd and 3rd worst impacted respectively, integrated.

Thant Zin Maw, a Burmese forestry professional displaced by the coup, stated that logging was likely greater in these states as they share borders with China, India and Thailand, which have actually traditionally all been markets for illegal lumber sales.

Forest Trends reported a $633 million inconsistency in between reported imports and exports of forest items from Myanmar, recommending high volumes of lumber trafficking with China, India and Thailand noted as the leading 3 locations.

” There are unlawful logging practices by wood extraction business carrying lumber through battle zone by paying tax to the military federal government or armed groups, depending upon which group is dominant at those ground websites,”Maw stated. “Law enforcement is weak on the ground to manage wood extraction. [in] Shan, Chin and Karen [states]there are armed groups and [People’s Defense Forces, a pro-democracy armed wing of the exiled National Unity Government] or ethnic armed groups and [internally displaced people] ranging from metropolitan or town wear and tear.”

Numerous groups throughout all factions depend upon natural deposits, she stated. Some financing their battle versus the military or each other, others are merely clearing forest to farm and endure.

A mining boom has actually grasped big swathes of Myanmar recently, with ethnic armed groups looking for to burnish their war chests by drawing out gold, jade, uncommon earth components and other crucial minerals, much of which is then offered to China. This quick growth has actually likewise added to logging and seen numerous rivers in Thailand, consisting of the Mekong and Salween rivers, polluted with believed chemical overflow from uncontrolled mining operations.

Maw included that industrial-scale gold and jade mining had actually infected the Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and its prolonged borders– 2 websites that give security on more than 1.7 million hectares throughout the border of Kachin State and Sagaing Region– causing forest clearance and water level contamination. These 2 safeguarded locations were the 2 worst impacted by logging in 2025, jointly losing almost 2,600 hectares (6,400 acres) of tree cover, representing 44% of all losses in safeguarded locations throughout Myanmar.

Satellite images of 5 different mining websites throughout the Hukaung Valley secured locations reveals substantial growth from 2024 to 2025, with extra information sourced from expert Thomas van Linge recommending these mines are objected to in between the Myanmar armed force and the opposing Kachin Independence Army

Thai and Vietnamese forests. still standing as police enhances

Information from both Thailand and Vietnam show years of enhancing nationwide preservation policies, forest governance and police, a minimum of when compared to next-door neighbors in the Mekong area, however are likewise a reflection of revived efforts to safeguard what’s left of domestic forest locations.

Thailand lost more than 111,500 hectares (275,500 acres) of tree cover, according to GNW informationhowever just 3,618 hectares (8,900 acres) were main forest and Mongabay analysis discovered some 11,000 hectares (27,200 acres) of the overall losses happened in safeguarded locations.

GNW tape-recorded a bit more than 118,000 hectares (292,000 acres) of tree cover loss throughout Vietnam in 2025, of which more than 14,200 hectares (35,100 acres) were main forest, however simply shy of 3,300 hectares (8,200 acres) were lost from safeguarded locations, according to Mongabay’s own analysis of GLAD information.

Tree cover loss in Thailand fell around 24% from 2024 to 2025, while in Vietnam, that decrease was just 8% for the very same duration. Amongst all Mekong nations, Thailand’s forest losses were the tiniest proportional to its acreage in 2025, at simply 0.21%, while Vietnam saw around 0.36% of its overall acreage deforested in the very same year.

These relative success have actually come at an expense for lots of regional neighborhoods in Thailand, who, according to Warangkana”Nok “Rattanarat, nation director of not-for-profit RECOFTC’s Thailand workplace, are typically sidelined in the procedure of drawing safeguarded location borders.

This, she informed Mongabay in a phone interview, has actually triggered disputes: Communities who have actually long resided in or around Thailand’s forests have actually discovered their activities limited by authorities looking for to maintain the law.

“I do not believe that the [GNW satellite] information is going to in fact compare the locations that regional individuals own and the secured locations, due to the fact that by law these locations are still thought about as secured locations,” she stated, discussing why logging in some Thai secured locations may look greater in GNW’s information.

These issues are by no methods distinct to Thailand and can be seen beyond the Mekong area, however for Nok, the concern stays regarding how the authorities at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) will handle it.

Reasonably stringent police has actually likewise played a part in keeping Vietnam’s forests standing, according to Phuc of Forest Trends.

” In Vietnam, I believe the federal government has actually been enforcing whole logging restrictions on natural forest, so naturally there is some unlawful logging, however it’s really little,”he stated.”The federal government is extremely rigorous in regards to safeguarding natural forest in Vietnam today.”

Under laws presented in Vietnam in 2018those founded guilty of unlawful logging confront 15 years in jail, while Thai laws presented in 2019 consist of charges of as much as 20 years in jail for the exact same criminal offense. Both nations have, traditionally, seen their logging business run in surrounding Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar instead of locally, however Phuc kept in mind that high-value lumber is ending up being harder to discover throughout the area.

“Basically, we are made with the high worth, so yes, you still have rather a lot in Cambodia, and a few of that in Laos, however you actually need to go really deep into forest to get that type of wood, so it’s ending up being a lot more difficult,” he stated.

For Phuc, the area’s obvious decrease in logging might be an outcome of decreasing products of and need for high-end wood, integrated with moving need and rates for farming products, also Thailand and Vietnam’s outsourcing of farming products plantations to surrounding nations– simply as they finished with wood sourcing.

“The international market value for products might be an extremely essential factor discussing why the logging fluctuates,” Phuc stated. “If you take a look at the crucial chauffeurs of logging in the Mekong area over a 20-year duration, it’s all products, or what we call forestry products. Wood is practically gone.”

* Editor’s note:Mongabay utilized the Global Forest Watch platform to figure out tree cover loss at the nationwide level, however utilized satellite information released by theInternational Land Analysis and Discovery Laboratoryat the University of Maryland, together with upgraded secured location information gotten from civil society groups, to determine tree cover loss in safeguarded locations.

The format of this information and latitudinal variations throughout the area have actually led to some small inconsistencies within Mongabay’s information as we picked to utilize a typical pixel-per-square-meter worth for each nation evaluated to compute logging inside secured locations based upon the GLAD laboratory’s information.

Banner image: A logger brings his chainsaw through the forest of the Cardamom Mountains in Cambodia. Image by Andy Ball/ Mongabay.

Subjects