This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Over 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of protected tropical forest—an area double the size of Wales—have been lost to wildfires since 2001. Accelerating at an alarming rate, this destruction threatens sanctuaries once thought safe, according to a new University of Sheffield study.
The study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, is the first to assess in detail how much protected tropical forest has been lost to wildfires worldwide and whether protected status actually reduces the risk of forests burning. Researchers combined satellite wildfire data with maps of more than 9,700 protected areas across the tropics, tracking forest losses between 2001 and 2024. They found that wildfire-driven destruction of protected tropical forests is not only substantial but accelerating.
The annual area burned inside protected areas has been roughly nine times higher since 2016 than in previous years, with nearly a third of all 24-year losses occurring in 2024 alone. The vast majority of the destruction—around 89%—occurred in the tropical Americas, particularly in Brazil, which alone accounted for almost two-thirds of global losses. Bolivia and Indonesia also recorded substantial losses.
To test whether protection actually makes a difference, the researchers compared protected forest plots with very similar unprotected plots nearby, matched for factors known to influence wildfire risk, such as temperature, rainfall, how many people live in the area and how much forest surrounds it. This allowed them to isolate the effect of protection itself, rather than other factors that might explain why some forests burn and others don't. The results were mixed but broadly encouraging: Protected areas were less likely to burn than comparable unprotected forests in around half of all plots studied in the Americas, rising to around seven in 10 plots in Africa.
However, when the researchers looked at how wildfire activity has changed over time, they found protected and unprotected forests were following almost identical trends. This means that as wildfire activity worsens across a region, protected areas are being swept up in that increase just as much as unprotected land. Christopher Bousfield, a research fellow at the University of Sheffield, said, "Protected areas help reduce wildfire risk, but they offer no guarantee of safety as climate change intensifies.
Because most tropical fires are human-caused, safeguarding these forests requires active collaboration with local communities and landowners to prevent both deliberate land-clearing fires and accidental escapes into protected regions." The researchers emphasize that protected areas are still one of our best tools for saving tropical forests, wildlife and stored carbon. However, rather than treating wildfires as a separate issue, park planners must now build fire prevention directly into their conservation plans—especially as climate change and extreme weather events like El Niño make fires more frequent and intense. Oscar Morton, a research fellow at the University of Sheffield, said, "Protected areas have undoubtedly shielded tropical forests from fire over the past two decades.
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