- hot-spots
- deforestation
- Peru
- Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon
Problems
The Peruvian Amazon is an area of the Amazon rainforest that is part of the country of Peru, from the east of the Andes to the borders with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia. Resource-rich forest, the Peruvian Amazon is being plundered at an accelerated rate. Peru ranks as the country with the fifth highest rate of deforestation in the world and the third highest in the Amazon, behind Brazil and Bolivia.
Causes of deforestation in Amazon
Causes of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon: ● The political chaos has undercut the fight against deforestation and environmental crimes, pushing these issues down the agenda. ● The pandemic has also been a key factor in the record deforestation, turning government attention away from environmental protection and inviting rampant environmental crime. ● Mining causes deforestation. ● Agro-industrial companies fill the surging international demand for commodities such as palm oil. Palm oil plantations have grown by 95 percent during the last ten years in Peru. Large agribusiness has led to deforestation. ● Most of the wood harvested in Peru may be illegally sourced. Some forestry experts estimate that as much as 80 percent of Peruvian timber is of illegal origin. Some illegal logging is the result of other legal and illegal activities happening in the Amazon, namely coca cultivation, unauthorized colonization by small farmers, and agricultural development. Deforestation is one of the motors behind biodiversity loss and forest degradation in the Peruvian Amazon. High-value woods such as cedar and mahogany have been felled without control, almost to the point of extinction.
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Timelines
2025
A published report on deforestation in the Amazon rainforest by Amazon Conservation’s Mapping of the Andes Amazon Project (MAAP) shows that in 2025, there were 736,484 hectares (1,819,891 acres) of deforestation, largely from agriculture (94.6%), mining (5.3%), and roads and infrastructure (0.1%). Nearly 132,000 hectares (326,179 acres) of it were illegal, occurring inside protected areas and Indigenous territories. In Peru, the main areas of deforestation due to agriculture were in the central region, whereas forest loss due to mining occurred mainly in the centre and south of the country. Peru was the country with the largest area deforested due to mining (18,200 hectares). Almost 132,000 hectares (18%) of deforestation in 2025 occurred in protected areas and indigenous territories, with agriculture responsible for 89% and mining 11%. Peru was third (20%) after Brazil (33%) and Bolivia (25%). In summary, in 2025, most deforestation was due to agriculture (94.6%) – whether for soy or palm oil plantations, the expansion of Mennonite colonies or invasion by smallholders. This was followed by mining (5.3%) and roads and infrastructure (0.1%). Nearly 132,000 hectares (326,179 acres) of it were illegal, occurring inside protected areas and Indigenous territories.
2022
Peru ranks as the country with the fifth highest rate of deforestation in the world and the third highest in the Amazon, behind Brazil and Bolivia. In all, Peru has lost more than 26,000 square kilometers of forest since 2001, an area greater than the size of El Salvador.
2021
The study, titled “Agribusiness fueling the climate crisis in Peru” estimates that in the northern province of Loreto, large-scale cacao production on 5,458 acres since 2013 released 87,040 metric tons of greenhouse gases, roughly equivalent to the amount exhausted by 69,000 passenger vehicles in a year.
2020
Peru reached the highest levels of deforestation in the country’s history, with a total of 203,272 hectares razed, almost 40 percent more than in 2019. 46 illegal airstrips were officially detected in Ucayali and security expert Pedro Yaranga said there could be more than 80 in that department alone. 42,000 hectares of forest were lost throughout Ucayali.
2019
From 2017 the country exhibited constant deforestation rates of around 150,000 hectares per year, which is equivalent to an annual tree-cover loss of 19 percent.
2016
In January, the largest seizure of illegally-sourced timber in Peru's history took placein Mexico’s port of Tampico, on its way to Houston, Texas. Almost 9,500 cubic meters of illegally-harvested timber claimed.
2014
In December, National Pact for Legal Wood, signed by five Peruvian government agencies and several indigenous federations, private sector companies and nonprofits, including WWF. Signatories had agreed to create a plan to promote legal timber and eradicate illegal logging in Peru by 2021.
2011
National forest law was approved.
