Despite a drop in deforestation in 2025, forest losses pile up in the Mekong

The five Mekong countries lost 746,168 hectares of tree cover in 2025, an area about the size of the Bangkok metro region, according to Mongabay's analysis of GLAD lab data. That includes over 154,000 hectares of primary forest and nearly 200,000 hectares lost from land that is supposedly protected.

The regional rate fell about 25% from 2024, continuing a decline since 2023, with experts citing fewer wildfires, more rain, tighter enforcement and softer commodity prices as possible factors. Laos led the region with 230,200 hectares lost despite its own 34% improvement, while Cambodia posted its best year since 2003 yet still lost over half its felled protected-area forest inside sanctuaries meant to stop exactly that.

Activists and local officials describe systemic problems including organized corruption undermining stated conservation policy, and warn that a good year on paper can mask degradation happening tree by tree. Virachey National Park, one of Cambodia's oldest, recorded its worst year on record even as the country's national numbers improved.

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