TY - JOUR T1 - Long-term (1990-2019) monitoring of tropical moist forests dynamics JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.09.17.295774 SP - 2020.09.17.295774 AU - C. Vancutsem AU - F. Achard AU - J.-F. Pekel AU - G. Vieilledent AU - S. Carboni AU - D. Simonetti AU - J. Gallego AU - L. Aragao AU - R. Nasi Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/09/19/2020.09.17.295774.abstract N2 - Accurate characterization of the tropical moist forests changes is needed to support conservation policies and to better quantify their contribution to global carbon fluxes. We document - at pantropical scale - the extent of these forests and their changes (degradation, deforestation and recovery) over the last three decades. We estimate that 17% of the tropical moist forests have disappeared since 1990 with a remaining area of 1060 million ha in 2019, from which 8.5% are degraded. Our study underlines the importance of the degradation process in such ecosystems, in particular as precursor of deforestation and in the recent increase of the tropical moist forest disturbances. Without reduction of the present disturbance rates, undisturbed forests will disappear entirely in large tropical humid regions by 2050. Our study suggests reinforcing actions to prevent the first disturbance scar that leads to forest clearance in 45% of the cases.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -