Signal Forest estimate and boundary revised by method corrections

Summary

The 2026 land system change assessment altered its figures through method corrections rather than new observations. The satellite forest-cover data still end in 2022, but two ESA forest classes missing from earlier analyses were added, and mixed potential forest was split more precisely into boreal and temperate forest using temperature data. As a result the estimate of current forest cover rose from about 59 to 64 percent of potential forest. Removing double counting in the way biome thresholds were combined also shifted the global boundary from 75 to 78 percent. The correction reclassified the temperate and tropical forests of the Americas as safe, yet the global boundary remains transgressed. The report stresses that the better numbers reflect a fixed calculation and fuller use of existing data rather than regrowing forests, and warns against overconfidence about the Amazon's apparently good status.