Find out what causes deforestation and how new European legislation eliminates the import of goods that were produced on deforested land. The rate of forest loss worldwide is alarming. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a specialized UN agency, between 1990 and 2020, 420 million hectares of forest were lost to deforestation, an area the size of the EU. Deforestation is the destruction of forests so that the land can be used for other purposes. Forest degradation is a more gradual process associated with the unsustainable use of forests related to the loss of their ability to produce essential benefits such as timber or biodiversity.