Changes in the extent of Intact Forest Landscapes identified from 2000-2020

''Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs) are defined as those with an unfragmented area of at least 500 km2 and which are minimally influenced by human economic activity''.(Thies et al. 2011) IFLs are critical for stabilizing terrestrial carbon storage, harboring biodiversity, regulating hydrological regimes, and providing other ecosystem functions. Researchers, firstly, created a global IFL map using existing fine-scale maps and
a global coverage of high spatial resolution satellite imagery (Potapov et al. 2008). Moreover they assessed the distribution and dynamics of IFLs within the extent of present-day forest ecosystems tracking loss of intact forest landscapes from 2000 to 2020. In this layer we show the reduction of the IFL extent for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)countries that decreased by 16,6% since the year 2000. Countries that experienced the largest reduction in intact forest landscape area over the past two decades are Solomon Islands with 66,3 %, Central African Republic with 57% and Equatorial Guinea with 50,4%. Democratic Republic of the Congo still  has the highest proportion of intactness of ACP countries with 59,7Mha. IFL in Democratic Republic of the Congo has an extent of 64,3Mha as the 27,7% of its forest cover.