Intact Forest Landscapes identification and mapping was carried out for the whole forest zone in the area of approx. 56,000,000 km², which occupies 37.6% of the Earth's land surface.

The area of identified Intact Forest Landscapes of the world is 13,134,731 km². Less than one fourth of the forest zone (23.4%) of the Earth forest zone (regions with average tree canopy coverage above 20%) remain as Intact Forest Landscapes. That is only 8.8% of the Earth's land surface.

The remainder of forest zone has been degraded, converted to plantations or fragmented to areas smaller than 500 km² in size by roads, settlements etc. Many of these smaller areas have a high conservation value too, due to their rarity or their unique diversity of plant and animal species.

The vast majority of the remaining Intact Forest Landscapes of the world are made up of the boreal (taiga) forests of Russia, Canada and Alaska (43.9 %) and dense lowland tropical forests of the Amazon, Congo and South East Asia Pacific (45.7%). Some forest types like temperate broadleaf forests have less than 4% of Intact Forest Landscapes left.

69.3% of the world's Intact Forest Landscapes are occupied by closed forests (forest areas with more then 40% tree canopy coverage), 16.4% - open forests (tree canopy coverage 20-40%) and 14.3% - non forest ecosystems (swamps, mountain ecosystems, lakes etc.). 29.4% of the world's dense forests remain in Intact Forest Landscapes.

Of all countries full or partly within the forest zone, 82 have lost all of their Intact Forest Landscapes and whilst 66 countries still have Intact Forest Landscapes, for half of these it's less than 10% of their forest zone area.

Only fourteen countries, including Canada, Brazil, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia control 92% of the world's remaining Intact Forest Landscapes.

Overall, only 7.9% of all Intact Forest Landscapes lie in strictly protected areas (IUCN categories I - III) according to UNEP/IUCN World Database on Protected Areas.

Conservation of large Intact Forest Landscapes is a robust and cost-effective way to conserve biological diversity. The remoteness and large size of these areas provide the best guarantee of continued intactness.