An old-growth forest, sometimes synonymous with primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forest—is a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological features, and might be classified as a climax community. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines primary forests as naturally regenerated forests of native tree species where there are no clearly visible indications of human activity and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed. More than one-third (34 percent) of the world's forests are primary forests. Old-growth features include diverse tree-related structures that provide diverse wildlife habitat that increases the biodiversity of the forested ecosystem. Virgin or first-growth forests are old-growth forests that have never been logged. The concept of diverse tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, greatly varying tree heights and diameters, and diverse tree species and classes and sizes of woody debris.
As of 2020, the world has 1.11 billion ha of primary forest remaining. Combined, three countries (Brazil, Canada, and Russia) host more than half (61 percent) of the world's primary forest. The area of primary forest has decreased by 81 million ha since 1990, but the rate of loss more than halved in 2010–2020 compared with the previous decade.Old-growth forests are valuable for economic reasons and for the ecosystem services they provide. This can be a point of contention when some in the logging industry desire to harvest valuable timber from the forests, while environmentalists seek to preserve the forests in their pristine state for benefits such as maintenance of biodiversity, water purification, flood control, and nutrient cycling. Moreover, old-growth forests are more efficient at sequestering carbon than newly planted forests and fast-growing timber plantations, thus preserving the forests is important to climate change mitigation.
