By Rhett A. Butler The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines. This year, the list is more concise than in the past. While the data is still preliminary, it appears that deforestation declined across the tropics as a whole in 2023 due to developments in the Amazon, which has more than half the world’s remaining primary tropical forests. Sharp decline in Amazon deforestationAn analysis published in December by the MAAP initiative revealed a significant decrease in deforestation. In the first 11 months of 2023, deforestation totaled 912,000 hectares, marking…