There’s good news and bad news for forests. Over the last 10 years, satellite imagery and other remote sensing technologies have revolutionized our ability to monitor and understand the causes of forest loss.

The bad news is that deforestation data spanning the last two decades reveals a persistent hemorrhaging of the world’s most valuable terrestrial ecosystems — and we’re not doing enough to stop the bleeding.

What do trends in forest loss tell us?

Global tree cover loss trends show that in the 21st century, by far the most deforestation — meaning when forests are permanently converted to other land uses — is occurring in the tropics. We now have two decades of data on the loss of primary tropical forests, and it paints a sobering picture: stubbornly persistent annual losses hovering between 3 and 4 million hectares each year, punctuated by spikes associated with major fires.

The main direct cause of tropical forest loss is expansion of commercial agriculture, augmented in different regions to varying degrees by clearing for small-scale agriculture, extractive activities, and roads and other infrastructure, with complex linkages among them. Even lockdowns associated with the coronavirus pandemic didn’t appear to disrupt those patterns in any consistent way; in fact, losses ticked up in 2020 compared to the previous year.

An especially worrisome signal in recent data is that forest loss is increasingly driven by climate change through increased exposure to droughts, fires, storms and pest outbreaks.

In 2020, Bolivia surpassed Indonesia for third place on the list of the world’s top deforesters due to extensive wildfires following a drought. In the same year, forests covering some 30% of the world’s largest tropical wetland — the Pantanal in Brazil — burned.

Such loss is tragic on multiple levels. Tropical rainforests are especially valuable for meeting global objectives: Their vegetation and soils sequester vast amounts of carbon, and they harbor a disproportionate share of the world’s plant and animal species.

Forests also play important, if hidden, roles in supporting national economies, including by generating rainfall and regulating surface water flows important for agricultural production, hydroelectric power generation and municipal water supplies.

And forests are essential for the well-being of some of the world’s most vulnerable Indigenous and local communities, whose livelihoods and cultural integrity are threatened by forest loss. In a profound irony, although Indigenous Peoples are now recognized as among the world’s most effective forest stewards, they are also well represented among the hundreds of environmental defenders whose lives are being lost every year to violent conflict over natural resources.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Many of the causes of forest loss are amenable to change in the near-term.

For example, a large proportion of forest loss is illegal — such as forest clearing within the boundaries of protected areas in Colombia and recognized Indigenous territories in Brazil — and could be addressed through increased law enforcement. Many of the agricultural and wood products fattened, cultivated or extracted at the expense of forests — led by cattle, oil palm, soy, cocoa, plantation rubber, coffee and plantation wood fiber — are globally traded commodities, subject to pressures from government regulation and consumer preferences.

Indeed, two of the most interesting deviations from the relatively consistent patterns of forest loss across the tropics are those from Brazil and Indonesia, which both illustrate the effectiveness of government policy and corporate restraint.

In Brazil, an impressive decade-long reduction in high rates of deforestation after 2004 is attributable to a suite of public policy measures and private actions, but deforestation has recently crept back up due policy reversals under a new administration.

Conversely, Indonesia’s rate of forest loss was on a steady upward trajectory until experiencing a steep and continuing decline following government and corporate responses to catastrophic fires in 2015.

However, addressing the immediate causes and underlying drivers of deforestation is never easy, and is harder in some places than others.

For example, in the Congo Basin, much forest loss is due to small-scale clearing by very poor people for subsistence livelihoods. Pursuing a law enforcement approach to address such situations in the absence of viable economic alternatives and human rights protections is unacceptable.

Encouraging signs of progress to curb deforestation

Amid the bad news on the stubbornly persistent rates of rainforest destruction, there are some hopeful signs that tropical deforestation is once again high on the international agenda, and that at least some of the many commitments to action are being translated into results on the ground.

Advances in the scientific basis for action

One cause for optimism is that the scientific basis for conserving the world’s forests to meet a variety of objectives is growing ever stronger. Scientists are increasingly recognizing the special role of forests in regulating the global climate system.

For example, an IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land concluded that “reducing deforestation and forest degradation rates represents one of the most effective and robust options for climate change mitigation, with large mitigation benefits globally,” and represents a “no regrets” strategy for mitigation, adaptation and other Sustainable Development Goals.

The most recent IPCC Working Group III report on mitigation reinforced the message that, with deforestation accounting for 45% of land sector emissions, ending the conversion of tropical forests, peatlands and other carbon-rich ecosystems represents a high-priority, low-cost mitigation option.

Indeed, a series of peer-reviewed papers provide a relentless drumbeat of reasons to increase attention to forests to meet climate and other global and local goals. To cite just a few:

  • Roe et al. 2019 estimated that the land sector could contribute up to 30% of the global carbon mitigation needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).
  • Maxwell et al. 2019 estimated that while clearing of intact forests accounted for 3.2% of gross carbon emissions from all tropical deforestation, the full net carbon impact of intact forest destruction was at least six times greater when accounting for factors such as degradation and forgone capacity for continued carbon sequestration — and thus, there is a larger-than-realized mitigation potential from preventing the loss of remaining intact forests.
  • Lawrence et al. 2022 calculated that the biophysical effects of tropical deforestation — such as changes in albedo, evapotranspiration and surface roughness — significantly amplify the global warming effects of released CO2 alone.

Advances in political and financial commitments

Holders of political power, purse strings and purchasing decisions have all updated their previous promises to reduce deforestation. Most recently, at the UN climate summit (COP26) in 2021, 141 heads of state signed a Leaders Declaration promising to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. The declaration was the capstone of a package of commitments that included:

  • Public sector donors and private philanthropists pledged to provide $12 billion of forest-related climate finance. Additionally, they pledged $1.7 billion of financing to support Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ forest tenure rights and recognize their role as guardians of the forests.
  • Major agricultural companies committed to halt forest loss associated with agricultural commodity production and trade.
  • More than 30 financial institutions representing $8.7 trillion in assets committed to tackle agricultural commodity-driven deforestation by publicly disclosing risks, establishing policies to address deforestation, engaging with companies and increasing investment in nature-based solutions.
  • The LEAF Coalition announced that it had mobilized $1 billion for jurisdictional-scale tropical forest protection and signed letters of intent with five countries to reduce emissions from deforestation.
  • Multilateral development banks committed to mainstream nature into their policies, analyses and operations.

If followed up with concrete steps to increase transparency, accountability and inclusion in forest management decision-making — in addition to increased finance for forest conservation — these commitments could begin turning the declaration’s vision into action.

While most international attention has focused on the role of forests in fighting climate change, forest ecosystems are also potentially affected by biodiversity and nature conservation forums.

For example, key countries and a broad range of stakeholders endorsed the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People’s call to protect 30% of the world’s terrestrial and ocean areas by 2030 (30×30) — an objective that’s already attracted $5 billion in early philanthropic funding pledges.

While the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) has been serially postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and few issues have been agreed on so far, recent preparatory meetings saw support for the 30×30 target and strengthening the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

4 ways to end deforestation by 2030

In light of the political and financial commitments listed above, how can we most effectively deploy available resources in the limited time we have left to end deforestation by 2030? Here are four actions to keep in mind:

1. We can target political attention and financial resources to the most important areas, drivers and actors with the most effective interventions

Thanks to the rapidly expanded quality and availability of forest monitoring data, not only can we detect where forest loss is taking place in near-real time, we can identify the causes of that loss and analyze past patterns to predict future trajectories of deforestation. Further, we can be increasingly confident that we know what works to slow and halt forest loss. We need to act on that knowledge.

Governments can apply policy tools that have proven effective, such as:

  • If forest loss is caused by illegal forest clearing by commercial actors, prior experience in Brazil and recent experience in Indonesia demonstrate that enhanced enforcement of legal and regulatory requirements can curtail it.
  • Establishing protected areas and recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ rights can slow advance of the deforestation frontier. For example, deforestation rates in the Amazon on securely held Indigenous land are 50% lower than areas outside Indigenous lands.
  • Officials can design fiscal incentives such as access to credit or direct payments to reward forest protection rather than subsidize forest clearing.
  • If building roads into intact forests is the main driver of encroachment, officials can find alternative routes to meet legitimate needs for access to markets and services.

For companies that produce, trade or purchase commodities associated with deforestation — and for those in civil society who seek to influence those companies — overlaying maps that show forest cover change with related data sets (for example, locations of concessions) can pinpoint where to prioritize corporate risk management efforts or external advocacy.

In other words, companies and activists can analyze the linkages between where deforestation is happening and the boundaries of forest and plantation concessions, the locations of processing facilities, the shipments of exported commodities, and the financiers associated with each, and as a result, focus their interventions on the production areas, commodities, companies and consumers at highest risk of being implicated in deforestation.

Hundreds of companies and investors now use a suite of tools including Global Forest Watch Pro, Trase and the Accountability Framework to identify and manage deforestation risk in their supply chains and investment portfolios.

And while increased transparency has not always generated immediate changes in behavior, we know that access to better information can make a difference.

For example, an evaluation found that subscriptions Global Forest Watch’s tree cover loss alerts in Africa were associated with an 18% decrease in the probability of deforestation.

Another study found that providing Indigenous communities in Peru with access to forest monitoring tools and training led to a dramatic 52% decrease in local deforestation in the first year, and 21% the following year.

2. We need to recognize that although many of the economic drivers of deforestation are linked to global flows of trade and finance, most of the politics are local

Certainly, the financial and capacity constraints in forest-rich developing countries are real, such as the inability of law enforcement officials to go into the field due to budget cuts, or local government officials’ lack of knowledge about how to attract carbon finance and other green investment opportunities. Yet the main limitation on action is lack of political will.

It’s clear that global demand for commodities drives forest loss, and that failure to internalize the value of forests into global financial systems fuels deforestation-as-usual practices. And while it might be possible for domestic officials to stop those practices though a combination of the approaches described above, it often does not appear desirable for those with the power to do so.

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