Failing to Defend Forests

 Globally, 26,000 square miles of forest—an area roughly equivalent to the Republic of Ireland—were destroyed in 2021. This deforestation decimated biodiverse ecosystems and released 3.8 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, about as much as the European Union.

According to the annual Forest Declaration Assessment, "not a single global indicator is on track to meet these 2030 goals of stopping forest loss and degradation and restoring 350 million hectares of forest landscape." 

 "It will cost up to $460 billion per year to protect, restore, and enhance forests on a global scale. Currently, domestic and international mitigation finance for forests averages $2.3 billion per year—less than 1% of the necessary total. Funding for forests will need to increase by up to 200 times to meet 2030 goals."

Experts have long warned that it will be virtually impossible to maintain a habitable planet unless the world stops felling trees to make space for cattle ranching, monocropping, and other harmful practices. Although halting and reversing deforestation by 2030 is key to averting the worst consequences of the climate and biodiversity crises, the world is off course to achieve these critical targets. At COP26 climate summit last November, 145 nations signed the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration "to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation" by the end of the decade.

"To be on course to halt deforestation completely by 2030, a 10% annual reduction is needed," the report notes. "However, deforestation rates around the world declined only modestly, in 2021, by 6.3% compared to the 2018-20 baseline. In the humid tropics, loss of irreplaceable primary forest decreased by only 3.1%."

"Tropical Asia is the only region currently on track to halt deforestation by 2030," thanks to the "exceptional progress" made by Indonesia and Malaysia, which reduced clear-cutting by 25% in 2021, states the report. "While deforestation rates in tropical Latin America and Africa decreased in 2021 relative to the 2018-20 baseline, those reductions are still insufficient to meet the 2030 goal."

The authors emphasize. "Achieving the 2030 forest goals is essential for ensuring a livable world in line with the Paris agreement."

They point out that "most financial institutions still fail to have any deforestation safeguards for their investments," the assessment points out. "Almost two-thirds of the 150 major financial players most exposed to deforestation do not yet have a single deforestation policy covering their forest-risk investments, leaving $2.6 trillion in investments in high deforestation-risk commodities without appropriate safeguards."

Fran Price, global forest practice lead at World Wildlife Fund explained, "There is no pathway to meeting the 1.5°C target set out in the Paris agreement or reversing biodiversity loss without halting deforestation and conversion."

'Not a Single Global Indicator Is on Track' to Reverse Deforestation by 2030: Analysis (commondreams.org)