GENEVA – A pledge by more than 100 world leaders to stop cutting down forests is well off track, according to new research.
More of the world’s older, carbon-rich tropical forests were cleared or burned last year than in 2021, when the deal was signed at a United Nations (UN) climate conference.
Some 11 football pitches of forest were lost every minute in 2022, with Brazil dominating the destruction.
But a sharp reduction in forest loss in Indonesia shows that reversing this trend is achievable.
One of the key moments at the COP26 climate meeting in 2021 saw over 100 world leaders sign the Glasgow Declaration on forests, where they committed to work collectively to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”.
In total, leaders from countries covering around 85% of global forests signed up. This included former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who had relaxed the enforcement of environmental laws to allow development in the Amazon rainforest.
The Glasgow pact was agreed after a previous agreement signed in 2014 failed to stem the relentless loss of trees.
Now a new analysis carried out by Global Forest Watch shows that the new promise made in Glasgow is not being kept.
Losses of tropical primary (old-growth) forest are seen as particularly critical for global warming and biodiversity.
Rainforests in Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
Clearing or burning these older forests sees that stored carbon released to the atmosphere, driving up temperatures around the world.
These forests are also critical for maintaining biodiversity and the livelihoods of millions of people.
Scientists warn that these functions – or “ecosystem services” – can’t easily be replaced by planting trees elsewhere, because these forests have developed over such a long period of time. (BBC)
