Save our trees
Forests vanishing at an alarming rate, say scientists.
PARIS: Earth’s intact forests shrank by an area larger than Austria every year from 2014 to 2016 at a 20% faster rate than during the previous decade, scientists said as the UN unveiled an initiative to harness the “untapped potential” of the land sector to fight climate change.
Despite a decades-long effort to halt deforestation, nearly 10% of undisturbed forests have been fragmented, degraded or simply chopped down since 2000, according to the analysis of satellite imagery.
Average daily loss over the first 17 years of this century was more than 200sq km.
“Degradation of intact forest rep- resents a global tragedy, as we are systematically destroying a crucial foundation of climate stability,” said Frances Seymour, a senior distinguished fellow at the World Resources Institute (WRI), and a contributor to the research, presented this week at a conference in Oxford.
“Forests are the only safe, natural, proven and affordable infrastructure we have for capturing and storing carbon.”
The findings come as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and five major conservation organisations launched a fiveyear plan, Nature4Climate, to better leverage land use in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming. “Thirty-seven per cent of what is
2° needed to stay below C” – the cornerstone goal of the 196-nation Paris Agreement – “can be provided by land”, said Andrew Steer, WRI President and CEO.
“But only 3% of the public funding for mitigation goes to land and forest issues – that needs to change,” he said.
Beyond climate, the last forest frontiers play a critical role in maintaining biodiversity, weather stability, clean air, and water quality.
Some 500 million people worldwide depend directly on forests for their livelihood.
So-called “intact forest landscapes” – which can include wet- lands and natural grass pastures – are defined as areas of at least 500sq km with no visible evidence in satellite images of large-scale human use.
That means no roads, industrial agriculture, mines, railways, canals or transmission lines.
As of January 2017, there were about 11.6 million sq km of forests worldwide that still fit these criteria. From 2014 to 2016, that area declined by more than 87,000sq km each year.
“Many countries may lose all their forest wildlands in the next 15 to 20 years,” Peter Potapov, an associate professor at the University of Maryland and lead scientist for the research, said.