Tropical forests are a vital part of the solution to climate change, as well as being one of the richest areas of biodiversity on the planet. If we do not stop the rampant destruction of the tropical forests, anything else we do will make little difference in the long run. Forests not only absorb carbon dioxide (CO²) from the atmosphere, acting as natural carbon sinks, but when they are logged, burnt or degraded they release large amounts of CO² into the atmosphere, contributing significantly to climate change. Deforestation and forest degradation contributes as much as 20-25% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, more than the entire global transport sector. Past attempts to tackle deforestation have mostly failed. REDD+ is the best chance to reverse the downward trend of the forests– but only if we get the design, implementation and priorities right.

But it’s not just about carbon. Forests are giant global utilities, supplying the planet with vital ecosystem services such as rainfall, water storage, climate buffering, soil stabilisation and biodiversity maintenance at local, regional and global scales. These services are worth billions of dollars per year, but are taken for granted and treated as economic externalities or factors outside our economic systems. As a result, biodiversity is declining, our ecosystems are being continuously degraded and we, in turn, are suffering the consequences.

As with climate change, it is the world’s poor who are most at risk from the continuing loss of biodiversity. They are the ones most reliant on the ecosystem services which are being undermined by flawed economic analysis and policy mistakes.

International demand is the principle driver of deforestation worldwide, but conservation has proven no match for commerce.  If we lose the forests we lose the fight against climate change as, without forests, it is unlikely that we could stabilise the CO² in the atmosphere at a level that would avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.

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