A giant step to curb deforestation in the most biodiverse places

In the absence of the agreements that will be concluded over the next few days at the climate summit held in Glasgow, the international community today has taken a giant step to curb the growing deforestation that threatens the planet and reduces effectiveness. of forests as carbon sinks.

In fact, forests are home to 60,000 different species of trees, 80% of amphibian species, 75% of bird species and 68% of Earth’s mammalian species, according to data from the United Nations Program to environment (UNEP).

But the figures reveal the size of this catastrophe: over the last 13 years more than 43 million hectares of forest have been devastated in these ecosystems, an area comparable to the US state of California.

Today, in the framework of the Glasgow climate change summit (COP26) a hundred countries, representing 85% of the world’s forests, have sealed their commitment to stop and reverse this destruction, with the horizon set to 2030.

Countries or regions such as Colombia, Indonesia, Norway, Australia, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, the European Union, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, have joined the commitment. Peru, Russia, Turkey, Uruguay, the United States and the United Kingdom, which have also added to that promise a clear source of financing to achieve it.

A recent report from the world environmental organization WWF It warns that deforestation has been taking place for many decades in the Amazon, in Central Africa, Mekong and Indonesia, but also points out new fronts in West Africa (Liberia, Ivory Coast or Ghana), in East Africa (Madagascar) and in Latin America, in places like the Mayan Jungle of Mexico and Guatemala.

His work identifies the main causes of this loss of forest mass and highlights, among others, livestock and large-scale agriculture of products such as soybeans in Latin America; in Africa because of subsistence agriculture; and in Asia due to palm and paper pulp plantations.

At this point, it should be noted that a large part of the soy produced in Latin America travels to China and the European Union (EU), the second largest market for this product.

In addition to the causes, the report of WWF emphasizes possible solutions, noting that there is no single approach or universal criterion, but rather the most effective responses are those that combine multiple frames, and advocates for urgent action by governments, businesses, and regulators.

UNEP data warn that since 1990 some 420 million hectares of forest have been lost due to conversion to other land uses, although the encouraging data is that this deforestation has slowed down in the last thirty years.

The world maps produced by the UN draw those places where forests still harbor communities rich in fauna and flora, such as the northern Andes or parts of the Congo Basin, and the places where this problem is most starkly accused.

Millions of people around the planet depend on forests for their food security and livelihoods, and in fact UN calculations resolve that forested areas provide more than 86 million green jobs.

Of the people living in extreme poverty, more than 90% depend on forests for wild food, firewood or a significant part of their livelihood; this figure includes eight million forest-dependent people in Latin America alone.

Among the most effective tools that have been put in place in recent years to curb this problem, the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certificate stands out, a sustainable forest certification system promoted by numerous timber producing companies, environmental and rights organizations. humans, with the aim of alleviating forest degradation.

This seal, together with the Program for Verification of Certification (PEFC, for its acronym in English) guarantees that the product that is removed from the forest (paper, wood, cork or resins) has been extracted in a respectful way from the point from an environmental, social and economic point of view.