This chapter presents new data on the state of forest ecosystems. These are drawn from FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 (FRA 2020) and two new analyses prepared for SOFO 2020 by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) using satellite imagery. It focuses on the global level and broad biomes (global ecological zones). More detailed information at the regional and national levels is available in FAO (2020).

Forest ecosystems are a critical component of the world’s biodiversity as many forest are more biodiverse than other ecosystems. The area covered by forests is thus one of the indicators of Sustainable Development Goal 15 “Life on land”.

According to FRA 2020, forests currently cover 30.8 percent of the global land area (FAO, 2020). The total forest area is 4.06 billion hectares, or approximately 0.5 ha per person, but forests are not equally distributed around the globe. More than half of the world’s forests are found in only five countries (the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America and China) and two-thirds (66 percent) of forests are found in ten countries (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF FORESTS SHOWING THE TEN COUNTRIES WITH THE LARGEST FOREST AREA, 2020 (MILLION HECTARES AND % OF WORLD’S FORESTS)

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Forest area as a proportion of total land area, which serves as SDG Indicator 15.1.1 (Box 5), decreased from 32.5 percent to 30.8 percent in the three decades between 1990 and 2020. This represents a net loss of 178 million hectares of forest, an area about the size of Libya. However, the average rate of net forest loss declined by roughly 40 percent between 1990–2000 and 2010–2020 (from 7.84 million hectares per year to 4.74 million hectares per year), the result of reduced forest area loss in some countries and forest gains in others (Table 1) (FAO, 2020). Forest loss is primarily caused by agricultural expansion, while an increase in forest area may occur through natural expansion of forests, e.g. on abandoned agricultural land, or through reforestation (including through assisted natural regeneration) or afforestation. These natural and human-induced changes have different impacts on forest biodiversity.

TABLE 1

ANNUAL RATE OF FOREST AREA CHANGE

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Africa had the highest net loss of forest area in 2010–2020, with a loss of 3.94 million hectares per year, followed by South America with 2.60 million hectares per year (Figure 2). Since 1990, Africa has reported an increase in the rate of net loss, while South America’s losses have decreased substantially, more than halving since 2010 relative to the previous decade.

FIGURE 2

NET FOREST AREA CHANGE BY REGION, 1990–2020 (MILLION HECTARES PER YEAR)

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Asia showed the highest net gain in forest area in the period 2010–2020, followed by Oceania and Europe. Both Europe and Asia reported a net forest gain for each ten-year period since 1990, although both regions show a substantial reduction in the rate of gain since 2010.

Other land with tree cover

As part of the reporting to FRA 2020, countries were asked to report on “Other land with tree cover”, defined as “Other land [i.e. land not classified as forest, other wooded land or inland water] spanning more than 0.5 ha with a canopy cover of more than 10 percent comprising trees able to reach a height of 5 m at maturity” (see Box 6). “Other land with tree cover” was split into five categories (Table 2). Fewer than half the countries were able to report on this parameter, and even fewer to provide trends over time. However, the reported figures indicate that the world has at least 162 million hectares of land with tree cover that is not classified as forest, and possibly as much as 300 million hectares, judging from the gap in data. The only category that did not show an increase over time was trees in urban settings.

BOX 6

FOREST VERSUS TREE COVER: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Global data on forest area reported by in this edition of SOFO differ from those reported by other initiatives mainly because of differences in the methods employed to derive the information and in the definitions of forest. FAO defines forest as a combination of tree cover and land use, while some others define forest only in terms of tree cover (i.e. include both forests and “Other land with tree cover” according to FRA 2020 definitions). Data sets based solely on medium- to low-resolution remote-sensing sources cannot differentiate between tree cover in agricultural production systems (e.g. orchards, oil palm plantations, coffee plantations) and tree cover on land that is not predominantly under agricultural or urban land use. This means that these data sets generally report a total area of tree cover that is larger than the total forest area. In addition, areas of forest where the tree cover that has been temporarily removed as part of a forest management scheme or temporarily lost through natural disturbances are still considered forest according to the FAO definition, while a remote-sensing analysis of tree cover will interpret these areas as forest loss. Conversely, an increase in agricultural tree crops will be interpreted as an increase in forest area if based only on remote sensing. Moreover, young trees cannot easily be detected by satellites. Reporting years also differ, but even when this is accounted for, the annual net change in the area covered by trees based solely on remote-sensing data can differ substantially from the net change in forest area, given that the latter is based on auxiliary data, including data on land use.

Thus, while the FRA 2020 results reported above show a steady decrease in the rates of net loss of forest area globally, the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF, 2019) reports an increase in the global rate of tree cover loss since 2000 measured as gross loss (i.e. excluding any gains in tree cover over the same period) of all types of trees, and Song et al. (2018), looking at the difference in area between two points in time and hence reporting on net changes, assert that global tree cover increased between 1982 and 2016. Conversely, a study conducted by UNEP-WCMC for this edition of SOFO (see Figure 3) indicates that total tree cover declined between 1992 and 2015.

FIGURE 3

TRENDS IN GLOBAL TREE COVER, 1992–2015 (BILLION HECTARES)

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An attempt has been made in this volume to clearly distinguish between results referring to forests and those referring to tree cover.

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TABLE 2

OTHER LAND WITH TREE COVER, 2020

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Annual trends in overall tree cover

A UNEP-WCMC analysis of annual land-cover data at around 300 m resolution from 1992 to 2015 from the European Space Agency (Bontemps et al., 2013) indicates that global tree cover (including palms and agricultural tree crops) amounted to around 4.42 billion hectares in 1992 but had fallen to 4.37 billion hectares by 2015, a decrease of approximately 50 million hectares; however, the area under tree cover varied significantly from year to year (Figure 3). The rate and scale of net change in tree cover are also highly variable between countries and between forest types. While the global area with tree cover in this study corresponds well to the combined forest area and area of other land with tree cover reported to FRA 2020, the average net loss is considerably lower, in part owing to an expansion of other land with tree cover during this period and in part owing to different assessment methods.

Rate of deforestation

For FRA 2020, countries were asked for the first time not only to report on the total forest area at different points in time, data which are used to report net change in forest area, but also to provide information on the rate of deforestation, i.e. the forest losses due to conversion to other land uses or the permanent reduction of canopy cover below the minimum 10 percent threshold that defines forest. Since 1990, an estimated 420 million hectares of forest has been lost through deforestation, but the rate of deforestation has decreased substantially since 1990–2000. During 2015–2020, the rate of deforestation was estimated at 10 million hectares per year, down from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s. Figure 4 illustrates the trends in the average annual rates of deforestation and forest expansion which, combined, equal the net change in forest area.

FIGURE 4

GLOBAL FOREST EXPANSION AND DEFORESTATION, 1990–2020 (MILLION HECTARES PER YEAR)

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Naturally regenerating and planted forests

For the purposes of FRA 2020, forests are categorized into naturally regenerating forests (further disaggregated into primary forests and other naturally regenerating forests) and planted forests (further disaggregated into forest plantations and other planted forests). At the global level, naturally regenerating forests account for 93 percent of the world’s forest area. The remaining 7 percent is composed of planted forests (Figure 5).

FIGURE 5

PERCENTAGE OF NATURALLY REGENERATING AND PLANTED FOREST BY REGION, 2020

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Primary forests. FAO defines primary forests as naturally regenerated forests of native tree species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed. They are sometimes referred to as old-growth forests. These forests are of irreplaceable value for their biodiversity, carbon storage and other ecosystem services, including cultural and heritage values. Large extents of such forests now occur only in tropical and boreal regions. A coordinated response to their protection should be a fundamental priority under the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and this needs to be underpinned by a sound knowledge base on their current status and condition.

Forested ecosystems harbour most of global terrestrial biodiversity, and primary forests in particular are home to species that are unique to these ecosystems. In the Amazon, a study of the species richness and community similarity of primary forests, secondary forests (here used to describe forests established through natural expansion and around 14 to 16 years of age) and plantations found that 25 percent of the species studied were unique to primary forests and almost 60 percent of tree and liana genera were only present in primary forests (Barlow et al., 2007). In more fragmented landscapes, primary forest patches have a key role in ensuring the survival of species in the long term, even if species can persist in the short term in younger forests and plantations (Watson et al., 2018) (Box 7).

According to FRA 2020, approximately one-third (34 percent) of the world’s forests are primary forests (FAO, 2020). More than half of these (61 percent) are found in only three countries: Brazil, Canada and the Russian Federation.

Primary forests continue to decline globally. Since 1990, primary forest worldwide has decreased by 81 million hectares, but the rate of loss more than halved over the last decade. However, the status and trends are based on incomplete data, as the measurement, monitoring and reporting of primary forests present significant challenges (see Box 8). Only 137 countries reported full time series data for 1990–2020, and these together accounted for just over half (57 percent) of the global forest area. Further work is clearly needed to improve global and national estimates.

Drivers of deforestation in primary forests are context specific but include unsustainable industrial timber extraction, agricultural expansion and fires which are often associated with infrastructure and logging-site development (Potapov et al., 2017). See more on drivers of deforestation in Chapter 5.

Planted forests. The area of planted forests has increased by 123 million hectares since 1990 and now covers 294 million hectares, but the rate of increase has slowed since 2010. Approximately 45 percent of the planted forests (or 3 percent of all forests) are plantation forests, i.e. intensively managed forests, mainly composed of one or two tree species, native or exotic, of equal age, planted with regular spacing and mainly established for productive purposes. The other 55 percent of planted forests, “Other planted forests”, are forests that can resemble natural forest at stand maturity and include forests established for ecosystem restoration and protection of soil and water. South America has the largest proportion of planted forests that are plantation forests (99 percent of the planted forest area, or 2 percent of the total forest area); Europe has the smallest share (6 percent of planted forests, or 0.4 percent of the total forest area).

Globally, 44 percent of plantation forests comprise introduced species, with large regional variations (Figure 6). In South America, 97 percent of the plantation forests are made up of introduced species, compared with only 4 percent in North and Central America.

FIGURE 6

PERCENTAGE OF PLANTATION FORESTS COMPRISING NATIVE AND INTRODUCED SPECIES, BY REGION, 2020

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Forests by climatic domain and ecological zone

Worldwide, there are five major climatic domains: boreal, polar, temperate, subtropical and tropical; the largest part of the forest (45 percent) is found in the tropics, followed by the boreal, temperate and subtropical domains (Figure 7). These domains are further divided into terrestrial global ecological zones, 20 of which contain some forest cover (Figure 8). The UNEP-WCMC analysis on changes in tree cover conducted for SOFO 2020 (see here) found that ten global ecological zones experienced a net reduction in tree cover between 1992 and 2015 and ten experienced net growth. The largest negative change in tree cover was seen in the tropical rainforest, which covers much of Central Africa, the Amazon Basin, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, while the largest positive change was found in the boreal tundra woodland, which is found in Canada and the Russian Federation.

FIGURE 7

GLOBAL FOREST AREA BY CLIMATIC DOMAIN, 2020

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FIGURE 8

FOREST BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE

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Forests can be found from arid zones (Box 9) to wetlands (Box 10) and tidal areas (Box 11).

BOX 9

DRYLAND FORESTS – A FIRST GLOBAL ASSESSMENT

While humid tropical forests contain the most biological diversity, drylands are biodiverse and productive landscapes with considerable economic, social and environmental value. Drylands account for more than two-thirds of the land area of 7 of the now 36 biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al., 2000; CEPF, 2020) and are found in 24 of the 134 terrestrial ecoregions (Olson et al., 2015) identified as priority conservation targets. Drylands are also inhabited by more than 2 billion people, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries (MEA, 2005). Many of these people rely on forests and woodland systems for their basic needs. Despite the ecological and social importance of drylands, very limited information has been available about forest and tree cover in these areas until now.

The first Global Drylands Assessment (FAO, 2019c) was based on visual interpretation of freely available satellite images for more than 200 000 sample plots in the world’s drylands, as classified by UNEP-WCMC (2007). More than 200 regional experts were involved in the analysis.

The results revealed that the world’s drylands contain 1.1 billion hectares of forest, corresponding to 27 percent of the world’s forest area and 18 percent of the dryland area. Approximately 51 percent of these forests are dense, having canopy cover of 70 to 100 percent. The area of dryland forest varies significantly between regions (Figures A and B).

FIGURE A

FOREST DISTRIBUTION IN DRYLANDS, 2015

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FIGURE B

FOREST AS PROPORTION OF TOTAL DRYLAND AREA, BY REGION, 2015

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Many trees in drylands grow outside forests. Almost 30 percent of cropland and 60 percent of built-up land in arid and semi-arid zones has at least some tree cover, as have large areas of rangelands. Western and Central Africa and Southern Asia have the highest proportion of trees outside forests in cropland, followed by Eastern Africa and Southern Africa (Figure C); in these regions, trees are often integral parts of traditional agroforestry or agrosilvopastoral landscapes and food systems, supporting agricultural production and resilience of both ecosystems and local communities.

FIGURE C

TREE-COVER DISTRIBUTION IN CROPLANDS IN DRYLANDS, 2015

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The assessment results serve as a basis for identifying key emerging threats to dryland forests and their populations and for prioritizing action and targeting investment for restoration and sustainable management of these often-vulnerable ecosystems – key for the resilience of landscapes and community livelihoods in a changing climate. Data used for the assessment were collected in 2015 and could therefore serve as a baseline for monitoring changes of forests, trees and land use and contribute to the reporting on progress towards SDG 15 targets and indicators.

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BOX 10

WETLAND FORESTS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE CUVETTE CENTRALE

The Cuvette Centrale peatland in the Congo Basin is believed to be the largest continuous tropical peatland complex in the world, covering an area of around 14.5 million hectares, typically in hardwood swamp forest and palm-dominated swamp forest (Dargie et al., 2017). The area holds large areas of intact biodiverse rainforest and contains the highest densities of western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in the world, as well as bonobos (Pan paniscus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). The dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis) lays its eggs in the peat. This large freshwater ecosystem plays a crucial role in regulating water flows as well as providing food for a large human population downstream in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. In addition to its high level of biodiversity, the Cuvette Centrale peatland contains at least 30 gigatonnes of carbon – equivalent to two years of global carbon emissions (Dargie et al., 2017), and these large carbon stores enhance its combined biodiversity and ecosystem-service value.

Dwarf crocodile.

©Francesco Veronesi

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While there is no agreed definition of forest degradation, in a more general sense forest degradation entails a reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity and complexity of forest ecosystems resulting in the long-term reduction of the overall supply of benefits from forest, which includes wood, biodiversity and other products or services.

To facilitate future reporting on relevant goals and targets related to forest degradation (Box 12), FAO asked countries reporting for FRA 2020 whether they were monitoring forest degradation and, if so, what methods they used. A total of 58 countries responded (together accounting for 38 percent of the global forest area) indicating that they were attempting to monitor the extent of forest degradation. However, many of those countries assessed only one or a few specific elements.

For the purposes of this report, the status and trends related to forest ecosystem health and forest fragmentation are examined as proxies of forest degradation.

Forest ecosystem health

Forests are subject to a number of natural disturbances (e.g. wildfires, pests, diseases, adverse weather events) that can adversely affect their health and vitality by causing tree mortality or reducing their ability to provide the full range of goods and services. The effects at national and local levels and/or for specific forest species can be devastating.

Forest fires. In some ecosystems, natural fires are essential to maintain ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity and productivity. Fire is also an important and widely used tool to meet land-management goals. Most fires are caused by people, and sometimes they get out of control. Every year, deliberately set fires and wildfires burn millions of hectares of forests and other types of vegetation. A global analysis of forest area affected by fire between 2003 and 2012 identified approximately 67 million hectares burned annually (van Lierop et al., 2015). In 2015, around 98 million hectares of forest were affected by fires (FAO, 2020). These fires occurred mainly in the tropics, where they affected about 4 percent of the forest area. More than two-thirds of the total forest area burned was located in South America and Africa.

About 90 percent of fires are readily contained and account for 10 percent or less of the total area burned. The remaining 10 percent of fires account for the other 90 percent of the burned area. These dramatic and high-profile wildfire events, such as those in Australia, Brazil, Greece, the Russian Federation and the United States of America (California) in 2018 and 2019, cause great losses of human and animal lives, property and infrastructure as well as immense environmental and economic damage, both in terms of resources destroyed and the costs of suppression. Firefighters can do little to stop such fires until weather or fuel conditions change.

In the future, climate change is expected to bring longer fire seasons and more-severe fires over much of the globe, including some areas where fire has not previously been a common problem. Forest fires cannot be avoided but their occurrence and impacts can be significantly reduced by applying integrated fire management and fire-smart forest management and by taking sociocultural realities and ecological imperatives into account in the landscapes where fire occurs (FAO, 2006).

Other disturbances. Disturbances other than fire affected 142 million hectares between 2003 and 2012. These included disturbances by insect pests, mainly in temperate North America; severe weather, mainly in Asia; and diseases, mainly in Asia and Europe (van Lierop et al., 2015). In 2015, around 40 million hectares of forests were affected by such disturbances, mainly in the temperate and boreal zones (FAO, 2020).

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Lomako forest, a community reserve in Equateur, is part of the Cuvette Centrale peatland.

©UNEP/Joannes Refisch

Invasive species (non-native insect pests, pathogens, vertebrates and plants) and outbreaks of native insect pests and diseases pose an increasing threat to the health, sustainability and productivity of natural and planted forests globally (Box 13). Outbreaks of forest insect pests alone damage about 35 million hectares of forests annually (FAO, 2010b). Invasive plant and animal species are now considered one of the most important causes of biodiversity loss, especially in many island countries (CBD, 2009). However, except in some developed countries, very few quantifiable data are available on the total impact of invasive species.

Forest intactness and fragmentation

In the past century, forest fragmentation – the division of continuous habitat into smaller and more isolated fragments – has profoundly altered the characteristics and connectivity of forests and caused severe biodiversity losses (Haddad et al., 2015). Understanding the extent, causes and consequences of forest fragmentation is critical to conserving forest biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (see Box 14).

BOX 14

CAUSES AND IMPACTS OF FOREST FRAGMENTATION

The fragmentation of forest entails the alteration of habitat configuration, loss of forest area and connectivity, increased isolation of forest patches and greater exposure to human land uses along forest fragment edges (see Figure A). Perforations, or the introduction of holes into intact forest patches, is one of the chief components of fragmentation. Perforations are often accompanied by the introduction of roads, resulting in a strong decrease of undisturbed core forest habitat area. Forest fragmentation initiates long-term changes to the structure and functions of the remaining forest fragments, with impacts on habitats and forest ecosystem services (Lindenmayer and Fischer, 2006; Hermosilla et al., 2019).

Forest fragmentation may be induced by natural environmental changes and disturbances (climate, geological processes, natural disasters, wildfire, pests and diseases) which can cause the segmentation of a forest into smaller patches, or by anthropogenic factors such as forest exploitation (unmanaged logging or fuelwood harvesting) or land-use conversion resulting from agricultural expansion, conversion into tree plantations, conversion into pastures for livestock, new settlements caused by human migration, urbanization and infrastructure development. Forest fragmentation often occurs in the first phase of land conversion from forest to other land uses.

The fragmentation process transforms the composition, configuration and functions of the landscape. It typically implies habitat destruction or isolation, and many studies demonstrate that long-term fragmentation of habitats, and in particular forested habitats, strongly affects biodiversity and ecosystem processes (Skole and Tucker, 1993; Pereira et al., 2010), although the responses may vary substantially between species and forest types. Fragmentation has impacts on almost all ecological processes, from gene to ecosystem level, and affects plant and animal population composition and dynamics. It may also increase the interaction between livestock and wildlife and hence increase the risk for disease transmission. While the number of generic, multihabitat, edge or invasive species may increase (Laurance et al., 2006) (see also Box 18 on Forest-dwelling pollinators in Chapter 3), forest fragmentation mostly reduces species richness (Turner, 1996; Zhu et al., 2004). It decreases nutrient retention, affects trophic dynamics and, in more isolated fragments, alters movement of animals. Reduction of forest patch size and increase in patch isolation have been shown to decrease the abundance of birds, mammals, insects and plants by 20 to 75 percent, impacting ecological functions such as seed dispersal and hence forest structure while also contributing to a reduction in ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, erosion control, pollination and nutrient cycling (Haddad et al., 2015).

FIGURE A

EFFECTS OF FOREST FRAGMENTATION ON REMAINING FOREST FRAGMENTS

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A recent spatial analysis carried out by the JRC for this report used satellite remote sensing to identify forests that are the most intact and connected and those where fragmentation is most severe. The analysis was carried out at the global level as well as for each of the 15 GEZs representing more than 1 percent of the world’s forest area.

Two fragmentation indices were applied to the global Copernicus Land Cover map for 2015 (Buchhorn et al., 2019), overlaid with FAO’s GEZ map (see Figure 7). An attempt was made to exclude oil palm plantations and agricultural tree crops from the analysis. The first index, called accounting, evaluates the size and distribution of forest patches i.e. distinct areas of forests separated from other forest areas by at least 100 m (Vogt, 2019a) (Figures 9 and 10). The second index, forest area density, measures the proportion of forest pixels within a fixed local neighbourhood (Vogt, 2019b) (Figures 11, 12, and 13). A high value for forest area density indicates high forest connectivity, compact forest areas and low forest fragmentation, while a low value indicates forest patches that are isolated, perforated and generally highly fragmented.

The study found 34.8 million patches of forest in the world, ranging in size from 1 ha hectare (one pixel on the map) to 680 million hectares. Roughly 80 percent of the world’s forest area is found in patches larger than 1 million hectares; this size class accounted for more than 25 percent of the forest area for all forest types (Figure 9). However, there are only 149 such forest patches, which means that the majority of the world’s forest area is concentrated in very few locations. The rest of the world’s forests are scattered and comparatively small.

FIGURE 9

PROPORTION OF FOREST AREA BY PATCH SIZE CLASS AND GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015

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Some 34.7 million patches (99.8 percent of the total number of patches) are smaller than 1 000 hectares. Together, they account for 7 percent of the global forest area. The average size of all forest patches is a mere 132 hectares, but the average patch size varies significantly between ecological zones (Figure 10). The largest average patch sizes are found in the boreal coniferous forest and tropical rainforest zones.

FIGURE 10

AVERAGE FOREST PATCH SIZE BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015 (HECTARES)

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FIGURE 11

FOREST AREA DENSITY INDEX, 2015

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Almost half of the global forest area (49 percent) falls in the two highest forest area density classes (intact and interior) and thus has a high level of integrity (Figures 12 and 14). At the other end of the density spectrum, 9 percent of the world’s forests are in the rare and patchy classes, with little or no connectivity, and can be considered severely fragmented (Figures 12 and 15).

FIGURE 12

PROPORTION OF FOREST AREA BY FOREST AREA DENSITY CLASS AND GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015

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FIGURE 13

AVERAGE FOREST AREA DENSITY BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015 (%)

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FIGURE 14

MOST-INTACT FORESTS BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015

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FIGURE 15

MOST-FRAGMENTED FORESTS BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015

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Where are forests the most intact? Tropical rainforest and boreal coniferous forest – the ecological zones with the most forest – are the least fragmented and most-intact forest ecosystems. More than 90 percent of the forest area in these zones is in patches larger than 1 million hectares and the forest patches in these zones are much larger than the global average (Figures 9 and 10). Less than 2 percent of the forest area in these zones is in the rare and patchy classes, and more than 50 percent is in the interior and intact classes (Figure 12). These ecosystems are characterized by difficulties of access and low population density.

Half of the remaining tropical rainforest falls within the intact forest area density class and 94 percent of the forest area is well connected. Forests in the Amazon and Congo basins are the least fragmented and most contiguous (Figure 14). However, land-use conversion in these areas is causing rapid change. As these are forests of unique biodiversity, particular attention is required to conserve them and manage them sustainably.

In the boreal coniferous forest biome, 11 percent of the forest area is in the intact class, mainly in Canada and the Russian Federation. Boreal forest fragmentation is mainly linked to natural disturbances (fire and insect outbreaks). Increased severity of boreal-zone wildfires related to global warming (Walker et al., 2019) might increase fragmentation in the long term.

Mountain systems in boreal, temperate and tropical climates are also biomes with limited accessibility and low population density, and these biomes also have notably less-fragmented forest than other ecological zones. Their average patch size is larger than the global average (Figure 10), only 6 percent of their forest area is in the rare and patchy classes and more than 40 percent is in the intact and interior classes (Figure 12). The forest integrity in these biomes may also be linked to the considerable amount of protected areas in these zones that were established to safeguard water sources and avoid land erosion. Mountain forests with low fragmentation include temperate North America montane forests (Appalachians, Cascade Range), boreal Russian forests (Ural Mountains, Stanovoy range and Sikhote-Alin mountains, which host endangered species such as the Siberian tiger) and tropical mountains in the lake regions of Central Africa, which have an exceptionally high species richness and shelter most of the mountain gorilla population. Unfortunately, some of these forests are now facing high risk of encroachment and fragmentation at their edges because of growing population pressure.

Where are forests the most fragmented? Ecological zones with a limited area of forest (less than one-third of total land area), such as tropical shrubland, subtropical steppe, subtropical dry forest and temperate oceanic forest, have the highest fragmentation level and the lowest average forest area density (Figures 10 and 13). These zones have average patch size of less than 60 hectares and a high proportion of forest area (around 20 percent) in patches smaller than 1 000 hectares (Figures 9 and 10); they also have 20 percent of forest in the rare and patchy classes and less than 20 percent in the interior and intact classes (Figure 12). While some of these ecological zones have naturally fragmented landscape patterns (e.g. subtropical steppe), in others fragmentation is the result of past land-use conversion and forest utilization practices.

Boreal tundra woodland, tropical dry forest and tropical moist forest ecological zones have more significant forest cover (more than 40 percent of total land area) but the average patch size is much smaller than the global average (Figures 9 and 10) and more than 30 percent of forest is in the rare, patchy and transitional classes (Figure 12). These biomes have less than 30 percent of forest area in the intact and interior classes, and only 16 percent in the case of boreal tundra woodland.

Forest fragmentation in the boreal tundra woodlands is primarily a consequence of natural conditions and disturbances (climate, wildfire and pests). In contrast, tropical dry and moist forests, such as the Cerrado forests in Brazil, the South American Gran Chaco, the Miombo woodlands in southern Africa and the tropical dry forests in India and the Mekong region, have been affected by rapidly changing land-use dynamics. These forests are very important in terms of both biodiversity and livelihoods, yet only a few large continuous forest areas remain in these ecological zones.

Once a forest has been fragmented, it is very difficult to reverse the situation, especially in terms of biodiversity losses. Efforts are required to reconnect forest fragments through restoration, including the creation of corridors, buffers or stepping stones (see Chapter 5. Reversing deforestation and forest degradation).

As is evident from section 2.1 Status and trends in forest area, there is some progress towards reversing the loss of forest cover worldwide, with the net loss of forest area having decreased from an average of 7.84 million hectares per year in the 1990s to 4.74 million hectares per year in the period 2010–2020 (Table 1). However, the world is not on track to meet the target of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests (UN, 2017) to increase forest area by 3 percent worldwide by 2030 (relative to 2015).

Over the past 30 years, the area of naturally regenerating forest has decreased by 7 percent (301 million hectares) (FAO, 2020). The rate of loss of naturally regenerating forest has been decreasing (Figure 16) but not enough to meet Aichi Target 5 and Goal 1 of the New York Declaration on Forests, to at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 (relative to 2010) (Box 5).

FIGURE 16

ANNUAL CHANGE IN AREA OF NATURALLY REGENERATING FOREST, 1990–2020 (MILLION HECTARES PER YEAR)

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While the JRC study on fragmentation did not look at trends over time, indications, based on patterns of deforestation, are that fragmentation of forests is increasing in many countries. On a more positive note, 122 countries have committed to setting land degradation neutrality targets and more than 80 countries have already set their targets (UNCCD, 2019a).

It is not only the trees that make a forest, but the many different species of plants and animals that reside in the soil, understorey and canopy. Estimates of the total number of species on Earth range from 3 million to 100 million (May, 2010). An estimate from 2011 puts the number at about 8.7 million (plus or minus 1.3 million), with 6.5 million species on land and 2.2 million in oceans (Mora et al., 2011), while IPBES (2019a) puts the number at about 8 million, of which 5.9 million species are terrestrial. Although it is widely reported that forests harbour 80 percent of terrestrial plants and animals, such a precise estimate is unlikely to be accurate given the changing state of knowledge of planetary biodiversity.

Tropical moist forests stand out as highly significant reservoirs of global biodiversity; examples include 1 200 species of beetle from a single tree species (Erwin, 1982), 365 tree species in a 1-ha plot (Valencia, Balslev and Paz y Miño, 1994), 365 plant species in a 0.1-ha plot (Gentry and Dodson, 1987) and an estimated half of the world’s species richness in just 6 to 7 percent of its land area (Dirzo and Raven, 2003). Tropical and subtropical forests (dry and humid) contain the ten hotspots with the greatest total number of endemic higher terrestrial vertebrates and the greatest number of threatened species (Mittermeier, 2004; Mittermeier et al., 2011, cited in IPBES, 2019b).

Thus, while trees are the defining component of forests and their diversity can give an indication of overall diversity, there are many other ways to determine the biodiversity significance of forests. This chapter looks at some of these aspects as it explores progress towards key targets related to the conservation of forest biodiversity at the species and genetic level (Box 15).

Trees

The GlobalTreeSearch database (BGCI, 2019) reports the existence of 60 082 tree species. This number includes palms and many agricultural tree crops (e.g. fruit trees, coffee and oil palm) not commonly found in forests.

Nearly half of all tree species (45 percent) are members of just ten families. The three most tree-rich families are Fabaceae, Rubiaceae and Myrtaceae. Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia are the countries with the most tree species (Figure 17). The countries with the most country-endemic tree species reflect broader plant diversity trends (Australia, Brazil and China) or are islands where isolation has resulted in added speciation (Indonesia, Madagascar and Papua New Guinea) (Figure 18). Nearly 58 percent of all tree species are single-country endemics (Beech et al., 2017).

FIGURE 17

TEN COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST TREE SPECIES

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FIGURE 18

TOP TEN COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES IN TERMS OF NUMBER OF ENDEMIC TREE SPECIES

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As of December 2019, a total of 20 334 tree species had been included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2019a), of which 8 056 were assessed as globally threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable). A total of 32 996 tree species have a conservation assessment on some level (national, global, regional) and 12 145 of those have a threatened assessment. Of these, more than 1 400 tree species have been assessed as critically endangered and are in urgent need of conservation action (Global Trees Campaign, 2020) (see also Box 16). CITES listings of tree species have surged in recent years as a result of the concern that many commercially valuable tree species may be threatened by overexploitation; more than 900 tree species are now included in CITES appendices and have their trade regulated through CITES, including rosewoods, ebonies and mahoganies (CITES, 2019).

In some countries, efforts are made to recognize and protect individual trees outside forest that are notable for their size, age, historical significance or other qualities (Box 17).

BOX 17

HERITAGE TREES

In recent decades, some countries, states, districts or cities have made efforts to recognize and protect heritage trees (sometimes termed champion, historic, landmark or significant trees) – individual trees considered to have unique value because of their age, rarity, large size or beauty or their cultural, historical, botanical or ecological value. The oldest individuals of a tree species represent an important gene pool and also contain a living library of climate changes that have taken place over hundreds or thousands of years (US/ICOMOS, 2019).

Around the world, various registries focus on these trees as valuable and sometimes endangered icons in the landscape. Some tree registries are crowdsourced and managed by national NGOs, such as the Champion Trees National Register in the United States of America, the Tree Register in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ireland and the Register of Significant Trees in Australia. These registries are not typically associated with any regulatory controls. However, some heritage trees are protected by national, state, district or municipal law (US/ICOMOS, 2019). In Singapore, for example, heritage trees are selected for protection by law under the Heritage Trees Scheme adopted in 2001 – part of a nationwide effort to conserve trees not just within protected areas but anywhere in urban and rural Singapore. In many cities in the United States of America, heritage tree ordinances prevent removal of specific trees.

In Italy, a list of monumental trees was decreed by national law in 2014, including single trees and groups of trees in agrosilvopastoral or urban contexts, considered “green monuments” by virtue of their age, size, morphology, rarity, provision of habitats for animal species, and historical, cultural and religious value. Information collection is coordinated by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MIPAAF) and carried out by regions, autonomous provinces and municipalities as directed in the law. The first list, published in 2017, contained 2 407 trees; regular updates added 332 and 509 new trees in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Research centres, scholastic institutions, forestry professionals, environmental associations and citizens assist in identifying the trees (MIPAAF, 2017; MIPAAF, 2019).

One of the monumental trees of Italy, the 24-m-tall Albero del Piccioni (Mr Piccioni’s tree) near Ascoli Piceno in the Marche region. An Old World sycamore (Platanus orientalis) 8.7 m in circumference, it was mentioned by name on a map from 1718.

© Infinitispazi/Wikimedia Commons

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Other forest plants, animals and fungi

About 391 000 species of vascular plants are known to science (including the 60 082 trees mentioned above and more than 1 600 species of bamboo (Vorontsova et al., 2016)), of which about 94 percent are flowering plants. Of these, 21 percent are likely threatened by extinction (Willis, 2017). Some 60 percent of the total are found in tropical forests (Burley, 2002). Some 144 000 species of fungi have been named and classified so far. However, it is estimated that the vast majority (over 93 percent) of fungal species are currently unknown to science, indicating that the total number of fungal species on Earth is somewhere between 2.2 and 3.8 million (Willis, 2018).

Close to 70 000 vertebrate species are known and described (IUCN, 2019a). Of these, forests provide habitats for almost 5 000 amphibian species (80 percent of all known species), close to 7 500 bird species (75 percent of all birds) and more than 3 700 different mammals (68 percent of all species) (Vié, Hilton-Taylor and Stuart, 2009). Iconic forest-dependent species include the jaguar of Latin America, the bears of North America, the gorillas of Central Africa, the lemurs of Madagascar, the panda bears of China, the Philippine Eagle and the koalas of Australia.

Some 1.3 million species of invertebrates have been described. However, many more exist, with some estimates ranging from 5 million to 10 million species (see e.g. Ødegaard, 2000). Most are insects, and the vast majority live in forests (see example in Box 18).

Globally, described species of soil bacteria and fungi exceed 15 000 and 97 000, respectively, compared with 20 000–25 000 species of nematodes, 21 000 species of protists (protozoa, protophyta, and moulds), and 40 000 species of mites (Orgiazzi et al., 2016). However, the identity of much of the soil biota remains unknown. Soil microbes, forest-dependent pollinators (insects, bats, birds and some mammals) (Box 18), and saproxylic beetles (Box 19) play very important parts in maintaining the biodiversity and ecosystem functions of forests.

Similarly, mammals, birds and other organisms can play major roles in forest ecosystem structure including on the distribution patterns of trees through their direct roles in seed dispersal, seed predation and herbivory, and indirectly through predation on such ecological architects (Beck, 2008).

Along tropical coasts, mangroves provide breeding grounds and nurseries for numerous species of fish and shellfish and help trap sediments that might otherwise adversely affect seagrass beds and coral reefs – the habitats of a myriad of marine species.

Assessing forest biodiversity significance and intactness

Forest biodiversity significance. The natural biodiversity of forests varies considerably according to factors such as forest type, geography, climate and soils. A study led by UNEP-WCMC (Hill et al., 2019) shows how the contribution of these factors to the distributions of mammal, bird, amphibian and conifer species varies around the world. This analysis uses the rarity-weighted richness of these species (chosen because they were the only groups with ranges that were comprehensively assessed at the time), based on data from the IUCN Red List; these include spatial distribution maps for each species. The biodiversity significance map (Figure 19) shows similarities with the distribution of endemic bird areas and biodiversity hotspots (Myers, 1990; Stattersfield et al., 1998; Mittermeier et al., 1998; Mittermeier et al., 2004) but is based on many more species.

FIGURE 19

FOREST BIODIVERSITY SIGNIFICANCE, 2018 (CONTRIBUTION OF EACH LOCATION TO THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF FOREST MAMMAL, BIRD, AMPHIBIAN AND CONIFER SPECIES OCCURRING IN THEM)

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Most forest habitats in temperate regions have low biodiversity significance values because they support fewer species than those in the tropics and the species that they do support tend to have larger geographical distributions than those in other regions of the world (Figure 19). The lowland tropical forests in the Amazon and Congo basins have intermediate biodiversity significance values; even though these forests are species rich, the species present often have large distributions, so the contribution of any individual location to the overall distribution of these species is low. Regions showing the highest biodiversity significance are those having many species with small geographical distributions, such as the montane forests of South America, Africa and Southeast Asia and lowland forests of insular Southeast Asia, coastal Brazil, Australia, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

Figure 20 indicates where the removal of forested habitats could have a disproportionate impact on the world’s forest-dependent species, based on an analysis of the forest biodiversity significance of tree cover loss from 2000 to 2018. Places where the impact would be highest include Madagascar, parts of eastern Brazil, Central America, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Australia and northern New Zealand.

FIGURE 20

FOREST BIODIVERSITY SIGNIFICANCE FOR AREAS OF FOREST LOSS DURING 2000–2018 (CONTRIBUTION OF EACH LOCATION TO THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF FOREST MAMMAL, BIRD, AMPHIBIAN AND CONIFER SPECIES OCCURRING IN THEM)

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Forest biodiversity intactness. Figure 21 shows forest biodiversity intactness, illustrating the impacts of forest change and human population density on species assemblages; it was developed based on the modelled relationship between anthropogenic pressures and changes in the composition of species communities. As expected, areas with dense human populations and intense agricultural land use, such as Europe and parts of Bangladesh, China, India and North America, are less intact. Southern Australia, coastal Brazil, Madagascar, South Africa and northern Africa are also identified as areas with striking losses in biodiversity intactness.

FIGURE 21

FOREST BIODIVERSITY INTACTNESS, 2018

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Overlaying the metrics for conservation planning. The biodiversity significance and intactness metrics have complementary relevance for conservation policy and practice. Safeguarding areas of high significance is important because their loss elevates species’ risk of extinction. Safeguarding areas of high intactness is important to maintain ecosystem functioning, to retain community resilience against pressures such as climate change and to help mitigate climate change (Steffen et al., 2015).

Overlaying the significance and intactness layers (Figure 22) highlights areas with high values for both metrics, for example the northern Andes and Central America, southeastern Brazil, parts of the Congo Basin, southern Japan, the Himalayas and various parts of Southeast Asia and New Guinea (Figure 23). Other areas are notable for having high values for one metric but not the other. Europe, for example, is dominated by large areas of biodiversity intactness in the northeast and areas of high-biodiversity significance in the south (Figure 23D).

FIGURE 22

BIVARIATE MAP OF FOREST BIODIVERSITY SIGNIFICANCE AND INTACTNESS WITHIN FOREST BIOMES, 2018

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FIGURE 23

DETAILS OF BIVARIATE MAPS OF FOREST BIODIVERSITY SIGNIFICANCE AND INTACTNESS WITHIN FOREST BIOMES, 2018: PARTS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA (A), CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA (B), CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA (C), WESTERN EUROPE (D)

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Such overlays provide information relevant for conservation planning. For example, landscapes of high significance but low intactness may be appropriate targets for restoration efforts. Landscapes of both high intactness and high significance have a relatively high density of geographically restricted native species and may therefore be important to safeguard through broad-scale policy responses or site-scale conservation measures, such as designation of protected areas. The protected-area coverage of forests within the corresponding ecological zones is already relatively high (see Chapter 6. Conservation and sustainable use of forests and forest biodiversity), but where they are not already protected such areas should be considered priorities for protected-area expansion; an example is the montane forests of the northern Andes.

The outputs highlighted here are also relevant to international and national policy, including National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans under the CBD. In addition, mapping of forest biodiversity significance or intactness lost over time can be used to track progress towards goals and targets such as Aichi Target 5 (loss and degradation of habitats), Aichi Target 11 (areas of biodiversity significance) and Aichi Target 12 (preventing extinctions and declines of threatened species). Data on forest loss linked to biodiversity can also inform national planning to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, as well as investment policy.

It will soon be possible to develop tools that combine remotely sensed data with algorithms to show areas of forest loss and the consequences of forest loss for biodiversity in near real time, which would allow rapid responses and interventions on the ground. To this end, both the biodiversity significance intactness and biodiversity layers have been incorporated into the Global Forest Watch platform (www.globalforestwatch.org).

Measuring forest vertebrate population trends

Global processes for setting targets and monitoring progress generally use measures based on forest area as proxy indicators of forest biodiversity; for example, Aichi Target 5 focuses on halving the rate of loss of forests and other natural habitats by 2020. However, a recent study (Green et al., 2019a,b) questions whether changes in forest area are a reliable proxy indicator of forest vertebrate population trends.

The study used time-series abundance data from the Living Planet Database (ZSL and WWF, 2014) for 1 668 populations of forest-dwelling vertebrates to assess the possible influence of changes in tree cover on forest vertebrate populations. Satellite imagery was used to assess tree cover change over the period 1982–2016. The analysis was repeated for 175 populations of “forest specialists”, species that occur only in forests and in no other ecosystem.

Taking the global data set as a whole, the analyses did not reveal a statistically significant relationship between tree-cover change and changes in the population of either forest-dwelling or forest-specialist vertebrate species. It therefore seems that, at a global scale, vertebrate forest populations do not respond in a consistent manner to tree cover change in their vicinity. Areas that have gained tree cover do not necessarily see a recovery of other forest biodiversity, probably because of pressures not related to loss of habitat. However, at the local scale, a statistically significant relationship was evident in specific instances. Annual abundance values of 40 of the 175 forest-specialist populations were found to be positively correlated with tree cover changes, while others were negatively correlated or uncorrelated with changes in tree cover. Time lags between tree cover change and population change were allowed for, because forest vertebrates can take several years to respond to changes in their habitat. Source literature for the data on these forest-specialist populations also indicated other factors driving species population sizes at the local level (see the example in Box 20), demonstrating that relying on forest cover changes as the sole proxy for changes in vertebrate populations is inappropriate.

BOX 20

PRIMATE POPULATIONS IN FOREST REGENERATING FROM FARMLAND, COSTA RICA

The Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica was established in 1971 on reclaimed ranch lands. Since its designation in 1971, the park has been protected from hunting, human disturbance and logging, with the result that the former pasturelands are returning to forest.

Long-term monitoring of mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) has shown the recovery of their populations associated with re-establishment of the forests (Figure A), but also reveals other factors that influence population size besides forest area and condition (Fedigan and Jack, 2012; Green et al., 2019a). Capuchins can inhabit fairly young forest patches and the most recent survey at Santa Rosa showed that the population had grown continuously since the 1980s. However, howler monkeys prefer more mature forests (at least 60 years old) and a population plateau since the 1990s suggests that the population has reached its current carrying capacity in the national park.

FIGURE A

MONKEY POPULATIONS IN THE SANTA ROSA NATIONAL PARK, COSTA RICA

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Geoffroy’s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) are also found in Santa Rosa but only in large old-growth patches of forest (at least 100 to 200 years old). Many decades may be required for populations of this species to respond to the increase in forest cover and maturity of trees.

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Development of a forest-specialist index. As part of the study of forest vertebrate biodiversity discussed above, Green et al., (2019a) developed a forest-specialist index as a possible global indicator of biodiversity trends below the canopy. The index was created by extracting information on forest specialists from the Living Planet Index (ZSL and WWF, 2014), which tracks the average change in abundance of thousands of vertebrate populations from around the world. Some 75 percent of the specialists were from tropical forests, the most biodiverse forests in the world.

The forest-specialist index declined by 53 percent between 1970 and 2014 from an initial value of 1.0 to an index value of 0.47 (Figure 24), indicating that 455 populations of forest specialists monitored, taken together, more than halved in number on average over the period, an annual rate of decline of 1.7 percent. The finding was consistent across mammals, amphibians and reptiles but less so among birds, especially those from temperate forests. The decline in the index was steepest between 1970 and 1976, after which the decline continued at a slower rate. In the final two years of the period, the number of species increasing exceeded the number of species declining. It is uncertain, however, whether that upturn is a sign of significant long-term improvement in the abundance of forest specialists given that previous improvements were all followed by declines. Individual species showed a mixture of positive, stable and negative trends in both tropical and temperate forests; negative trends were prevalent in the former and positive trends in the latter.

FIGURE 24

OVERALL DECLINE IN A FOREST-SPECIALIST INDEX FOR 268 FOREST VERTEBRATE SPECIES (455 POPULATIONS), 1970–2014

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The forest-specialist index could be useful to complement existing indicators in monitoring progress towards SDG 15, the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework and the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2018) has put it forward as a means to measure progress towards Aichi Targets 5, 7 and 12.

Effect of wildlife hunting on forest biodiversity. Unsustainable wildlife hunting is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss, second only to agriculture (Maxwell et al., 2016) (see also Chapter 5. Reversing deforestation and forest degradation). A global meta-analysis of threat information for 8 688 animal species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2019a) estimated that the relative abundance of tropical mammals and birds in hunted areas was 83 and 58 percent lower, respectively, than in areas with no hunting (Benítez-López et al., 2017). Nearly 20 percent of the Red List’s threatened (critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable) and near-threatened species are directly threatened by hunting (Maxwell et al., 2016), including more than 300 mammal species (Ripple et al., 2016). Large-bodied species with low reproductive rates and long generation times are especially vulnerable to hunting (Ripple et al., 2015); as a consequence, vertebrate species assemblages in hunted forests have a higher proportion of smaller species, such as rats, birds and squirrels. Under heavy hunting pressure, forests can ultimately reach the point where the trees are standing but large mammals are absent – a phenomenon termed the “empty forest syndrome” (Redford, 1992). Most commonly hunted mammals in tropical forests are frugivores, and reductions in or extinctions of these species and of large birds and some fish in floodplain forests can have major consequences for seed dispersal and survival and for forest regeneration (Galetti et al., 2008; Peres et al., 2016; Gardner et al., 2017). Thus, in regions with a high proportion of large-seeded animal-dispersed tree species, such as Africa, Asia and the Neotropics, a loss or reduction in forest vertebrates can lead to a reduction in tree-species diversity (Poulsen, Clark and Palmer, 2013; Bello et al., 2015; Osuri et al., 2016). On the other hand, in many countries with high forest cover, sustainable hunting can be an income generator and an important recreation activity, and hence a motivator for maintaining forest (e.g. Reimoser, 2000; Bengston, Butler and Asah, 2008) (see section on Sustainable hunting and wildlife management in Chapter 6).

Forest genetic resources are the heritable materials of forest trees and other woody plant species (shrubs, palms and bamboo) that are of actual or potential economic, environmental, scientific or societal value (FAO, 2014b). The first-ever State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources (FAO, 2014a) assembled information from 86 reporting countries, accounting for 85 percent of the global forest area. These countries reported nearly 8 000 species of trees, shrubs, palms and bamboo, of which about 2 400 species were actively managed for products or services in forestry.

A total of nearly 1 000 species were reportedly conserved in situ and 1 800 species ex situ (see Box 21 for a discussion of the relative benefits of each type of conservation). Most in situ conservation of forest genetic resources takes place outside protected areas on a range of public, private and traditionally owned land areas, especially in forests managed for multiple uses. It is probable that more species were reported as conserved ex situ than in situ because ex situ conservation efforts are typically better documented than in situ ones. Countries also interpret in situ conservation differently. The mere presence of a given species in a protected area may sometimes be reported as in situ conservation, even though protected areas are generally established for conserving habitats or wildlife rather than for the conservation of forest genetic resources.

More than 700 species are included in tree improvement programmes around the world, focusing largely on traits of commercial interest, such as growth, wood properties and resistance to or tolerance of pests and diseases. More recently, however, climate-change-related traits such as plasticity and drought tolerance have been increasingly considered by tree breeding programmes (FAO, 2014b).

At the global level, the supply of tree germplasm for raising planting stock is still largely based on unimproved seeds collected from forest stands, but regions and countries differ considerably in their sourcing and production of tree germplasm. At one extreme, most seedlings planted in the forest sector are raised from improved seeds; at the other, almost all seed is sourced from existing forests or plantations of unknown origin or even from individual trees found in agricultural landscapes (FAO, 2014b). The seed supply for boreal, temperate and fast-growing tropical and subtropical trees has mostly met the demand for establishing new forests, but the seed supply for many high-value tropical hardwoods and for trees used in agroforestry systems has often been insufficient to meet the demand (Koskela et al., 2014). More recently, increasing forest restoration efforts have created a high demand for seeds of native tree species, and many restoration projects are already facing problems in obtaining a sufficient quantity of seed of good physiological and genetic quality to meet the needs of these efforts (Jalonen et al., 2017).

In 2019, FAO initiated the preparation of the second State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources report, to be launched in 2023. It is expected that the second global assessment will increase awareness of existing gaps in knowledge and highlight the importance of obtaining better information and data on forest genetic resources to enhance the management of these resources at the national, regional and global levels (see example in Box 22).

BOX 22

ASSESSING THREATS TO CONSERVATION OF THE GENETIC RESOURCES OF FOOD-TREE SPECIES IN BURKINA FASO

Agroforestry parklands are traditional land-use systems in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Trees retained by farmers in these parklands supply wild fruits, nuts and vegetables to rural communities, especially between crop harvests and during extended droughts. Unfortunately, many food-tree species face threats from overexploitation, fire and climate change.

To enhance the conservation of genetic resources of these tree species in Burkina Faso, scientists at Bioversity International and their collaborators developed a spatially explicit multi-threat model to predict locations where current and future threats are likely to have negative impacts on tree populations (Gaisberger et al., 2017).¹ The study targeted 16 food-tree species, based on their importance to the diet of local communities and the availability of data on their occurrence (essential for developing spatial distribution models): baobab (Adansonia digitata), African custard-apple (Annona senegalensis), desert date (Balanites aegyptiaca), the red kapok tree (Bombax costatum), hanza (Boscia senegalensis), sweet detar (Detarium microcarpum), African grape (Lannea microcarpa), African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa), Senegalia macrostachya, gum arabic tree (Senegalia senegal), marula (Sclerocarya birrea), elephant orange (Strychnos spinosa), tamarind (Tamarindus indica), shea butter tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), false sandal-wood (Ximenia americana) and Indian jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana). Some of these have a vast distribution range (e.g. Parkia biglobosa) and others supply multiple edible products (e.g. leaves, seeds and pulp from Adansonia digitata).

The model defines suitable habitats for the species under present and future conditions by combining information from freely accessible data sets, species distribution models, climate models and expert survey results. Of the six main threats identified, overexploitation and conversion of land to cotton production were seen to be the most important in the short term, while climate change was seen as the prevalent long-term threat for 14 of the 16 tree species examined. The study also revealed that all 16 species face serious threats in most of their locations across Burkina Faso, indicating that urgent action is needed to conserve the species and their genetic resources in the country.

Observing where high genetic diversity of a species coincides with high threat levels enables more-effective design of conservation actions and use of limited resources to maintain the genetic diversity of tree populations across the species’ distribution range. For example, Parkia biglobosa is highly threatened by overexploitation in the central part of Burkina Faso (Figure Aa) and protection and assisted regeneration should be promoted there as the species grows in areas where predicted climatic conditions will continue to be favourable in the future. Parkia biglobosa populations located along the northern margin of the species’ range are highly threatened by climate change (Figure Ab), and seed sources in this valuable area may be lost unless seed is collected for planting in more suitable climates and for ex situ conservation. A range-wide genotyping study provided important insight into the spatial genetic structure of P. biglobosa populations across West Africa (Lompo et al., 2018). By comparing the spatially explicit threat maps from Gaisberger et al. (2017) and the genetic diversity map in Burkina Faso from Lompo et al. (2018) (Figure B), it is possible to identify those genetically distinct tree populations that are at risk and deserving of priority in conservation efforts. This information can also be used to guide tree-planting efforts.

FIGURE A

PREDICTED LEVELS OF THREAT TO AFRICAN LOCUST BEAN (PARKIA BIGLOBOSA) IN BURKINA FASO FROM (A) OVEREXPLOITATION AND (B) CLIMATE CHANGE

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FIGURE B

DISTINCT GENETIC CLUSTERS OF AFRICAN LOCUST BEAN (PARKIA BIGLOBOSA) IN BURKINA FASO

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Progress towards Aichi Target 12, on preventing the extinction of known threatened species and improving their conservation status, has been slow.

Table 3 summarizes the vulnerability status of the forest-dwelling plants, animal and fungi that have been assessed in the IUCN Red List (2019a) as of December 2019.

TABLE 3

VULNERABILITY STATUS OF FOREST PLANTS, ANIMALS AND FUNGI IN THE IUCN RED LIST AS OF DECEMBER 2019

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The Global Living Planet Index, calculated using data for 16 704 populations representing 4 005 species monitored across the globe, shows an overall decline of 60 percent in the population sizes of vertebrates between 1970 and 2014 (WWF, 2018). The forest-specialist index, modelled on this, declined by 53 percent between 1970 and 2014 (Figure 24), highlighting the increasing risk of 268 forest vertebrate species becoming vulnerable to extinction.

Progress towards Aichi Targets 13 (maintenance of the genetic diversity of cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and of wild relatives) and 16 (implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization) has been more positive. As of January 2020:

• ▸ the Nagoya Protocol had been ratified by 122 contracting Parties, including the EU (an increase of 74 percent from 2016) (CBD, 2020a);

• ▸ 95 countries and the EU have submitted an interim national report on the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol to the access and benefit-sharing (ABS) Clearing-House (CBD, 2020b);

• ▸ 44 countries submitting progress reports in 2018 reported having achieved, on average, two-thirds of the action points in the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Development of Forest Genetic Resources (Box 23);

• ▸ a pan-European strategy has enhanced regional collaboration for the conservation of forest genetic resources in Europe (Box 24); and

• ▸ 146 Parties had ratified the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 2019d).

BOX 24

DEVELOPMENT OF A REGIONAL STRATEGY FOR CONSERVING FOREST GENETIC RESOURCES IN EUROPE

Many tree species have distribution ranges that extend across large geographical areas with profound environmental differences. These ranges often include many countries with different forest management practices, ownership patterns and administrative structures. For these reasons, the management and conservation of forest genetic resources often vary considerably within the species’ distribution ranges.

Efforts to conserve the genetic diversity of Europe’s tree species in situ and to develop regional genetic conservation strategies for forest trees were long hampered by countries’ different ideas about how to manage tree populations or stands designated for conservation, as well as inadequate documentation.

To address this problem, the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN, www.euforgen.org), a collaborative mechanism under the Forest Europe process (Forest Europe, n.d.), developed common minimum requirements for genetic conservation units of forest trees that set criteria for how the units should be documented and managed (Koskela et al., 2013). Georeferenced data on these units are collected in the European Information System on Forest Genetic Resources (EUFGIS, http://portal.eufgis.org), which has made it possible to identify gaps in conservation efforts at both national and regional levels (Lefèvre et al., 2013) and to analyse the expected impacts of climate change on the genetic conservation units of forest trees in Europe (Schueler et al., 2014).

Based on this information, EUFORGEN prepared a pan-European strategy for conserving forest genetic resources (de Vries et al., 2015). During this process, the regional-level minimum conservation target was determined for each tree species by dividing its distribution range into smaller geographical areas by country and by Europe’s eight major environmental zones. The strategy aims to have at least one conservation unit for each environmental zone in which a given species occurs in a country; this provides for systematic coverage of all countries and environmental zones across the whole distribution range of the species (barring any gaps in conservation efforts). EUFORGEN has also developed recommendations for considering the implications of climate change in conserving forest genetic resources (Kelleher et al., 2015).

As of December 2019, EUFGIS contained data on 3 593 genetic conservation units and 108 tree species in 35 countries (see example in Figure A). The database is continuously updated, and EUFORGEN regularly monitors implementation of the regional conservation strategy.

FIGURE A

GENETIC CONSERVATION UNITS (420) OF SCOTS PINE (PINUS SYLVESTRIS) ACROSS THE SPECIES’ DISTRIBUTION RANGE IN EUROPE

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This regional collaboration has prompted many countries to take action to improve the management of their forest genetic resources. It has also improved partnership between experts, forest owners, managers and the broader biodiversity community in exploring new ways to improve the contribution of production forests and protected areas to the genetic conservation of forest trees.

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Much of human society today has at least some interaction with forests and the biodiversity they contain and all people benefit from the functions provided by components of this biodiversity in the carbon, water and nutrient cycles and through the links with food production.

People’s relationships with forest biodiversity vary from region to region and country to country, and also differ widely depending on the context – from protected areas with limited human activities, to communities deep inside forests, to farmed and ranched landscapes, to towns and larger urban centres, to the world’s largest cities. This chapter examines the benefits that people derive from forests in terms of livelihoods, food security and human health.

In both developing and developed countries and in all climatic zones, communities that live within forests rely the most directly on forest biodiversity for their lives and livelihoods, using products derived from forest resources for food, fodder, shelter, energy, medicine and income generation. Other rural people, most of whom live in landscapes containing a mix of grasslands, farmlands and tree cover, often participate in the value chains of forest biodiversity, for example by collecting wood and non-wood products from nearby forests for personal use or sale, or engaging in forest-product industries or value addition (Zhang and Pearse, 2011). While the examples provided below provide some indication of the number of people dependent on forests for (parts of) their livelihood, a precise estimate of the number of forest-dependent people does not currently exist (Box 25).

In developing countries, woodfuel (fuelwood and charcoal) is particularly important, both for household use and for sale, with an estimated 880 million people worldwide spending part of their time collecting fuelwood or producing charcoal (FAO, 2017a). More than 40 million people – 1.2 percent of the global workforce – are engaged in commercial fuelwood and charcoal activities to supply urban centres. Production of woodfuel generated USD 33 billion of revenue globally in 2011. The sustainability of its production is hence extremely important.

Wood and non-wood forest products (NWFPs) provide around 20 percent of income for rural households in developing countries with moderate to good access to forest resources (Angelsen et al., 2014). Taking into account direct, indirect and induced employment, the formal forest sector provides an estimated 45 million jobs globally and labour income in excess of USD 580 billion per year (FAO, 2018b). Small and medium-sized forest enterprises (SMFEs) account for about 20 million of these jobs, generating value of USD 130 billion per year. Globally, the reported value of NWFP removals in 2015 amounted to almost USD 8 billion (FAO, 2020). These estimates are all likely to be significantly lower than actual figures, since much of the forest sector globally is in the informal economy and not well tracked in national statistics.

The informal sector – defined as non-commercial, subsistence or unregulated and unreported small-scale enterprises – was estimated to have generated USD 124 billion in revenue in 2011, providing employment for an additional estimated 41 million people (FAO, 2014c). NWFPs are particularly important in this sector, providing food, income and nutritional diversity for hundreds of millions of people around the world, notably women, children, landless farmers, indigenous peoples and others in vulnerable situations (see Box 25 and FAO, 2018b). The gathering of food, medicinal plants, craft materials, other NWFPs and woodfuel forms a significant component of women’s contributions to household livelihoods. In some remote areas, the sale of NWFPs is the only source of cash available to women (Shackleton et al., 2011).

Non-consumptive uses of forest biodiversity, such as recreation and tourism, are also a growing part of rural cash economies (Hegetschweiler et al., 2017). Each year an estimated 8 billion visits are made to protected areas, many of which are forest covered, and associated in-country expenditures are estimated to be in the order of USD 600 billion annually (Balmford et al., 2015).

In addition, forest biodiversity may provide a safety net for hundreds of millions of people as sources of food, energy and income during hard times (Sunderlin et al., 2005), although some authors (e.g. Paumgarten, Locatelli and Witkowski, 2018) note that this function may be limited by seasonal fluctuations and decreased availability during extreme events.

Urban populations have long benefited from a range of wood and NWFPs, from paper and furniture to mushrooms, forest fruits and wild game. A significant proportion of poor urban people depend on fuelwood and charcoal to cook their food, particularly in Africa (see e.g. Mulenga, Tembo and Richardson, 2019). In more prosperous economies, urban people are showing a growing interest in foods, cosmetics and other products from the forest, as illustrated by the appearance of products from forest species such as the Açai palm (Euterpe oleracea) and the baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) on supermarket shelves or in the recipes of cutting-edge chefs around the world (e.g. McDonell, 2019). In addition, an increasing number of economically well-off people in developed and developing countries are opting to live at least part-time in forested areas, with biodiversity being one of the main attractants, in what has been termed amenity migration (Gosnell and Abrams, 2011).

Indigenous peoples depend to a particularly high degree on forest biodiversity for their livelihoods, although this relation is in flux as their linkages with national and global monetary economies grow. Areas managed by indigenous peoples, currently approximately 28 percent of the world’s land surface, include some of the most ecologically intact forests and many hotspots of biodiversity (Garnett et al., 2018). Indigenous communities often have a deep cultural and spiritual relationship with their ancestral forest lands and age-old knowledge about biodiversity (Verschuuren and Brown, 2018), much of which is at risk of being lost (Camara-Leret, Fortuna and Bascompte, 2019). The intangible contribution of forests and their biodiversity to people’s identity and sense of well-being is undervalued in many economic assessments.

The world’s poorest people depend on forests to varying extents (Sunderlin et al., 2005; Camara-Leret, Fortuna and Bascompte, 2019), but are generally more dependent on biodiversity and ecosystem services than are people who are better off (Reid and Huq, 2005; CBD, 2010b). Human populations tend to be low in areas of low- and middle-income countries with high forest cover and high forest biodiversity, but poverty rates in these areas tend to be high (Fisher and Christopher, 2007). FAO (2018b) estimated that 252 million people living in forests and savannahs had incomes of less than USD 1.25 per day. Overall, about 63 percent of these rural poor lived in Africa, 34 percent lived in Asia and 3 percent lived in Latin America. The 8 million forest-dependent poor in Latin America represent about 82 percent of the region’s rural extreme poor.

Understanding the relationship between poverty and forest landscapes has critical implications for global efforts to fight poverty and to conserve biodiversity. The relationship between humans and forests is subject to complex, dynamic and sometimes opposing forces (e.g. Busch and Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). Identifying the causal pathways between social and economic variables and environmental outcomes is a formidable challenge (Ferraro, Sanchirico and Smith, 2019).

Poverty reduction and income growth can, on the one hand, increase the demand for land-intensive goods and production and intensify the human desire to convert forest to pasture, cropland and living space. On the other hand, rising income could change occupational patterns away from land-intensive production, increase the demand for recreation and environmental quality, and strengthen people’s ability and willingness to conserve nature. The impacts of these forces are filtered through and shaped by institutions and policy conditions (Deacon, 1995).

Studies by Alix-Garcia et al. (2013) in Mexico and by Heß et al. (2019) in the Gambia to determine the causal impact of income growth on deforestation showed that income growth induced by a conditional cash transfer programme and a community-driven development programme, respectively, increased forest loss. By contrast, other studies in Mexico and Uganda suggest that programmes offering payments in compensation for conservation activities have successfully reduced rates of deforestation (Alix-Garcia et al., 2015; Jayachandran et al., 2017).

A variety of social and economic factors interact with both forest cover and poverty, affecting their relationship. These factors include agricultural expansion, population growth, transportation infrastructure, technology change, credit access and international trade. Transportation infrastructure provides a good example of such interactions. Forest landscapes are generally remote and often have poor connections to markets for their products and poor provision of services from both governments and the private sector; the latter is exacerbated by the fact that many forest populations are socially marginalized groups such as ethnic minorities or indigenous people. New and better roads could reduce the cost of exploiting forest resources and expand the market for local forest products but could at the same time provide residents of forest areas with more economic opportunities and social services and reduce reliance on the forest.

A study by the World Bank commissioned for this volume found great heterogeneity in the relationship between poverty and forest cover (Figure 25). Central Africa has both high poverty rate and high forest cover, while many parts of Europe and North America exhibit low poverty rate and high forest cover. Malawi is shown as a specific case where district-level poverty data were available (Figure 26). Here the mapping exercise suggests a negative correlation between poverty and forest intactness, with the southern part of the country having lower forest density (used as a proxy for intactness) and higher poverty rates.

FIGURE 25

OVERLAY OF FOREST COVER AND POVERTY RATE

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FIGURE 26

FOREST COVER, FOREST AREA DENSITY AND POVERTY IN MALAWI

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Such results do not make it possible to infer causality but can still be useful to help identify priority intervention areas for national plans and strategies that aim to combine positive development and conservation outcomes. The availability of more spatially disaggregated poverty data in the future, ideally using multidimensional criteria that better reflect the forest context, may help to establish causal pathways.

FAO (2009) defines food security as a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Based on this definition, food security is understood to have four dimensions: availability, access, utilization and stability.

Forests and trees outside forests (including trees in agroforestry systems, other trees on farms and trees in non-forested rural and urban landscapes) contribute to all four dimensions of food security through the provision of nutritious food, income, employment, energy and ecosystem services (FAO, 2013a; FAO, 2017b; HLPE, 2017). Forest depletion or degradation can thus have a negative impact on food security and nutrition. Widespread conversion of forests to other land uses, particularly for agriculture, may increase food security of farmers and communities that depend on their products in the short or medium term but may also have negative long-term environmental, livelihood and food-security impacts on people; these impacts will primarily affect forest communities but also affect national and global populations. Furthermore, the aggregate long-term impact of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services resulting from loss of forest is likely to result in reduced agricultural productivity. The contribution of forests to food security and nutrition therefore calls for more direct attention in the forest policies of most countries.

Contributions of forests and trees to the four pillars of food security

Availability (the actual or potential presence of food). Worldwide, around 1 billion people depend to some extent on wild foods such as wild meat, edible insects, edible plant products, mushrooms and fish (Burlingame, 2000). Some studies indicate that in developing countries these households tend to have the lowest incomes (Angelsen et al., 2014). Even though foods from forests have been estimated to represent less than 0.6 percent of global food consumption (FAO, 2014c), they are key to ensuring the availability of nutrient-dense foods and important vitamins and trace elements in many communities.

Forests and trees outside forests also support food availability by providing fodder for livestock, either as browse or as animal feed. The contributions of fodder to food availability are twofold: livestock are a source of meat and milk and also support agricultural production by providing draught power and manure, which can increase farm productivity.

Ecosystem services provided by forests and trees in agroforestry and silvopastoral systems support agricultural, livestock, forestry and fishery production through water and microclimate regulation, shade and windbreak provision, soil protection, nutrient cycling, biological pest control and pollination (Reed et al., 2017) (see the example in Box 26 and the section on Forest biodiversity and sustainable agriculture). Their role in countering and mitigating climate change risks is vital in ensuring availability of food in many areas (see Case Study 1 on large-scale dryland restoration for the resilience of small-scale farmers and pastoralists in Africa, in Chapter 5).

Access to food. As described in 4.1 People’s benefits from forests and biodiversity, the formal and informal forest sectors (including collection, processing and sale of timber, woodfuel and NWFPs) are an important source of employment and income, thus ensuring economic access to food. Although the cash contribution of forest products to household income may not be large at the global level, it is still critical for the livelihoods and food security and nutrition of the more than 80 million people employed in the formal and informal forest sectors. Secure forest tenure and resource rights are essential for the full realization of economic benefits from collection and sale of forest products, and thus for the food security of forest-dependent people.

Although gender-disaggregated data are limited, studies suggest that rural women have a central role in sustainable harvesting of NWFPs and collection of fuelwood and rely year-round on returns from their sales (FAO, 2014d; HLPE, 2017). Some efforts have been made to improve the data on NWFPs, but more information is needed to allow more precise estimates of where and for whom these products play a key role in food security and nutrition (FAO, 2017c).

Thanks to their strong linkages with forest communities and their focus on forest-related livelihoods, SMFEs have particular potential to enhance the food and nutrition security of many rural communities. Realization of this potential will often depend on overcoming challenges such as limited local capacity, bureaucratic regulations, inequitable local power structures, tenure insecurity and the capture of benefits by local elites.

Utilization of food (consumption of adequate nutrition and energy). Cooking is the primary way to ensure nutrients are absorbed from food, and around one-third of the world’s population (2.4 billion people) uses woodfuel for cooking, while, approximately one in ten people globally uses woodfuel to boil and sterilize water to make it safe for drinking and food processing (FAO, 2014c). As another example of the use of tree products in food utilization, powdered seeds of the drumstick tree (Moringa oleifera) are also used for household water purification, because of its antibacterial properties (Delelegn, Sahile and Husen, 2018). Woodfuel is also used in food preservation processes such as smoking and drying, which extend the supply of food resources during non-productive periods and enable their distribution over wider areas.

However, the use of woodfuel can be associated with negative impacts including forest degradation and human health risks from smoke (Box 27). As woodfuel is likely to remain the most affordable source of energy for a considerable share of the world population in the medium-term future, it is important to ensure that it is harvested sustainably and used efficiently.

Forests and the biodiversity they contain also help to support local people’s nutrition status by providing foods that contribute a wide range of macro- and micronutrients. Wild foods often contain high levels of key micronutrients. Forest fruits, for example, are rich sources of minerals and vitamins, while seeds and nuts harvested in the forest add calories, oil and protein to diets. Wild edible roots and tubers serve as carbohydrate sources, while mushrooms are a source of important nutrients including selenium, potassium and vitamins. Leaves from trees and shrubs (either fresh or dried) are among the most widely consumed forest products. They serve as a rich source of protein and micronutrients including vitamin A, calcium and iron, which are often lacking in the diets of nutritionally vulnerable communities. Furthermore, most of the global supply of vitamins C and A and calcium and much of the folic acid comes from crops pollinated by animals (Eilers et al., 2011). Research has shown strong links between forest cover and dietary quality (Box 28).

Stability of food security (access to and availability and utilization of food at all times without risk). Income and wild foods from forests provide a safety net during seasonal food shortages and during times of famine, crop failure and economic, social and political shocks (FAO, 2017b). Harvesting food from forests is an important strategy for coping with periods of food insecurity, especially for the vulnerable households living in and close to forests. Forest products are often available for extended periods, including during the “hungry” or “lean” seasons (see example of West Africa in Box 29), when traditional agricultural products are unavailable, when stocks have run out and when money is in short supply.

In addition to providing measures for coping with short-term instability in food supplies (which can lead to acute food insecurity), forests and forest diversity provide ecosystem services that are critical to ensuring medium- to long-term stability of food supplies (which can prevent chronic food insecurity), including through their support to sustainable agricultural, livestock and fishery production (described above under Availability; see also section on Forest biodiversity and sustainable agriculture). The role of forests in the maintenance of biodiversity as a gene pool for food and medicinal crops is essential to secure the diversity needed to promote long-term quality of diets.

Forest foods

Forest foods form a small (in terms of calories) but critical part of diets commonly consumed by rural, food-insecure populations, also adding variety to predominantly staple diets. In some communities that consume high levels of forest food, wild forest foods alone are sufficient to meet minimum dietary requirements for fruits, vegetables and animal source foods (Rowland et al., 2015).

The value of forest foods as a nutritional resource is not limited to the developing world. More than 65 million citizens in the EU collect wild foods occasionally and at least 100 million consume edible forest products (Schulp, Thuiller and Verburg, 2014). Wild foods, particularly wild game and other forest products, are also commonly consumed in North America (Mahoney and Geist, 2019). Some forest foods are widely traded. The global market for edible mushrooms, for example, many of which are collected from forests, is estimated to be worth USD 42 billion per year (Willis, 2018).

Forest foods are of particular nutritional (and cultural) importance to indigenous communities. A study of 22 countries in Asia and Africa, including both industrialized and developing countries, found that indigenous communities use an average of 120 wild foods per community (Bharucha and Pretty, 2010).

Across the globe, a substantial number of tree species provide important sources of food and nutrients (Figure 27). Many species provide foods from multiple parts of the tree. The baobab (Adansonia digitata), for example, is a multipurpose tropical tree used for both its fruits and its leaves, which are a staple food for many people in African drylands. The dehydrated pulp of baobab fruits contains up to 300 mg of vitamin C per 100 g of fruit pulp, close to six times the level of vitamin C present in oranges (Odetokun, 1996, cited in Manfredini, Vertuani and Buzzoni, 2002), as well as vitamins A, B1, B2 and B6. Daily consumption of 10 to 20 g of the fruit pulp can meet the vitamin C intake requirement of a child. Baobab leaves are also high in calcium, protein and iron (Mbora, Jamnadass and Lillesø, 2008).

FIGURE 27

NUMBER OF TREE SPECIES PROVIDING FOOD OF IMPORTANCE TO SMALLHOLDER LIVELIHOODS

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Similarly, the leaves of the drumstick tree (Moringa oleifera) provide large amounts of vitamin B, vitamin C, beta-carotene, magnesium, iron and protein. They also contain phenolic and flavonoid compounds that have antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, immunomodulatory, antidiabetic and hepatoprotective properties. Just 5 g of powdered leaf can meet around 60 percent of the daily vitamin A intake requirement of children under the age of three (Institute of Medicine, 2001; Witt, 2013).

Nuts. Nuts are among the most nutritionally concentrated of human foods, being high in protein, oil, energy, minerals and vitamins. Despite being an energy-dense food, nuts strongly induce satiety and their consumption is associated with no weight gain (or with weight loss) and reduced risk of obesity in observational studies and clinical trials (see e.g. Liu et al., 2019). The EAT-Lancet Commission (Willett et al., 2019) noted that transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including more than doubling consumption of healthy foods such as nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes. While consumption of nuts is traditionally high in some West African populations, in general nuts are the food group with the largest gap between actual dietary intake and a reference “healthy” diet as proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission.

The annual production of nuts that originate primarily or exclusively from forests is substantial in many countries (Figure 28). Some nuts support subsistence for rural communities and forest dwellers, while others, such as the Brazil nut, are of considerable commercial importance (Box 30). Trees and shrubs bearing edible nuts are often left standing on farmlands and homesteads after land clearance.

FIGURE 28

PRODUCTION OF FOREST NUTS, 2017

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Wild meat. Redmond et al. (2006) listed close to 1 800 species of insects, mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles used as wild meat around the world, many of these in tropical and subtropical forests. Given that only 45 percent of these (around 800) were insects (other sources indicate that 1 900 species of insects have been used as food, see below) and that fish and shellfish were not included, the total number of forest animals hunted for food is likely to be significantly higher. In rural forest communities and small provincial towns, where there is little access to cheap, domestic meats but still access to wildlife, wild meat is often the main source of macronutrients, such as protein and fat (Sirén and Machoa, 2008), and important micronutrients, such as iron and zinc (Golden et al., 2011). A recent survey of almost 8 000 rural households in 24 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America found that 39 percent of households harvested wild meat and almost all consumed it (Nielsen et al., 2018). Wild meat accounts for at least 20 percent of animal protein in rural diets in at least 62 countries worldwide (Nasi et al., 2008). In the Amazon and Congo basins, wild-meat consumption delivers between 60 and 80 percent of communities’ daily protein needs (Coad et al., 2019). Studies suggest that, where consumption of forest food is high, diets may include a higher proportion of meat, fish, fruits and vegetables from forests than from domestic livestock, aquaculture and agriculture (Rowland et al., 2017). In contrast, wild meat does not usually play a significant role in food security in established urban centres where relatively cheap domestic meats are available (Wilkie et al., 2016). However, in some poorer forested countries, urban centres may have significant demand for bushmeat, especially where domestic livestock sources of protein may be limited (Van Vliet et al., 2019).

Wild meat can be a particularly important source of protein, fat and micronutrients when other foods become unavailable, for instance during economic hardship, civil unrest or drought (Coad et al., 2019).

The sale of wild meat in urban centres could also be a source of income diversification for hunting communities, notably in areas where protein from domestic livestock is scarce or expensive (Nasi, Taber and Van Vliet, 2011). Similarly, trade in other wildlife products, such as hides taken as a by-product of harvesting animals for meat, can also provide a source of cash income for forest communities. Peru, for example, exports an average of 41 000 peccary skins annually under CITES permits for use by the fashion industry (Sinovas et al., 2017).

However, as the rate of urbanization accelerates, demand from cities for wild meat and wildlife products is driving increased hunting. Suppliers include both rural village hunters and professional commercial hunters from elsewhere. Even low per capita urban consumption can result in unsustainable levels of wildlife offtake in the supply catchment, especially when coupled with improvements in hunting technology, low wildlife productivity and habitat loss and fragmentation (Fa, Currie and Meeuwig, 2003; Coad et al., 2019).

In rural communities where wild-meat use is critical for local livelihoods but hunting offtakes have become unsustainable, decline in populations of wildlife species is likely to have significant impacts on human well-being unless sustainable management practices along the wild-meat commodity chain can be developed (Golden et al., 2011) (see Chapter 6. Conservation and sustainable use of forests and forest biodiversity). It is essential that management strategies be flexible, integrated and in harmony with different interests, needs and priorities (Coad et al., 2019).

Insects. It is estimated that insects form part of the traditional diets of at least 2 billion people. More than 1 900 species have reportedly been used as food, with beetles (Coleoptera) representing 31 percent of the species consumed, caterpillars (Lepidoptera) representing 18 percent of the species consumed, and bees, wasps, and ants (Hymenoptera) representing 14 percent of the species consumed (FAO, 2013b).

Though management of edible insects as a commercial food resource has great potential, overharvesting can pose conservation and food-security issues, as seen for example with commercialization of the mopane caterpillar (Imbrasia belina) (FAO, 2013b). Other challenges include lack of legislation and food-safety standards, although the situation is improving; the legitimacy of whole-insect foods has, for instance, been recognized by the EU under the Novel Food Regulation, which facilitates the marketing of insect-based foods (Belluco, Halloran and Ricci, 2017).

Rearing insects for food and feed is being explored as a way to alleviate pressure on wild populations and to bolster food security at a larger scale. In Thailand, for example, small-scale insect rearing is already a well-established practice (FAO, 2013c). More recently, countries such as Kenya and Uganda have successfully established cricket and grasshopper farming models.

The value of farming edible insects goes beyond their nutritional and economic value, as farming edible insects for food and feed puts much less pressure on already limited resources such as land, soils, water and energy than does other forms of livestock production. For instance, it is much more environmentally friendly to produce protein from yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) than from beef (FAO, 2013b). In recent years, farming of insects for food has also become environmentally, socially and economically accepted in some European countries such as Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands, where insects have not been part of traditional diets (e.g. Luke, 2018).

Forest biodiversity and sustainable agriculture

Forest and agricultural production systems often overlap to varying degrees; sometimes they overlap completely, as in agroforestry. Around 40 percent of global agricultural land has more than 10 percent tree cover (Zomer et al., 2009).

Forests have much higher levels of plant and animal biodiversity than agricultural fields. This contributes to their provision of ecosystem services that have positive effects on the productivity and resilience of agricultural production systems located near forests (Duffy, Godwin and Cardinale, 2017; HLPE, 2017). An estimated 75 percent of the world’s accessible fresh water comes from forested watersheds. This water is used for agricultural, domestic, industrial and ecological purposes (MEA, 2005).

Forests also have an essential role in mitigating and adapting to climate change, thus contributing to prevention of climate-related food insecurity. Sustainably managed forest ecosystems can also help minimize the likelihood of agricultural losses from soil erosion, landslides and floods.

Forests also provide farmers with a local supply of agricultural inputs (e.g. fodder, fibre and organic matter), thereby reducing the costs and negative externalities of producing and transporting such inputs from more distant locations.

The means of production of some forest plants have moved on-farm (e.g. coffee, cacao and groundnuts), but forest ecosystems still often provide vital genetic resources for adapting and improving existing crops. Forests are reservoirs of wild relatives (ancestral or related species) of many domesticated livestock and crop species that have since been bred for high yields and other characteristics. Domesticated varieties and breeds can be highly genetically homogeneous and hence vulnerable to biotic and climatic changes. Wild species, in contrast, continuously evolve and diversify under natural, diverse and sometimes extreme conditions; crossbreeding with wild relatives may offer a source of adaptation for domesticated species.

Forests provide habitats for many pollinators, which are essential for sustainable food production (see example in Box 31) (see also Box 18 on Forest-dwelling pollinators in Chapter 3).

Eighty-seven of the world’s 115 leading food crops (some 75 percent), representing 35 percent of global food production by volume, benefit from animal pollination in some measure for fruit, vegetable or seed production (Klein et al., 2007). Many of these pollinators are found in forests.

However, it is also necessary to address the threats that unsustainable agriculture poses to forest biodiversity. Agricultural transformations in the late twentieth century, which relied on large-scale intensification using high levels of inputs, helped to increase crop and livestock yields and improve food security but sometimes had severe environmental impacts such as pollution of water sources with agricultural chemicals. Currently, the agricultural sector is responsible for 73 percent of deforestation worldwide (Hosonuma et al., 2012), leading to serious decline in biodiversity (see Chapter 6). Failure to fully recognize the benefits of forests and forest services to agriculture, including biodiversity, has sometimes led to management choices that have a negative effect on biodiversity and result in even further losses. Biodiversity-friendly land-use practices help to maintain the benefits of forest ecosystem services and improve agricultural productivity. In this respect, indigenous and local knowledge can be an invaluable asset (IPBES, 2019a) (see example in Box 32).

BOX 32

FORESTS AS A KEY ELEMENT FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE AND AGROBIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN THE HANI RICE TERRACES, CHINA

The Hani rice terraces, located in a region of southwestern China affected by increasing and recurring episodes of harsh drought, are an inspiring example of adaptation to harsh topographical conditions and resilience to water scarcity. These terraces have been a concrete testimony to farmers’ wisdom for more than 1 300 years. In 2009, a severe drought decimated agricultural production elsewhere in the region, while the Hani rice terraces maintained regular yields and water abundance for farmers. Forests in the upper hills and mountains, along with the terrace structure and ingenious water-management approaches, have played a central role in enhancing the landscape’s resilience to drought (Min, 2017). Hani rice cultivation, involving no fewer than 123 local varieties, would not be possible without a sufficient water supply from the forest. Indeed, forests play a crucial role in the stability and sustainability of the whole area’s ecosystem.

The resilience of the Hani rice terraces rests on four main pillars:

“Four-in-one” (forest–village–terrace–river) landscape management. Flourishing forests on the hilltops above the villages and the terraces facilitate the formation of dew from rising water vapour and the accumulation of water in reservoirs and creeks. Forests intercept rain and enhance the water storage capacity of the soil. They also help to conserve the soil, reducing erosion and protecting the villages from landslides.

Adapted forest species for water conservation. The forest patches are mainly composed of cardamom (Alnus nepalensis), a tree species that grows well on soils with high water content, and its extensive lateral root system gives some stability to soils that tend to slip and erode.

An efficient irrigation system based on forest environmental services. The water accumulated by the forests at the top of the mountains and the topography of the landscape provide a uniquely efficient form of irrigation for the paddy fields (see Figure A). The deep roots of the forest trees assist the percolation of rainfall into the groundwater. In addition, surface run-off flows down the slope, through the forests, villages and terraces. Forest patches provide not only water, but also fertilizers for the paddy fields, as the flowing water carries nutrients from the forest litter into numerous layers of the horizontal terraced fields.

FIGURE A

NATURAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM OF HANI RICE TERRACES BASED LARGELY ON WATER RESOURCES FROM MOUNTAINTOP FORESTS (SURFACE RUN-OFF AND GROUNDWATER PERCOLATION)

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Hani rice terraces, Yuanyang County, Yunnan, China.

© FAO/Min Qingwen.

Forests as part of farmers’ daily life and culture. The Hani people worship nature and respect trees as gods that safeguard and bless them. Their beliefs are strongly linked to the important role that forests play in their lives, providing many goods including timber, fuelwood and medicines and habitats for a rich biodiversity. Each village maintains at least one sacred forest or “magic” wood plot. This cultural connection with nature serves as an incentive to protect and conserve the forest.

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Agroforestry, whether organized as trees in agricultural landscapes or farming in forest landscapes, optimizes the links between agriculture and forest and tree biodiversity. The increasing focus on landscape-scale approaches to agroforestry strengthens its role in biodiversity conservation. Agroforestry has five major roles in biodiversity conservation (Udawatta, Rankoth and Jose, 2019):

• ▸ It provides habitats for species that can tolerate a certain level of disturbance.

• ▸ It helps to preserve germplasm of sensitive species.

• ▸ It reduces rates of conversion of natural habitats by providing a more productive, sustainable alternative to traditional agricultural systems that may involve clearing natural habitats.

• ▸ It provides connectivity between habitat remnants.

• ▸ It provides ecosystem services such as erosion control and water recharge, thereby preventing the degradation and loss of surrounding habitats.

Forests, trees and their associated biodiversity provide a wide range of products and services that contribute to human health, including medicines, food, clean water and air, shade or simply a green space in which to exercise and relax (Nilsson et al., 2010). The more biodiverse a forest or tree system is, the wider the range of products and services it can provide.

Medicines from the forest

In addition to the contributions of forests and trees to nutrition and food security discussed above – which are in themselves vital for human health – forest biodiversity also encompasses an enormous range of plant, animal and microbial material with known or potential medicinal values. These substances are not only of local importance but are also commercialized on national and international markets or used as models to synthesize new medicines (the majority of active compounds that were originally derived from forest plants are now produced in laboratories). More than 28 000 plant species, many of which are found in forest ecosystems, are currently recorded as being of medicinal use (Willis, 2017).

Forest-derived medicines are prominent in Ayurvedic, traditional Chinese and other indigenous health care systems. Many of the drugs upon which western medicine depends are derived from forest plants and were discovered as part of the traditional health systems of forest peoples (Fabricant and Fransworth, 2001). For example, Jesuit’s bark (quinine), obtained from several Andean forest tree species of the genus Cinchona, was for centuries the most widely used antimalarial in the world. It was originally wild harvested but was later obtained from trees grown in plantations. Eventually quinine was displaced by an extract from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), which had been known in the Chinese pharmacopoeia for millennia. Other plant-derived drugs have been discovered through pharmacological screening; an example is paclitaxel, a bioactive compound originally derived from the bark of Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) and considered one of the best anticancer agents developed from natural products.

Traditional medicine systems of forest peoples around the world are thus a key source of knowledge. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) defines traditional medicine as the “sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.” Such systems contribute to the resilience of forest-dependent peoples around the world, often as the most available, accessible, affordable and sometimes culturally acceptable source of health care. WHO (2002) states that up to 80 percent of people in Africa still rely on traditional medicine for their primary health care requirements. It is estimated that at least 1 billion people, not including those in Europe and North America, use herbal remedies to treat children’s diarrhoea (FAO, 2014c). In 2010, the world market for herbal medicines based on traditional knowledge was estimated at USD 60 billion (Nirmal et al., 2013).

Traditional knowledge of forest medicinal plants and their associated benefits is vanishing as a result of rapid industrialization and the major socio-economic and cultural trends affecting contemporary indigenous societies, coupled with the decline of the world’s biological, linguistic and cultural diversity (Reyes-Garcia et al., 2013). Rural populations are losing access to food and medicine as a consequence of deforestation, ecosystem degradation and the loss of this knowledge, increasing food insecurity, malnutrition and diseases.

Clearly, preserving and maintaining traditional knowledge associated with forest biodiversity and protecting the rights of rural people to share the benefits from the use of their knowledge and resources, as recognized in the Nagoya Protocol (CBD, 2011), is extremely important for the health and well-being of local communities as well as for the global community.

Benefits of forest for mental and physical health

There is growing evidence that exposure to natural environments has positive impacts on human physical and mental health across all socio-economic strata and genders, particularly in urban areas (Triguero-Mas et al., 2015) and particularly for socio-economically disadvantaged urban populations (Maas et al., 2006; Mitchell and Popham, 2008). In industrialized countries and urban contexts, green environments can enhance the motivation for physical exercise (Health Council of the Netherlands, 2004) and reduce health problems attributable to a sedentary lifestyle such as excess weight, chronic stress and attention fatigue. Green spaces have also been seen to reduce mental distress and improve well-being (Hartig, Mang and Evans, 1991; Groenewegen et al., 2006; White et al., 2013). It has been hypothesized that exposure to nature may reduce mental fatigue by inspiring unconscious cognitive processes that require little or no effort (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). However, some urban residents associate wilder green spaces with vulnerability, which emphasizes the need for careful planning of urban green spaces (Jorgensen, Hitchmough and Dunnet, 2006).

Visits to forest environments also appear to have positive physiological effects, such as reduced blood pressure and pulse rate (Tamosiunas et al., 2014), increased cognitive control (Berman, Jonides and Kaplan, 2008) and even strengthened human immune responses (Li et al., 2008). Several studies have shown that people living closer to natural and biodiverse environments have a more diverse and rich microbiota and less atopic sensitization (predisposition towards developing allergic hypersensitivity) (Ege et al., 2011; Hanski et al., 2012; Rook, 2013; Ruokolainen et al., 2015). The Japanese recognize the healing value of “forest bathing” or shinrin-yoku, the practice of simply being in nature and taking in the forest atmosphere (Park et al., 2010; Hansen, Jones and Tocchini, 2017).

“Forest schooling”, long popular in Scandinavian countries and now being adopted elsewhere, uses woods and forests as a means of developing physical, social, cognitive and life skills and building independence and self-esteem in children and young adults (O’Brien, 2009). Children enrolled in forest schools are less likely to be overweight or obese, to experience symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or to contract common infections (Isted, 2013; Blackwell, 2015).

More than 90 percent of the world’s population lives in places where air pollution exceeds WHO guideline limits (WHO, 2016), and WHO (2018b) estimates that 7 million people die every year from exposure to fine particles in polluted air. Forests benefit the entire population simply by improving air quality (Nowak, Crane and Stevens, 2006). Forests and trees help mitigate many of the problems of living in urban areas, for example by reducing the urban heat island effect (Bowler et al., 2010; Shisegar, 2014) – which can be lethal during heat waves – and buffering noise (Irvine et al., 2009; González-Oreja et al., 2010). Given these and other benefits of forests and trees, pioneering health policies have begun to recognize the use of nature to enhance urban population health in such countries as Australia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America (Shanahan et al., 2015). Australia, for example, is pioneering “Healthy Parks Healthy People”, an approach that is part of a global movement that aims to unleash the preventative and restorative health and well-being benefits of nature and parks while conserving biodiversity.

Forests also indirectly decrease the occurrence of food- and waterborne diseases by filtering water and providing woodfuel for cooking food and boiling water. This is vital since waterborne diarrhoeal diseases, for example, are responsible for 2 million deaths each year, with the majority occurring in children under five (WHO/UNICEF, 2000). In addition, traditional diets based on diverse plant and animal-based foods gathered from woods and forests show promise for reducing diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity as these foods are mainly low in fat and high in protein and complex carbohydrates (Sarkar, Walker-Swaney and Shetty, 2019).

Cultural services of forests

Well-being is a condition not only of individuals but also of the broader community. Many people and communities, and particularly indigenous peoples, have long, multigenerational links with specific forest areas; they derive not only direct benefits from the forest but also intangible benefits resulting from a deep spiritual relationship with forested landscapes and native species, expressed in beliefs, customs, traditions and cultures (Fritz-Vietta, 2016).

Biodiversity conservation initiatives that fail to take cultural values into consideration may have adverse effects on the individual and societal health of forest dwellers. For example, restricting harvest or collection of some traditionally important food products might cause psychological unrest and affect well-being even if nutritional needs are met through other sources; this has been seen, for example, among several ethnic groups in the Congo Basin who suffer from psychological stress when bushmeat is unavailable (Dounias and Ichikawa, 2017).

Forest-related health risks

The abundant biodiversity in forests, particularly in the tropics, encompasses an astonishing range of pathogens, parasites and their vectors. The majority of new infectious diseases of humans are zoonotic, meaning that they originate in animals (Olival et al., 2017). Their emergence may be linked to change in forest area and the expansion of human populations into forest areas, both of which increase human exposure to wildlife (Wilcox and Ellis, 2006) and, in some cases, to the consumption of wild meat. Forest-associated diseases include malaria, Chagas disease (also known as American trypanosomiasis), African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), leishmaniasis and Lyme disease (Table 4). HIV and Ebola, both zoonotic and both focuses of global attention, have clear forest origins. Other lesser-known pathogens associated with trees and forests include Henipah viruses, and new pathogens are being identified all the time, such as the SARS-CoV2 virus that caused the current COVID-19 pandemic. While it is not yet possible to determine exactly how humans were initially infected, COVID-19 is also assumed to be of zoonotic origin (WHO 2020).

TABLE 4

EXAMPLES OF FOREST-ASSOCIATED INFECTIOUS DISEASES

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Most pathogens found in forests do not represent immediate threats to people. Many potential pathogens have co-evolved with wildlife and do not cause health issues to their hosts, but may become problematic if they spill over to other host species such as humans. Forest alteration may result in modified abundance or dispersal of pathogen hosts and vectors, and altered hydrological functions may favour waterborne pathogens (Wilcox and Ellis, 2006). Thus, extractive industries, deforestation, habitat degradation and increasing encroachment of people into forest lands is increasing risks of novel pathogens affecting people. However, there is some evidence that high-biodiversity areas may buffer people from some infectious diseases through what is known as the dilution effect (Rohr et al., 2019).

Seventeen species of large mammalian carnivore are documented to have killed people. However, only five or six of these seem to do so on a regular basis, and predator attacks on humans are uncommon (Linnell and Alleau, 2016; Hart, 2018). In contrast, venomous animals attack as many as 2.5 million people each year, causing between 20 000 and 100 000 deaths (WHO, 2017). Snakebite is an occupational hazard in any forest activity. Other forest animals can also injure and kill people; in both Asia and Africa, conflicts with elephants result in hundreds of deaths each year (with India alone reporting annual deaths of 400 people and 100 elephants due to conflict incidents) (Shaffer et al., 2019). Considerable efforts have been made worldwide to reduce these events through innovative community-based natural resource management schemes, compensation systems and incentive and insurance progammes (IUCN, 2013) (see also Box 52 in Chapter 6).

Other potentially fatal health risks include accidents related to logging or other kinds of work in forests; falling trees or tree limbs, especially during storms; and wildfires, which are particularly destructive to people and their homes and businesses when they occur in forests in peri-urban areas such as those occurring in Australia in December 2019. Forests also harbour allergens (Cariñanos et al., 2019), fungi and other organisms that are toxic to people if consumed.

These issues suggest a role for responsible forest management in ensuring human well-being (McFarlane et al., 2019).

Managing forests for health

In view of the inextricable connection of human, animal and environmental health, the “One Health” approach aims to improve health and well-being through risk prevention and mitigation at the interface between humans, animals and their various environments. In Africa, for example, FAO, WHO and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are jointly implementing One Health programming that brings together professionals and policymakers in forestry, natural resources, agriculture, livestock and public health to ensure balance among all the relevant sectors and disciplines.

The aim of achieving optimal health outcomes for human communities should be taken into account in forest management and planning, not only for rural areas but also for peri-urban and urban areas and for both developed (e.g. Box 33) and developing countries. Land-use planning for urban or agricultural expansion should also take into account the importance of buffers that would mitigate potential impacts associated with higher contact rates between wildlife, livestock and people.

By far the greatest threat to forest biodiversity is loss of habitats and species due to deforestation and forest degradation.

This chapter looks at means of preventing, halting and reversing the forest losses described in Chapters 2 and 3. Understanding factors that lead to deforestation or forest degradation can assist understanding of how to prevent further forest and biodiversity loss. In the cases where the damage has already been done, forest landscape restoration can begin to reverse the losses.

Human population growth, demographic trends and economic development have long been acknowledged as the primary drivers of environmental change. In the past 50 years, the human population has doubled and the global economy has grown nearly fourfold. Economic development has lifted billions of people out of poverty in many countries. However, nature across most of the globe has been significantly altered in the process, with mostly negative consequences for biodiversity and often also for the most vulnerable of society, including indigenous peoples. The critical pressures are well known: habitat change, loss and degradation; unsustainable agricultural practices; invasive species; low resource-use efficiency and overexploitation, including illegal logging and trade in wildlife. Climate change and fluctuation increasingly exacerbates the impact of these pressures.

Global market pressures, dietary preferences, and loss and waste along agricultural value chains drive demand for agricultural and forest products, which, in turn, drive deforestation and forest degradation (IPCC, 2019). The need to provide food and energy for a growing global population is, generally speaking, the leading cause of loss of forests and forest biodiversity. In Africa, population pressure and poverty are the main threats to forest conservation, driving poor farmers to convert forests to cropland (Uusivuori, Lehto and Palo, 2002; Lung and Schaab, 2010) and to harvest woodfuel at unsustainable levels. Elsewhere, deforestation is driven by changes in consumption patterns of more affluent populations. However, deforestation and forest degradation are really driven by many political and socio-economic forces interacting at the global to local levels (Lambin et al., 2001; Carr, Suter and Barbier, 2005).

An analysis of national data for 46 tropical and subtropical countries representing about 78 percent of the forest area in those climatic domains (Hosonuma et al., 2012) revealed that large-scale commercial agriculture (primarily cattle ranching and cultivation of soya bean and oil palm) is the most prevalent driver of deforestation, accounting for 40 percent of it. Local subsistence agriculture accounts for an estimated 33 percent of deforestation, urban expansion for 10 percent, infrastructure for 10 percent and mining for 7 percent. In some cases, land-use change was preceded by forest degradation, for example caused by unsustainable or illegal wood removal. This analysis also revealed that the drivers differed significantly between regions (Figure 29) and even within countries.

FIGURE 29

DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION AND FOREST DEGRADATION BY REGION, 2000–2010

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Importance of local context in determining drivers of forest loss

People’s use of a resource is largely determined by perceived benefits, weighed against costs incurred through access or institutional barriers (Schweik, 2000), but is also influenced by local and historical factors at different scales such as recognition of traditional forest tenure and customary management and use practices, local implementation of agreements for protected-area use, local road access, commodity prices and cultural preferences. Understanding the local contexts in which the drivers at different scales interact – including global and national political and economic processes, institutional frameworks governing access to resources, the values of stakeholders and the ecological characteristics of the resources (Figure 30) – can help to inform management decisions (Ostrom and Nagendra, 2006).

FIGURE 30

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PROCESSES, POLICY AND DRIVERS OF RESOURCE USE INFLUENCING LOCAL RESPONSES AND OUTCOMES FOR FOREST CONSERVATION

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As the example in Box 34 illustrates, simple models of forest change drivers do not reflect complex local social and ecological realities. They lead to simplified institutional prescriptions, and interventions based on these prescriptions therefore often do not meet their objectives (see also Nel and Hill, 2013 and Molinario et al., 2020). It is vital to take into account the dynamics of the underlying contexts and drivers of forest change and to recognize their importance in influencing local people’s decisions. Incentives that influence people’s motivation to support sustainable management of forests vary locally and can therefore not be designed globally.

BOX 34

COMPLEX DRIVERS LEADING TO DIFFERENT FOREST OUTCOMES ON MOUNT ELGON, UGANDA

Mount Elgon, Uganda, embodies the challenges of biodiversity conservation in densely populated areas. Its forests provide local communities with timber, fuelwood, non-wood resources and forest services, notably hydrological as the mountain is a major source of water for the region. The forests have also been a source of agricultural land. Mount Elgon has a history of protection under various more or less exclusionary management regimes. High population densities (up to 1 000 people per square kilometre) exercise growing pressure on forest resources. Conflicts over resource access and use are common (Norgrove and Hulme, 2006; MERECP, 2007).

Over the period 1973 to 2009, more than 25 percent of the area’s forest cover was lost but in some places forest also recovered (Sassen et al., 2013). Sassen (2014) used a combination of remote sensing and field-based research to investigate how factors that varied across the park and during the time period – including land-use goals, wealth levels, market access and the relationship with park management – led to these different outcomes for the forest.

The study found no simple direct relationship among population density, poverty and agricultural expansion and deforestation on Mount Elgon over the 36-year period. Population only drove deforestation under a few circumstances, i.e. when protected-area management institutions broke down in the 1970s and 1980s and in those places where people became wealthy from growing coffee. When protected-area boundaries were re-established, forest recovery took place near some of the most-densely populated areas; these included those areas where inhabitants were able to invest in agricultural intensification, had difficulties of market access but an easily transportable cash crop (coffee), and had little conflict with park management (see the trend in forest cover in the vicinity of “other coffee-based villages” after 1988 in Figure A). In general (although this too depended on the context), wealth, measured as assets, was more likely to drive deforestation than poverty. Resettlement of pastoral people outside the forest in the 1990s and encouragement of them to take up agricultural livelihoods (maize) led to conflicts and massive forest encroachment despite low population densities (see the trend in forest cover in the vicinity of “maize-based villages” in Figure A). High prices for cash crops were associated with deforestation mainly in places with good access to markets for bulky seasonal crops (e.g. maize, cabbages, potatoes) and high levels of conflict over park boundaries (i.e. for the ”southern coffee-based villages” after 2001 in Figure A).

FIGURE A

VARIATION IN FOREST COVER 1973–2009, WITHIN 2 KM OF 14 VILLAGES ADJACENT TO THE PARK AND IN THE ENTIRE FOREST ZONE, MOUNT ELGON, UGANDA, AND COFFEE PRICES OVER THE SAME PERIOD

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Forest degradation also varied according to the needs associated with local land-use practices (e.g. the need for staking material for bananas and beans or for grazing land for cattle) and market access (e.g. the opportunity to sell charcoal). The study also found that allowing the collection of forest resources, such as fuelwood, under community management agreements can be double-edged. On the one hand, it creates opportunities for destructive activities; on the other hand, it can help to improve relations between local people and park staff and thus facilitate improved management arrangements and better forest outcomes.

These findings demonstrate that simple models based on single drivers of deforestation (e.g. population or poverty) cannot explain local variation in conservation outcomes. Rather, it is the local context (e.g. law enforcement, collaborative management, political interference) under which drivers such as population, wealth, market access and commodity prices operate that influence forest cover and degradation or regeneration outcomes over time, rather than the drivers per se. This concept has important implications for the design of more locally adapted and ecologically and socially sustainable management arrangements.

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A good understanding of human activities leading to forest disturbances is instrumental for the development of policies and actions in the context of REDD+ and the identification of drivers of deforestation and forest degradation is usually an initial step in developing REDD+ strategies and action plans. The example from Zambia in Figure 31 illustrates the multiplicity of interactions among drivers.

FIGURE 31

THE COMPLEX DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION AND FOREST DEGRADATION: PROBLEM TREE FROM AN ANALYSIS IN ZAMBIA

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Initiatives addressing deforestation and forest degradation

Actions to combat deforestation have gathered pace over the past decade, primarily because of awareness that the loss of forests and the use of fire to clear land is having negative impacts on the global carbon cycle. REDD+ (reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries) is now included as a recommended action in the Paris Agreement. A recent analysis of 31 national REDD+ strategies and action plans (FAO, forthcoming) highlights priority actions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (Figure 32). So far, nine countries have reported reduced deforestation to UNFCCC representing close to 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in emission reductions (Box 35). Countries are now accessing REDD+ results-based payments – rewards for emission reductions – from the Green Climate Fund and other similar mechanisms. A number of international initiatives have provided support to these efforts, including the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) Programme jointly operated by FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNEP (Box 36), the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the Forest Investment Program of the World Bank.

FIGURE 32

PRIORITY ACTION AREAS TO REDUCE DEFORESTATION AND DEGRADATION AS IDENTIFIED IN 31 NATIONAL REDD+ STRATEGIES AND ACTION PLANS

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The New York Declaration on Forests, a voluntary and non-binding international declaration to take action to halt global deforestation launched in 2014, now has over 200 endorsers, including national and subnational governments, multinational companies, groups representing indigenous communities and NGOs. Importantly, it specifically includes commitments from and support to the private sector to eliminate deforestation from the supply chains of major agricultural commodities by 2020 (see example in Box 37 and Figure 43).

BOX 37

DEFORESTATION-FREE COMMODITY CHAINS: INTEGRATING COCOA AND FORESTS IN WEST AFRICA

About 70 percent of global cocoa supply originates from West African smallholder farmers, and cocoa is a major cash earner in the areas that produce it (Gayi and Tsowou, 2016). However, cocoa has historically been an important driver and direct cause of deforestation (Ruf and Zadi, 1998). Expansion into forests is often driven by low cocoa yields from established plantations, since soils freshly cleared of natural vegetation are often more fertile.

Governments and the private sector have made a suite of commitments to end deforestation in cocoa supply chains so as to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem services while avoiding revenue loss and impacts on local livelihoods (Carodenuto, 2019). Recent public–private initiatives such as the Cocoa Forest Initiatives in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire (World Cocoa Foundation, 2017) and the Green Cocoa Landscape Programme in Cameroon (IDH, 2019) aim to support the sustainable intensification and climate resilience of cocoa production, the prevention of further deforestation and the restoration of degraded forests. They often align with national REDD+ policies and plans.

To support policy and planning for cocoa development and sustainable intensification, a study by the CocoaSoils research and outreach programme (Sassen, Arnel and van Soesbergen, forthcoming) identified forest areas that are both important for biodiversity (based on a metric using IUCN Red List species range data, refined to include only areas of suitable habitat) and currently suitable for cocoa (based on a model developed by Schroth et al. [2016]), and therefore potentially at risk of deforestation (dark brown areas in Figure A).

FIGURE A

BIVARIATE MAP SHOWING COCOA SUITABILITY AGAINST BIODIVERSITY IMPORTANCE IN FORESTS

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The study also analysed how biodiversity responds to changes in land use associated with different cocoa systems, using data from studies in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania taken from the Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems (PREDICTS) database (Hudson et al., 2017). The results showed that in terms of species richness and community composition, the impacts of establishing cocoa were less severe than those associated with cropland and that naturally shaded agroforestry systems have significantly higher species richness than cocoa monocultures (Figure B). Over time, cocoa agroforestry systems become more similar to forest, although they never fully recover the original forest community within the life cycle of a productive cocoa plantation (approximately 25 years). Thus, although cocoa agroforests cannot replace natural forests, they are a valuable tool for conserving and protecting biodiversity while maintaining high levels of productivity in agricultural landscapes (see also Schroth et al., 2004).

FIGURE B

COMPARING SPECIES RICHNESS BETWEEN LAND-USE TYPES AND SHADING TYPES IN COCOA

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The combined results highlight different risks and opportunities for different areas within the West African cocoa zone. Where land that is highly suitable for cocoa overlaps with remaining forests and high-biodiversity values (e.g. Liberia and Cameroon), there is a need to protect existing conservation areas and to limit further cocoa development in unprotected forests through careful planning. Here, supporting smallholder farmers to develop sustainable, deforestation-free cocoa production in diversified production systems is of crucial importance.

Where much of the original forest has already been converted to agriculture, as in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, cocoa agroforestry systems might play a role in efforts to increase tree cover in agricultural landscapes and restore degraded lands (e.g. under REDD+). These systems can help to maintain at least some biodiversity and support local and global ecosystem services as well as livelihood diversification.

Financial mechanisms to incentivize sustainable cocoa production (e.g. credits, payments for environmental services or carbon finance) are also needed, as smallholder farmers are unlikely to be able to bear the costs associated with changing their practices.

SOURCE: Data from PREDICTS database (Hudson et al., 2017).

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Where the main driver of deforestation is subsistence agriculture or fuelwood harvesting, the development of forest-based livelihoods through a diversified portfolio of sustainably produced forest products and services; development of small and medium-sized enterprises; and the use of payments for carbon sequestration or other environmental services can help increase the value of forests to local communities and hence keep them intact.

In February 2018 the CPF convened a global conference to engage key stakeholder groups in a discussion on how to halt deforestation (Box 38), and in July 2019 the European Commission launched a communication on stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world’s forests (EC, 2019a). This sets out five priorities:

• ▸ Reduce the EU consumption footprint on land and encourage the consumption of products from deforestation-free supply chains in the EU.

• ▸ Work in partnership with producing countries to reduce pressures on forests and to “deforest–proof” EU development cooperation.

• ▸ Strengthen international cooperation to halt deforestation and forest degradation and encourage forest restoration.

• ▸ Redirect finance to support more-sustainable land-use practices.

• ▸ Support the availability of, quality of, and access to information on forests and commodity supply chains, and support research and innovation.

While some progress has been made (see also Chapter 2), much more remains to be done.

Combating illegal exploitation of forest resources

Poaching, illegal exploitation and illicit trade in timber and other forest resources are global phenomena that have serious implications for biodiversity conservation (see Chapter 3 for its effects on species biodiversity), ecosystem services and national economies. They also have direct and indirect negative impacts on urban and rural communities that result from depleting the resource base on which these communities depend for their livelihoods and well-being.

Illegal forest activities include harvesting, transport, processing, purchase or sale of forest products in violation of national or subnational laws. The drivers behind the illicit exploitation and trade in forest resources are complex, varying greatly over time and by the location and type of commodity and illegal activity involved. Direct causes of illegal activities include weak forest governance in producer countries and a resulting lack of adequate law enforcement; unclear legal frameworks; and limited capacity for developing and implementing land-use plans. However, consumer countries contribute to these problems by importing forest products – including timber, wild plants and animals and derived products – without ensuring that they are legally sourced. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the main drivers of illegal wildlife trade include increasing demand in consumer countries (e.g. Southeast Asia), poverty and lack of alternative livelihoods in source countries, and cultural and colonial legacies (Price, 2017).

In addition to the environmental impacts of loss of and damage to species and ecosystems, illegal forest exploitation also has economic and social impacts. The African Development Bank (ADB) values the detrimental economic impact to Africa of illicit trade in natural resources at approximately USD 120 billion a year – an amount equivalent to 5 percent of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP). Of this total amount, approximately 10 percent falls within the forest sector (ADB, 2016). Illegal trade entails significant loss of revenue from taxes, which has effects at both the national and local levels. Revenue loss undermines efforts to make the forest sector contribute sustainably to national production and society as lost revenue cannot be reinvested in the sector. Illegal activities also distort global markets and undermine incentives for sustainable forest management as illegal products are often cheaper than legal ones. In terms of the social impacts, illegal harvesting and trade are often associated with corruption and with lack of recognition of land and use rights of forest communities or indigenous peoples, which can have negative impacts on local livelihoods and result in conflict.

Illegal logging. Harvesting, transport, purchase or sale of timber in violation of national laws (commonly referred to collectively as “illegal logging”) is a persistent global issue, affecting many forested countries in both temperate and tropical zones despite the numerous efforts to address it. Quantifying illegal logging is challenging and potentially controversial, but the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) puts the value of forestry crimes including corporate crimes and illegal logging somewhere between USD 51 billion and USD 152 billion per year (Nellemann et al., 2016). Hoare (2015) estimates that in 2013 around 50 percent of illegal timber in global trade came from Indonesia and 25 percent from Brazil – two of the ten countries with the largest forest area. Both countries have made significant efforts to address the problem since then; see e.g. FAO, 2020 and Addressing illegality). Illegal logging in other tropical timber-producing countries may result in smaller total volumes but may account for a greater proportion of the country’s total timber production. The demand for timber is so great that illegal logging will remain a major concern for the future of forest resources unless consistent efforts are made globally to control it (Hoare, 2015).

Illegal logging may occur as a direct result of demand for the timber resource, including specific targeting of the most valuable timber species, or it may be the by-product of land clearance for plantations of commodities such as oil palm and soya bean. As noted above, the most significant driver of deforestation (both legal and illegal) is demand for land for agricultural production; this pressure is also the most likely to contribute to large-scale illegal logging.

In most developing countries, the forest sector is dominated by informal operators, primarily small or medium-sized enterprises producing mainly for domestic markets. In addition to this informality, the sector is characterized by low capacity, limited resources and continuous change in the availability of resources, which all make it vulnerable to illegal activities.

As it obviously occurs in the absence of forest management planning, illegal logging leads to the loss or degradation of forests, and the resulting habitat and biodiversity losses threaten the survival of some species, particularly primates and some large mammals. Illegal logging activities often target and jeopardize valuable timber species, which are consistently in demand and promise immediate revenues. Rosewood (Dalbergia spp.) is case in point. It is estimated that exports of rosewood to China increased 14-fold between 2009 and 2014, despite rosewood being listed in CITES Appendix II (Bolognesi et al., 2015; Ong and Carver, 2019). In Madagascar, illegal harvesting and trafficking of rosewood have resulted in serious forest degradation and biodiversity loss (Ong and Carver, 2019).

Illegal charcoal production is even more challenging to document than harvest and trade of high-value timber species, as the sector is very fragmented and informal; however, it too contributes to forest loss and degradation. For example, Bolognesi et al. (2015) estimate that illegal trade in charcoal in Somalia between 2011 and 2013 accounted for 24 000 tonnes of production and resulted in a 2.7 percent loss of tree cover.

Illegal wildlife exploitation. INTERPOL estimates that the annual value of illegal wildlife trade is between USD 7 billion and USD 23 billion (Nellemann et al., 2016). All regions of the world play some role as a source, point of transit or destination for contraband wildlife, although certain types of illegal wildlife trade are strongly associated with specific regions; for example, birds are associated with Central and South America, mammals with Africa and Asia, and reptiles with Europe and North America (UNODC, 2016).

The African elephant is arguably the best-known case of overexploitation of keystone species (those that have a disproportionately large impact on a particular ecosystem relative to their abundance), with the loss of approximately 90 percent of the total population within the last century (TRAFFIC, 2019). Forest elephants are of particular importance for forests and other natural ecosystems as they disperse large seeds, keep the forest canopy open and spread rare nutrients across the forest, benefiting numerous species throughout the African tropics (Maisels et al., 2013).

Addressing illegality. Over the past ten years, efforts to address illegal logging have been spearheaded by trade regulations in consumer countries that require that importers demonstrate that the timber has been harvested legally. Significant demand-side legislation includes the Lacey Act Amendment in the United States of America (2008), the EU Timber Regulation (2013), the Clean Wood Act, Japan (2016) and the amendment of the Act on the Sustainable Use of Timbers, Republic of Korea (2017). Many tropical timber-producing countries are making corresponding efforts to strengthen legality compliance and timber legality verification. Indonesia, notably, has implemented a national timber legality assurance system (Sistem Verificasi Legalitas Kayu, SVLK) and in 2016 issued its first Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) timber export licences in compliance with the import requirement of the European Union Timber Regulation (EU FLEGT Facility, n.d.). With strengthened law enforcement, official figures from Indonesia show an increased number of operations sanctioned, from 25 in 2015 to 88 in 2017 (MEF, 2018). Fourteen other tropical timber-producing countries are developing national systems to assure legality under the FLEGT mechanism (EU FLEGT Facility, n.d.). As part of this mechanism, countries are required to implement measures to prevent illegal hunting (see Box 39).

In July 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its first-ever Resolution on Tackling Illicit Trafficking in Wildlife (69/314) (United Nations General Assembly, 2015b), which also addresses timber trafficking. Its fourth edition was adopted in September 2019 (UN, 2019b) and calls for enhanced national legislation, support to sustainable livelihoods, improved policy enforcement and anti-corruption measures, assistance in the deployment of information technologies and promotion of well-targeted demand reduction efforts.

The Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) (FAO, 2019f) provides a platform for addressing wildlife management issues that require national and supranational responses, including issues related to illegal wildlife trade. Established in 2013, CPW is a voluntary partnership of 14 international organizations with substantive programmes to promote the sustainable use and conservation of wildlife resources.

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 (UN, 2019a) indicates that 20 percent of the Earth’s surface was in a degraded state between 2000 and 2015 (Figure 33). On 1 March 2019, the United Nations General Assembly declared the decade from 2021 to 2030 the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, with the goals of preventing, halting and reversing ecosystem degradation, raising awareness of importance of ecosystem restoration and accelerating progress towards reaching existing global (Box 40) and regional ecosystem restoration goals.

FIGURE 33

PROPORTION OF LAND IN A DEGRADED STATE BETWEEN 2000 AND 2015 BY REGION (%)

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Restoration is a key part of the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and the Aichi Targets (CBD, 2010a) and forest landscape restoration has been recognized as a means by which to achieve Aichi Targets 5, 7, 11, 13 and 15 (Dave et al., 2019).

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification’s Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme has so far received land degradation neutrality commitments from 122 countries (UNCCD, 2019a). Regional land restoration goals include the Latin American Initiative 20x20 (Initiative20x20, n.d.), which aims to restore 20 million hectares of degraded land by 2020; the AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative), which aims to bring 100 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030 (AFR100, n.d.); the Agadir Commitment for the Mediterranean, which aims to restore at least 8 million hectares of degraded forest ecosystems by 2030 (FAO, 2017d); ECCA30, an initiative of countries in Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia that aims to restore 30 million hectares of degraded land by 2030; and the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel initiative, which aims to restore 100 million hectares by 2030 (Great Green Wall, 2019a).

Forest restoration can have a variety of objectives relating to reversing land degradation or loss of productivity of ecosystem goods and services such as food, biodiversity and water. These include:

• ▸ rehabilitation: restoration of desired species, structure or process to an existing ecosystem;

• ▸ reconstruction: restoration of native plants on land used for other purposes;

• ▸ reclamation: restoration of severely degraded land devoid of vegetation; and

• ▸ replacement: the most radical form of restoration, in which species or provenances maladapted for a given location and unable to migrate are replaced with new vegetation as climates change rapidly (Stanturf, Palik and Dumroese, 2014).

Forest restoration, when implemented appropriately, helps restore habitats and ecosystems, create jobs and income and is an effective nature-based solution to climate change (CBD, 2016a; FAO and Global Mechanism of UNCCD, 2015; IPBES, 2019a). See Case Study 1.

The Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR, n.d.) has developed six globally agreed principles of forest and landscape restoration:

• ▸ Focus on the landscape scale.

• ▸ Engage stakeholders and support participatory governance.

• ▸ Restore multiple forest functions for multiple benefits.

• ▸ Maintain and enhance natural ecosystems within landscapes.

• ▸ Tailor restoration approaches to the local context.

• ▸ Manage adaptively for long-term resilience.

Numerous guidelines for forest restoration exist including a practioner’s guide to the restoration of forest landscapes (Stanturf, Mansourian and Kleine, 2017), specific guidelines for degraded dryland forests (FAO, 2015b), mangroves (Field, 1996), on the role of natural regeneration in forest and landscape restoration (Chazdon et al., 2017) and on integrating biodiversity considerations into ecosystem restoration (CBD, 2016a). The ITTO Guidelines for the restoration, management and rehabilitation of degraded and secondary tropical forests (ITTO, 2002) are in the process of being updated. See also Box 41.

Restoring forest ecosystems goes beyond the planting or assisted natural regeneration of trees. See e.g. Case Study 1 and the example of rewilding in Box 42.

The main challenge for restoration is to orient practitioners and policymakers to work together to ensure that it is planned well, implemented cost effectively and prioritized sufficiently among the range of development goals (Sabogal, Besacier and McGuire, 2015; FAO and Global Mechanism of UNCCD, 2015; Strassburg et al., 2019). This challenge is being addressed by a number of multilateral and bilateral programmes involving public- and private-sector actors. A second challenge is to engage producer organizations, farmers and small and medium-sized enterprises use in restoration, and to identify and enable business models that allow people to make a decent living through sustainable land management. To underpin the development of business models, a new initiative aims to facilitate access to information on the costs and benefits of ecosystem restoration, see Box 43.

Potential for forest restoration

A recent study estimated that there are some 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion hectares of potential forest land (defined as land that could sustain more than 10 percent tree cover) in areas that were previously degraded, dominated by sparse vegetation, grasslands and degraded bare soils (Bastin et al., 2019); this excludes existing forests and agricultural and urban land and would be equivalent to 0.9 billion hectares of continuous forest cover. This is more than 25 percent of the current forested area globally. It should, however, be kept in mind that this study looked only at the biophysical potential for establishment of forests, irrespective of the importance of the current ecosystems and existing land-tenure rights. More detailed assessments incorporating local knowledge are thus needed to identify the most suitable areas at national or local level.

FAO has developed a module in the System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing and Analysis for Land Monitoring (SEPAL) that incorporates the algorithm for tree restoration potential, to assist countries in identifying areas that are potentially suitable for restoration. Use of the module will be piloted in Cambodia, Kenya, Myanmar and Uganda by FAO and the respective government institutions in 2020–2021.

As a complement to the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology developed by IUCN, specific guidelines are available to incorporate biodiversity aspects into landscape restoration opportunities assessments (Beatty, Cox and Kuzee, 2018).

A review of 62 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America found that more than half of countries in each region had an established or preliminary restoration target in their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan or Fifth National Report to the CBD (CBD, 2016b). While establishing targets is a good first step, implementing commitments remains challenging (Figure 34). In addition, restoration efforts are difficult to measure, and at present there are no global data sets to measure progress in forest landscape restoration (NYDF, 2019). FAO is working with several partners to establish a global monitoring system for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and FAO and WRI (2019) have developed a guide to help countries and restoration practitioners identify priorities and indicators for monitoring forest and landscape restoration.

FIGURE 34

PROGRESS TOWARDS GOAL 5 OF THE NEW YORK DECLARATION ON FORESTS

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Many targets lack quantitative elements and developing restoration activities is a complex process. However, there have been some good examples of restoration success (Figure 35). For example, forest cover has significantly increased in China, Costa Rica, the Republic of Korea and Viet Nam as a result of government-led forest policies or initiatives. In southern Niger, farmer-managed natural regeneration using local agroforestry practices over three decades led to an increase in productivity on 5 million hectares of land (Reij, Tappan and Smale, 2009). Another example, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel initiative, launched by the African Union in 2007, aims to restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, to sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and to create 10 million green jobs by 2030, while creating an 8 000 km green wall across Africa’s drylands (see Case Study 1). Progress since 2007 (Great Green Wall, 2019b; UNCCD, 2019b) includes:

• ▸ 3 million hectares of land rehabilitated in Burkina Faso through local practices;

• ▸ 15 million hectares of degraded land in Ethiopia restored and land-tenure security improved;

• ▸ 5 million hectares of degraded land in Nigeria restored, 639 km of shelterbelt established in 11 states, 309 hectares of community orchard plantations and 293 hectares of community woodlots established;

• ▸ 5 million hectares of land in the Niger restored; and

• ▸ 12 million drought-resistant trees planted in Senegal in less than a decade.

FIGURE 35

INCREASE IN FOREST AREA THROUGH FOREST RESTORATION, REFORESTATION AND AFFORESTATION ACTIVITIES 2000–2019 BY REGION AND TYPE OF RESTORATION

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As of October 2019, 61 countries had made pledges under the Bonn Challenge totalling 170.6 million hectares of restoration commitments for 2020 and 2030 combined (Figure 36) (Dave et al., 2019). However, since 2000 only 18 percent of the 2020 goal (restore 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forest lands by 2020) has been realized in terms of increases in forest or tree cover (NYDF, 2019). The Bonn Challenge Barometer (IUCN, 2018; Dave et al., 2019) is working to capture information on progress in substantive implementation more accurately, in terms of hectares brought into restoration and delivery of associated ecosystem benefits (including carbon sequestered and biodiversity conservation), as well as jobs created (Dave et al., 2019).

FIGURE 36

COMMITMENTS TO THE BONN CHALLENGE AS OF FEBRUARY 2020

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Many countries announced new pledges to restore forest and plant trees at the Climate Action Summit held in New York, United States of America, in September 2019 (Box 44). In early 2020, the World Economic Forum launched a global initiative to grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees (WEF, 2020).

This chapter looks at how to manage the world’s forest ecosystems in ways that will ensure the conservation and sustainable use of their biodiversity.

Creation of protected areas has historically been the forest governance instrument most often adopted to pursue biodiversity objectives (Watson et al., 2014). Many forested protected areas are managed to reconcile local livelihoods with biodiversity conservation. The protected-area approach has achieved positive results in terms of establishing barriers to the progress of deforestation and conserving species, although the evidence is not conclusive regarding most rare species.

However, from a biophysical perspective, evidence has shown that natural reserves alone are not sufficient to conserve biodiversity. They are usually too small, creating barriers to species migration and are vulnerable to exogenous factors such as climate change (Bennett, 2004; Fung et al., 2017). In addition, protected areas contain only a fraction of existing forest biodiversity. Thus, there is a need to look beyond protected areas and to mainstream biodiversity conservation into forest management practices.

Approaches that integrate conservation and socio-economic development goals, support sustainable resource use and devolve forest management to local people have emerged as alternatives or complements to strict conservation (Agrawal, Chhatre and Hardin, 2008; Lele et al., 2010; Mace, 2014). A variety of stakeholder-based governance approaches have emerged to negotiate multiple and sometimes conflicting uses of natural resources in such a way as to maintain the resources that local people use and value, as well as those that support broader societal needs (Kaimowitz and Sheil, 2007; McShane et al., 2011). Examples include areas managed and protected by indigenous communities, civil society organizations and private actors (Stolton et al., 2014; Drescher and Brenner, 2018), with increasing emphasis on rights-based approaches and landscape approaches. In many cases, reconciling forest use and forest conservation means reconciling local and global needs.

The importance of accounting for conservation beyond protected areas, including in productive forests, is recognized by the inclusion of other effective area-based conservation measures (i.e. conserved areas outside protected areas) and reference to sustainable use in global conservation goals (Box 45).

Over the past few decades, the global network of protected areas has expanded rapidly, reaching almost 240 000 designated protected areas, of which most are on land. Collectively, these areas protect just over 2 billion hectares, equivalent to 15 percent of the Earth’s land surface (UNEP-WCMC, IUCN and NGS, 2020). Thousands of protected areas are specifically designed to protect forests; some of them are among the oldest protected areas in the world. For example, Marakele Forest Reserve in Sri Lanka has been protecting forest since 1875.

Protected areas are categorized according to their management objective (Box 46).

Status and trends of forests in protected areas

Globally, 18 percent of the world’s forest area, or more than 700 million hectares, is reported to fall within legally established protected areas such as national parks, conservation areas and game reserves (protected-area categories I–IV). The largest share of forest in protected areas is found in South America (31 percent) and the lowest in Europe (5 percent) (Figure 37) (FAO, 2020).

FIGURE 37

PERCENTAGE OF FOREST IN LEGALLY PROTECTED AREAS, 2020

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According to FRA 2020, since 1990 the area of forest within protected-area categories I–IV has increased by at least 191 million hectares, but the rate of annual increase has slowed during the past decade (Figure 38). For FRA 2020, full time series were reported by only 129 countries, together accounting for 84 percent of the total forest area (FAO, 2020), so the actual increase in the area of forests in protected areas is likely to be slightly higher.

FIGURE 38

TRENDS IN AREA OF FOREST WITHIN PROTECTED AREAS BY REGION, 1990–2020 (MILLION HECTARES)

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New studies on trends in protected areas by forest type and global ecological zone

For this report, UNEP-WCMC conducted new studies on trends in protected areas by forest type and by global ecological zone and on trends in forest area within Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), i.e. sites contributing significantly to global biodiversity. These studies were based on four spatial data sets:

• ▸ Protected areas: the June 2019 release of the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, 2019).

• ▸ KBAs: the March 2019 release of the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas (BirdLife International, 2019).

• ▸ Land cover: annual land cover at ~300 m resolution from 1992 to 2015, from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI) Land Cover product (Bontemps et al., 2013), version 2.0.7.

• ▸ Ecological zones: the GEZ data set, second edition (FAO, 2012a).

It was not possible to exclude agricultural tree crops from the land-cover data, but since few of these fall within protected areas their inclusion is unlikely to significantly skew the key results presented below.

Note that while FAO asked countries to report on the area of forest in protected-area categories I–IV for FRA 2020, this study included also categories V and VI. The total area of forest in protected areas reported below is, therefore, considerably larger than that reported to FRA 2020.

Status and trends of protected areas by forest type. The area of tree cover within protected areas increased by an impressive 396 million hectares globally between 1992 and 2015, an average increase of 17 million hectares per year (Figure 39), reaching a total of 833 million hectares as of 2015 (Table 5). It is uncertain whether this increase is due to the widespread expansion of protected-area networks randomly overlapping with forests, or whether it represents the targeted protection of forest ecosystems.

FIGURE 39

INCREASE IN FOREST AREA WITHIN PROTECTED AREAS BY FOREST TYPE, 1992–2015 (MILLION HECTARES)

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TABLE 5

GLOBAL FOREST TYPES AND THEIR PROTECTION STATUS IN 2015

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The largest increase in area protected was of broadleaved evergreen (tropical) forest (Figure 39), which from 1992 increased by 226 million hectares to reach 397 million in 2015, the largest area of any forest type and the second highest percentage of forests in protected areas (Table 5). The growth in protected broadleaved evergreen forest represents over half the average global increase in protected forest each year since 1992. All other forest types experienced a markedly smaller increase during the 23-year period (Figure 39).

Status and trends of protected forest by global ecological zone. Worldwide, 20 terrestrial GEZs contain some tree cover. All zones had a greater proportion of their tree cover protected in 2015 than in 1992 (Figure 40). In three GEZs (tropical rainforest, subtropical dry forest and temperate oceanic forest), more than 30 percent of the tree cover is now in legally protected areas. In another three GEZs (subtropical humid forest, temperate steppe and boreal coniferous forest), less than 10 percent of the tree cover is in protected areas (Table 6). Areas having such a low proportion of forest in protected areas are mostly at higher latitudes (Figure 41). These areas should be considered priorities for further protection, given that representative protection of terrestrial ecosystems is a key component of Aichi Target 11.

FIGURE 40

INCREASE IN FORESTS WITHIN PROTECTED AREAS BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 1992–2015 (MILLION HECTARES)

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FIGURE 41

PERCENTAGE OF FOREST WITHIN PROTECTED AREAS BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE, 2015

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TABLE 6

TREE COVER WITHIN PROTECTED AREAS IN 2015, BY GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL ZONE

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Interestingly, despite having the highest rates of forest cover loss, the tropical rainforest GEZ experienced the highest levels of growth in tree cover in protected areas. This may largely be due to the protected-area network of Brazil, which now has the largest such network in the world (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, 2019).

As of 2015, temperate oceanic forest – found in Europe, Chile and parts of Oceania – had the greatest percentage in protected areas. This is partly due to the extensive protected-area network in Europe, which accounts for almost half the protected areas in the world (UNEP-WCMC, IUCN and NGS, 2020).

Trends in forest within Key Biodiversity Areas. KBAs are areas that explicitly meet at least one of 11 biodiversity criteria, for example representing more than 5 percent of the global extent of a globally endangered or critically endangered ecosystem type (IUCN, 2016). There are currently more than 15 000 KBAs in the world, covering a total area of over 1.9 billion hectares (Birdlife International, 2019). Approximately 95 percent of them are terrestrial, and more than 75 percent contain some forest cover.

The UNEP-WCMC study suggests that forest cover has marginally decreased in these KBAs between 1992 and 2015 – a result that aligns with what other sources have found for a subset of KBAs (Tracewski et al., 2016). KBA status in itself does not provide any formal forest protection, although KBAs that are fully or partly within protected areas or are in more remote locations have a lower likelihood of land-cover change than other KBAs. Despite the marginal reduction in forest cover in KBAs, protected-area coverage in these areas has been growing steadily over time, albeit with widely differing levels of protection in different countries (Ritchie et al., 2018).

Connectivity corridors

Increasingly, protected areas for biodiversity conservation are implemented following the so-called biological corridors or ecological networks approach (see e.g. Bennett and Mulongoy, 2006), which reconciles biophysical and human perspectives and contributes to the integrity of the broader agroecological landscape. Case Study 2 gives an example from Colombia, one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. Lessons learned from more than 30 years of implementing ecological corridors provide evidence on their benefits for conservation of forest cover, although not necessarily for conservation of the full range of species (Bennett and Mulongoy, 2006).

CASE STUDY 2

Connecting ecosystems to conserve nature and culture in the Caribbean Region of Colombia

Since 2016, the five-year BioCaribe Connectivity Initiative (Conexión BioCaribe) has been working to reduce the degradation and fragmentation of the valuable ecosystems in the Caribbean Region of northern Colombia. While exploitation of the region’s resources since precolonial times had driven economic growth, unsustainable practices were increasingly posing a threat to the region’s rich biodiversity, resilience of rural communities and food security (FAO, 2019i).

The core of the initiative is the design of 1.5 million hectares of connectivity corridors to link isolated protected areas (Figures A and B). These corridors are formed by environmentally friendly production systems that include silvopastoral systems, agroforestry, mixed orchards, water-source and shore restoration, mangrove restoration and wetland recovery with aquatic agriculture, combining species that support both biodiversity conservation and food production. The process includes territorial planning, social participation with an intercultural vision, effective management of existing protected areas, creation of new protected areas and creation of buffer zones connecting protected areas, and feasibility analysis of potential conservation incentive and certification schemes.

FIGURE A

PRIORITIES FOR SOCIO-ECOSYSTEM CONNECTIVITY IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION OF COLOMBIA

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FIGURE B

PLANNED CORRIDORS FOR SOCIO-ECOSYSTEM CONNECTIVITY IN THE CARIBBEAN REGION OF COLOMBIA

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The results (FAO, 2019i) have already included the following contributions to ecosystem connectivity and to the associated recovery of birds and mammals:

• ▸ about 13 500 hectares of new protected areas, and another 116 000 hectares in the process of creation;

• ▸ about 5 000 hectares farmed under alternative models of sustainable production, with more than 1 500 families having participated in farmer field schools;

• ▸ 1 300 hectares of protected-area buffer zones established with sustainable production plans; and

• ▸ 68 000 hectares of mosaics of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources established.

The corridors have been designed through a participatory process with local communities and institutions. This made it possible to design activities appropriate to the values and sociocultural traditions of ethnic communities. As a result, two indigenous and three Afrodescendant communities have incorporated the connectivity approach into their collective land-use plans.

The initiative also promoted the creation of a collective communication network for information dissemination and raising awareness of the activities of the communities, which has engaged children and young people in addressing the challenges facing each community. In 2020 the Colombian National System of Natural Parks is expected to take up responsibility for managing the network and maintaining cultural sovereignty in communication among these groups.

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Integrating people’s cultural and livelihood needs in the management of protected areas

Nearly 40 percent of protected and ecologically intact ecosystems, such as boreal and tropical primary forests, savannahs and marshes, are under the custodianship of indigenous peoples (Garnett et al., 2018) and it is increasingly acknowledged that the needs, knowledge and values of local communities that are associated with biodiversity conservation sites contribute to biodiversity maintenance (Pretty and Smith, 2004; Sayer et al., 2017). This recognition has paved the way for win–win strategies for enhancing livelihoods while protecting natural heritage. Whether human-ecosystem interactions within a protected area are sustainable and whether the levels of protection are adequate are key questions, as it is often difficult to monitor the effectiveness of protection (Andam et al., 2008; Leverington et al., 2010). In many cases, allowing activities in protected areas that support local livelihoods, such as sustainable harvesting of timber and NWFPs (Case Study 3 and Box 47) and sustainable tourism (Case Study 4) have been effective in providing positive incentives to local people to conserve the resources.

CASE STUDY 3

Community concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala

The Maya Biosphere Reserve was created in 1990 to protect the largest area of tropical forest in Central America. It occupies about 2.1 million hectares, including 767 000 hectares under strict protection, 848 400 hectares under multiple use (including concessions) and 497 500 hectares of private holdings in the buffer zone. About 533 000 hectares of concessions have been awarded in the multiple-use area with explicit conservation objectives (see Figure A).

FIGURE A

FOREST CONCESSIONS IN THE MAYA BIOSPHERE RESERVE, PETéN, GUATEMALA

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Between 1994 and 2002, 14 concessions were awarded in the reserve, including industrial timber concessions ranging in size from 2 hectares to about 130 000 hectares. Twelve concessions were awarded to communities following the Peace Accords of 1996, which specified that by 1999 the Government was to award 100 000 hectares in concessions to small- and medium-scale farmers. The remaining two were awarded to private timber companies. Since then, two community concessions have been cancelled and one suspended because of heavy farming pressure, low economic potential and the presence of drug trafficking. Concessions currently cover 485 122 hectares (Gretzinger, 2016).

Certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a requirement for maintaining any concession. It has functioned as a mechanism for accountability and complements the monitoring capacities of public institutions, which are limited.

The community concessions are managed in an integrated way for diversified uses, including collection of NWFPs and tourism. However, the bulk of the revenues are from timber, especially high-value species such as mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) (Rodas and Stoian, 2015). About one-third of the profits are reinvested in the forest through fire patrols and forest protection.

Overall, logging intensity is reported to be low in the community concessions. During 2012–2016, it was 0.7 m³ per hectare for mahogany (0.29 trees per hectare) and 1.6 m³ per hectare overall (Rodas and Stoian, 2015). The number of timber species harvested ranges from 4 to 19, with industrial concessions generally harvesting more species than community concessions.

Results in terms of biodiversity conservation in the concessions include sustainable levels of timber harvesting (Grogan et al., 2016), successful control of forest fires and reduced incidences of forest fires during El Niño and La Niña years (CONAP and WCS 2018), maintenance of jaguar populations (Polisar et al., 2016) and low to zero deforestation, which resulted in a 0.1 percent increase in forest cover between 2016 and 2017 (CONAP and WCS, 2018). In contrast, deforestation in the core-zone protected areas (not included in the concessions) has been more variable, averaging about 1 percent (Hodgdon et al., 2015).

Development-related outcomes include increased timber revenues, reduced outmigration, enhanced employment opportunities, social investments, capacity-building and improved access to bank credits as a result of the concessionaires’ increasing credibility:

• ▸ Between 2012 and 2016, community concessions earned about USD 25 million from timber sales. In concessions with more diversified production (wood and NWFPs) and greater capacity for value addition, the forest income of participating households was 1.6 to 2.8 times the poverty line (Stoian and Rodas, 2018).

• ▸ Forest income (which represents approximately 38 percent of family income) plus the social services provided by the concessions, such as scholarships and health care, have helped to reduce emigration. On average, remittances in the concession areas contribute only 2 percent of family income (Stoian et al., 2018).

• ▸ Employment opportunities in production and commercialization of NWFPs, such as xate palm fronds (Chamaedorea spp.), ramón seeds from the breadnut tree (Brosimum alicastrum), honey and pimiento, are particularly important for women.

• ▸ Concessions have invested their profits in community projects such as infrastructure (road construction and maintenance), health services and education (scholarships, teacher remuneration). Surveys showed that community members preferred in-kind distributions and reinvestment of forest income to cash (Bocci et al., 2018; Stoian et al., 2018).

• ▸ Concession management and certification requirements provided opportunities and motivation to strengthen the technical and administrative capacity of the community enterprises.

• ▸ Communities can access finance through banks that accept the Annual Operating Plan as collateral. Many communities finance logging operations through up-front payments (with interest incorporated in the payment).

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CASE STUDY 4

Integrating local communities and their livelihood needs in the management of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, Jordan

Jordan is a semi-arid and drought-prone country. It has limited forest cover of 88 000 hectares, concentrated in the highland areas, which are characterized by a Mediterranean climate. The forests have a crucial role in conserving fauna and flora in Jordan, but forest and rangeland degradation has resulted in soil erosion, damage to watershed areas, loss of biodiversity and loss of valuable ecosystem services (MoP and MoE, 2008). In an effort to conserve its limited forest resources and forest-related biodiversity, the country has declared some of these forests as national reserves and delegated the authority to manage them to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), a national NGO.

The 32 000-hectare Dana Biosphere Reserve (DBR), established in 1989 (Figure A), is Jordan’s largest nature reserve. It embraces four different biogeographical zones and six vegetation types including an important patch of relatively intact juniper forest (Juniperus phoenicea). It is also home to the southernmost remaining forest community of cypress (Cupressus sempervirens). A total of 891 plant species have been recorded (of which three are new to science) (RSCN, 2018). The reserve is home to 449 animals, of which many are rare and some threatened with extinction; these include the sand cat (Felis margarita), the Syrian wolf (Canis lupus arabs), the Nubian Ibex (Capra nubiana), the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) and the Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastyx aegyptia) (RSCN, 2018). So far, 25 animals listed as Endangered or Vulnerable have been found in the reserve, making it an area of global importance (RSCN, 2018). DBR is part of a larger area identified by BirdLife International as the Dana Important Bird Area. The most important tree species in this larger area is the Mediterranean cypress (Cupressus sempervirens).

FIGURE A

DANA BIOSPHERE RESERVE, JORDAN

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RSCN’s flexible conservation approach integrates environmental, social and economic goals, local people’s livelihoods and the local economy. DBR is home to four ethnic communities, distributed in about 16 villages or settlements in and around the reserve, with a total population of 31 000 people who are all involved, in one way or another, in the management of the reserve. The reserve management plan is well integrated in the local plans for economic and rural development. The reserve provides the local communities with 85 permanent jobs and hundreds of part-time jobs. Local communities also earn income from the sale of handicrafts, medicinal and aromatic plant products and produce from hunting and from hosting visitors in their houses and serving them traditional foods.

Regulation of livestock grazing under the management plan that has had positive results. The plan includes a provision allowing community members to bring their animals to graze in some parts of the reserve in the dry season, when fodder outside the reserve becomes scarce. The communities are also trained in the practice of rotational grazing. Most of the local communities have nomadic and pastoral backgrounds, and the regulated grazing adopted in the management plan represents a significant support to their livelihood; this has contributed to a strong sense of ownership among local communities and commitment to protecting the reserve. The total monetary value of the feed that the reserve provides to the 17 500 head of livestock owned by the local communities is estimated at approximately USD 2 219 000 annually (RSCN, 2018).

The biosphere reserve is attractive to an array of local and international tourists because of its biological and archaeological significance. Development of ecotourism infrastructure, together with revenue from fees, sale of wood and NWFPs and tourist activities, has allowed RSCN to generate significant income to support the conservation and sustainable management of the reserve. RSCN has established a guesthouse, an ecolodge, a campsite with 30 tents accommodating up to 120 people and an array of hiking trails (RSCN and Wild Jordan, 2017). The success of tourism in the reserve has helped RSCN to gain the trust of the Government and local people and to generate additional finance from national and external financiers for use in conservation activities and in support to the livelihoods of the local communities. RSCN has also provided capacity-building opportunities for local communities in entrepreneurial skills for running small business projects and in organizing cooperatives with legal status to facilitate the procurement of loans from national lending institutions to fund community-based projects.

The iconic Nubian Ibex is a vulnerable species according to the IUCN Red List.

© Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, Amman, Jordan

Local women trained by RSCN on handicraft production as an alternative income-generation activity.

© Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, Amman, Jordan

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Conservation effectiveness of protected areas

Protected areas have led to improved forest condition, particularly where the needs of local and forest-dependent people have been taken into account. Evidence from Brazil suggests that the performance of protected areas under different governance regimes (sustainable use, indigenous lands, strict protection and other variations) is closely related to location, deforestation pressure and enforcement (Soares-Filho et al., 2010). Studies suggest that extractive reserves in Brazil resulted in a dramatic reduction of annual deforestation from 2.78 million hectares in 2004 to 460 000 hectares in 2012 – a 74 percent decrease (Instituto Socioambiental, 2015, cited in RRI, 2015).

In Bhutan, where more than 50 percent of land is within protected areas, assessments conducted 20 years after the initiation of the first Biodiversity Action Plan, developed in 1997 (Government of Bhutan, 1997), show positive results for conservation of species and biodiversity awareness. However, they also identify challenges, such as lack of coordination across a broad range of stakeholders; uncertainties related to the financial sustainability of protected-area management and technical means of implementation; conflict between policies; and difficulties in monitoring status and progress and in supporting local stakeholders. Human–wildlife conflict has also become an important issue; the reduced authority of local people to manage the impact of wildlife on crops and livestock has at times triggered backlash against conservation policies (Mongbo et al., 2011; Lham et al., 2019) (See also Box 51 in Sustainable hunting and wildlife management).

There is strong evidence of benefits from rights-based approaches for conservation of forest cover in protected areas, but not necessarily for conservation of the full range of diverse species (Campese et al., 2009). For instance, tourism and sport hunting might have a positive impact on some species but not on others (Sayer et al., 2017). A successful rights-based approach to protected areas depends on availability of capacity to exercise monitoring, support to communities in their traditional practices and enforcement of rules and regulations.

According to data provided by countries for FRA 2020, 422 million hectares of forests are primarily designated for the conservation of biodiversity, an increase of 111 million hectares since 1990. The area designated is now equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s forest area. Globally, the largest part was designated between 2000 and 2010; the rate of annual increase has decreased in the past decade (FAO, 2020) (Figure 42). Some of these areas are found within legally protected areas, while others are not. The reason this figure is well below the area of forest in protected areas reported above is that many protected areas are designated for multiple use (e.g. conservation of biodiversity combined with recreation or ecotourism) or for other primary purposes. Brazil, for example, reported almost all its protected areas as primarily designated for social services (for the protection of the culture and way of life of forest-dependent people) and only areas with restricted use as primarily designated for conservation of biodiversity.

FIGURE 42

TRENDS IN FOREST AREA PRIMARILY DESIGNATED FOR CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY, 1990–2020

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Other effective area-based conservation measures

The term “other effective area-based conservation measure” (OECM) was introduced into Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 of the CBD’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 (CBD, 2010a) in 2010, providing a modality for recognizing biodiversity conservation outside protected areas, where biodiversity conservation may not necessarily be the primary management objective.

CBD Decision 14/8, adopted in 2018, defines an OECM as “a geographically defined area other than a protected area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and, where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio-economic and other locally relevant values” (CBD, 2018a). The same decision defines four criteria for identifying OECMs: the area is not currently recognized as a protected area; the area is governed and managed; the area achieves a sustained and effective contribution to in situ conservation of biodiversity; and associated ecosystem functions and services and cultural, spiritual, socio-economic and other locally relevant values are maintained.

Examples of potential OECMs in forest habitats identified by IUCN WCPA (2018) and Jonas et al. (2018) include:

• ▸ territories and areas conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities that are not officially protected areas (see Box 48);

• ▸ wildlife conservancies adjacent to national parks or protected areas;

• ▸ privately managed areas with primary conservation objectives and demonstrated effectiveness that are not reported as protected areas in national reports;

• ▸ areas of active habitat restoration to restore degraded ecosystems of high value for biodiversity and ecosystem services, e.g. restored coastal wetlands and mangroves;

• ▸ hunting reserves that maintain natural habitats and flora and fauna as well as viable populations of hunted and non-hunted native species;

• ▸ some areas of forest that are permanently set aside, such as old-growth, primary or other high-biodiversity-value forests, and that are protected from threats (see Case Study 5); and

• ▸ other areas that may comply with the OECM criteria such as military areas, sacred groves or Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Sites (see Box 32 in Chapter 4).

In summary, OECMs provide an opportunity for documenting the spatial continuum of areas managed for biodiversity conservation, from state-owned protected areas to other forms of management on other public, private or traditionally owned lands that can make important contributions to biodiversity conservation even if conservation is not the primary management objective. Specifically, an OECM can complement protected areas by filling gaps, connecting habitats and conserving species that occur outside formally protected areas. However, as pointed out by Dudley et al. (2018), OECMs can contribute to this end only if the key drivers of biodiversity loss are addressed and if key enabling conditions are in place, such as the respect for human rights, secure tenure and social safeguards.

Mainstreaming biodiversity in forest management

Biodiversity is already a well-recognized element of the concept of sustainable forest management. The role of forests in maintaining biodiversity is also explicitly recognized by the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030 (UN, 2017a).

The 2016 United Nations Biodiversity Conference, held in Cancun, Mexico, called for the mainstreaming of biodiversity across all agricultural sectors and the tourism sector. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) Scientific and Advisory Panel describes mainstreaming biodiversity as: “the process of embedding biodiversity considerations into policies, strategies and practices of key public and private actors that impact or rely on biodiversity, so that it is conserved and sustainably and equitably used both locally and globally” (Huntley and Redford, 2014).

Mainstreaming biodiversity in forestry involves prioritizing forest policies, plans, programmes, projects and investments that have a positive impact on biodiversity at the ecosystem, species and genetic levels, and on ecosystem services (see example in Box 49). This involves enhancing the sustainable use of biodiversity in forest and ecosystems and minimizing the impact of the forest sector on all other ecosystems.

Certification schemes (see example in Box 50) and REDD+ both have mandatory environmental and socio-economic safeguards that aim to conserve biodiversity. Several guidelines are available for mainstreaming biodiversity into forest management, including for production forests (ITTO and IUCN, 2009), planted forests (Carnus et al., 2006) and restoration efforts (Beatty, Cox and Kuzee, 2018).

Mainstreaming biodiversity in community-managed forests

An increasing amount of research show evidence that forests managed by indigenous peoples and local communities are at least as effective at maintaining forest cover as those under stricter protection regimes (Porter-Bolland et al., 2012, Stevens et al., 2014; Blackman et al., 2017; Blackman and Veit, 2018, Tauli-Corpuz, Alcorn and Molnar, 2018). Community-managed forests outside protected areas can deliver not only improved forest cover but also other conservation benefits such as maintenance or increases in wildlife populations, as has been demonstrated in Australia, Brazil and Canada (Schuster et al., 2019), in Nepal (Anup, 2017) and in the United Republic of Tanzania (Case Study 6).

CASE STUDY 6

Participatory forest management in the United Republic of Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania has about 48.1 million hectares of forests covering approximately 55 percent of the total land area. Woodlands provide 95 percent of the country’s energy, both rural and urban, and 75 percent of the country’s materials for construction. Forests also provide various non-wood products and are important for water catchment. However, the forests are under intense pressure from human settlements, illegal logging, charcoal production, fires, mining and infrastructure development, which is leading to an estimated 372 816 hectares of forests being cleared each year (MNRT, 2015).

In its Nationally Determined Contribution to address climate change, the United Republic of Tanzania has recognized the importance of forests for both climate change adaptation and reaching the country’s emissions reductions goal. The country’s NDC is one of the few that emphasizes upscaling participatory forest management (PFM), along with coordinated implementation of REDD+ actions and strengthened protection and conservation of natural forests.

The United Republic of Tanzania has one of the most progressive legal frameworks for customary land rights recognition and PFM in Africa. Customary land rights are recognized within the boundaries of villages, and PFM has been mainstreamed as a government programme. In total, communities own almost 22 million hectares of forest land. PFM is most prevalent in the Miombo woodlands, which are estimated to account for more than 90 percent of the country’s forested land (Lupala et al., 2015).

Areas under PFM have seen a reduction in uncontrolled logging and other forest disturbances; a noticeable recovery of forest condition; a decrease in soil erosion and overgrazing and an associated improvement in water quality and quantity; reoccupation of beehives; and an overall increase in wildlife abundance (Patenaude and Lewis, 2014). Open-access forest areas, in contrast, are subject to unsustainable practices such as agricultural expansion, wildfires, excessive livestock grazing and illegal harvesting of timber and NWFPs (Blomley et al., 2008; Burgess et al., 2010).

The recognition of customary lands and the framework allowing devolution of land and resource rights to the local level, in keeping with the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (FAO, 2012b), have given local people the autonomy to manage their own resources. Allowing communities to form their own governing bodies and make their own rules is the first step in empowering local people to manage forests and other natural resources sustainably. For example, collective management of the coastal village forest reserves in Bagamoyo District has avoided a range of threats, including unsustainable hunting, mining and wood extraction for timber, poles, charcoal and handicrafts, and thus deforestation within the reserves has been limited (see Figure A).

FIGURE A

LIMITED DEFORESTATION OBSERVED WITHIN COLLECTIVELY MANAGED VILLAGE FOREST RESERVES, BAGAMOYO DISTRICT, UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

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However, the PFM programme in the United Republic of Tanzania has not yet met its full potential in terms of contributing to livelihoods. Challenges include delays in implementation, lack of recognition of indigenous peoples, limited devolution of rights (especially in joint forest management) and difficulty in engaging pastoralists. While advances have been made in recognizing collective tenure rights, some larger forest governance issues still need attention, including incentive systems, strengthening of community institutions and increased investment and human resources.

Members of the Chaga tribal community in Shamble Juu village, United Republic of Tanzania.

©FAO/Felipe Rodriguez

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Many assessments have also been conducted on the impacts of conservation and development projects on local communities (Plumptre et al., 2004; West, Igoe and Brockington, 2006; Sayer et al., 2007). However, not many studies consider outcomes for both conservation and local communities, and in practice demonstrable win–win solutions are rare (Southworth, Nagendra, and Munroe, 2006; Chan et al., 2007; McShane et al., 2011). Some of the shortcomings that have been identified include predetermined conservation goals and non-negotiable reserve boundaries (Sharpe, 1998); limited transfer of powers to local institutions (Ribot, 2002); resource capture by elites when forest management is decentralized (Persha, Agrawal and Chhatre, 2011); limited exclusion rights; and vulnerability of such programmes to shifting government policies and uncertain support (RRI, 2015).

Sustainable hunting and wildlife management

The harvest and consumption of wildlife remain critical to the food security, health, cultures and livelihoods of millions of people. Unregulated hunting is a major cause of loss of certain species (see Chapter 3). However, contrary to the views of many, sustainable use is a proven mechanism for wildlife conservation. Indeed, in some places, consumptive wildlife users remain the primary contributors to wildlife management and state-run conservation efforts (Case Study 7).

To complement CBD Decision 14/7 on sustainable wildlife management (CBD, 2018b), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and CBD, in collaboration with members of the Collaborative Partnership on Wildlife, put forward the following set of recommendations for the sustainable use of wild meat (Coad et al., 2019):

• ▸ Create an effective enabling environment. This may involve:

  • — revision of national hunting laws, in consultation with a broad group of stakeholders, to ensure that they consider both food security and conservation concerns and can be fairly and practically enforced;

  • — devolution of land tenure to indigenous peoples and local communities, with the support of a national enforcement agency; and

  • — development of regional and national wild-meat monitoring frameworks to foster evidence-based policymaking.

• ▸ Manage rural supply and reduce urban demand for wild meat. Interconnected interventions in the commodity chain can include community- or co-managed protected areas, wildlife ranching and community conservancies, payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes and certification mechanisms. Companies involved in timber harvesting, mining or extensive agriculture in forest habitats must take steps to ensure the sustainability of wild-meat harvest and use within their concessions by providing food alternatives (such as meat from livestock) for their staff, helping to enforce equitable hunting regulations in collaboration with local communities and preventing the use of concession roads and vehicles by external commercial hunters. In newly urbanizing areas, where nearby wildlife populations are severely depleted but alternatives to wild meat are not widely available, governments and development agencies should help to develop viable alternative foods, such as meat from livestock. In large metropolitan areas where wild meat is generally consumed as a luxury product, interventions may include targeted campaigns to change consumer behaviour, alongside adequate enforcement of laws governing the trade of wild meat. One possible option for ensuring food security and nutrition, sustained local income and environmental health is to bolster the sustainable management of fast-producing wild species.

• ▸ Promote evidence-based participatory management. Projects set up to manage wildlife for meat must be carried out with full community engagement and consent. Furthermore, they must be designed to incorporate a theory of change and monitoring and evaluation for adaptive management, so that project successes and failures can inform future management interventions.

Since October 2017, a consortium of partners, including FAO, CIFOR, WCS and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), has been implementing a seven-year Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme. This programme aims to halt unsustainable wildlife hunting, conserve biodiversity and natural heritage and strengthen people’s livelihoods and food security in 12 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. In each country, the programme aims to improve the institutional and legal framework for the sustainable use of meat from wild species resilient to hunting or fishing, as well as the management of these wild species; to increase the supply of alternative protein; and to reduce the consumption of wild meat to sustainable levels. The programme emphasizes the importance of monitoring, evaluation, learning and knowledge for eventual upscaling. The initiative is funded by the EU.

Wildlife management also entails dealing with human–wildlife conflicts, particularly when there are no fences around protected areas in order to allow for migration of wildlife species. See Box 51.

BOX 51

HUMAN–WILDLIFE CONFLICT

Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) occurs when animals pose a direct and recurring threat to the livelihood or safety of people, often leading to the persecution of that species. In many regions these conflicts have intensified as a result of human population growth and changes in land use. In general, the consequences of HWC include destruction of crops, reduced farm productivity, competition for grazing lands and water, livestock predation, injury and death to farmers, damage to infrastructure and increased risk of disease transmission from wildlife to livestock. HWC often triggers negative sentiments towards conservation, especially when protected areas are being established or expanded.

HWC is of major concern to wildlife conservation and human well-being in Africa. For example, in 2017 more than 8 000 HWC incidents were reported in Namibia alone (World Bank, 2019). Hyenas killed more than 600 cattle in the Zambezi Region of Namibia between 2011 and 2016 and there were more than 4 000 incidents of crop damage, mostly caused by elephants moving through the region (NACSO, 2017a). HWC has also become a major problem in many countries in Asia and the Pacific. In Sri Lanka, for example, each year as many as 80 people are killed by elephants and more than 230 elephants are killed by farmers. The Sri Lankan elephant is listed as endangered, and only 2 500–4 000 individuals remain in the wild (IIED, 2019).

With specific reference to forests, a high density of large ungulates, for example deer, can cause severe damage to the forest and can threaten regeneration by trampling or browsing small trees, rubbing themselves on trees or stripping tree bark. This behaviour can have important economic implications and can lead to polarization between forest and wildlife managers (CPW, 2016).

Many responses have been developed to prevent and mitigate HWC, broadly categorized as lethal and non-lethal. They range from methods that require expensive infrastructure (e.g. electric fences) and government involvement (e.g. compensation and insurance schemes) to methods that can be carried out by individuals with low-cost tools (e.g. guarding of livestock, burning chilli pepper bricks) (Nyhus, 2016). Beehive fences, which are relatively affordable to build and maintain, are an innovative approach to human–elephant conflict that has been willingly adopted by farmers in Kenya. These fences are a natural deterrent that takes advantage of elephants’ instinctive avoidance of African honey bees while providing pollination services and “elephant-friendly” honey (King et al., 2017; Save the Elephants, 2019).

To grapple with the challenge, many countries are starting to explicitly include HWC in national policies and strategies for wildlife management, development and poverty alleviation. At the national level, cross-sectoral collaboration between forestry, wildlife, agriculture, livestock and other relevant sectors is key. FAO actively supports the efforts of member countries to better manage HWC by facilitating cross-sectoral dialogue, providing technical assistance in the development of national policies and legal frameworks and helping to share information on good practices and tools. For example, an HWC toolkit was developed in 2010 (Le Bel, Mapuivre and Czudek, 2010) for use by farmers and local communities in southern Africa and has now been adapted and translated into French for use in Central Africa (Nguinguiri et al., 2017).

Beehive fence in Kenya.

©Lucy King
SOURCE: Lucy King, The Elephants and Bees Project, Save The Elephants.

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At the global level, Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 (to protect at least 17 percent of terrestrial area by 2020) has been exceeded for forest ecosystems as a whole, as evidenced both in the figures reported to FRA 2020 and in the study prepared by UNEP-WCMC for this volume. No attempt has been made to assess the overall effectiveness of forest protected areas, but given the 53 percent decline in the forest-specialist index between 1970 and 2014 (see Measuring forest vertebrate population trends), there is undoubtedly room for improvement.

In terms of “ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas,” the analysis of protected areas by global ecological zone (see New studies on trends in protected areas) indicates that less than 10 percent of subtropical humid forest, temperate steppe and boreal coniferous forest is currently protected.

Other areas that should be given high priority include areas with high values for both biodiversity significance and intactness, such as the northern Andes and Central America, southeastern Brazil, parts of the Congo Basin, southern Japan, the Himalayas and various parts of Southeast Asia and New Guinea (Figure 22).

Limited progress has been made on classifying specific forest areas as OECMs given that this is a recent concept, but guidance on this category is being developed and it has significant potential for forests.

As seen in the case studies in this chapter, original approaches to forest biodiversity conservation, both within and outside protected areas, demonstrate some measure of success in achieving a balance of positive biodiversity and socio-economic outcomes, perhaps offering opportunities for upscaling or replication. Common elements underlying successful outcomes include participatory approaches, attention to property rights, cross-sectoral approaches (also referred to as territorial or landscape approaches) and capacity-building. Economic approaches that result, directly or indirectly, in positive effects on local revenues or business opportunities can also play an important role in incentivizing positive biodiversity outcomes.

• ▸ forest area annual net change rate;

• ▸ above-ground biomass stock in forest;

• ▸ proportion of forest area located within legally established protected areas (indicating actions taken to protect and maintain biological diversity and other natural and cultural resources);

• ▸ proportion of forest area under a long-term forest management plan (indicating the intention to manage the forest for long-term purposes); and

• ▸ forest area under an independently verified forest management certification scheme (providing further qualification of the forest management).

The first three address the environmental values of forests, while the last two consider all dimensions of sustainable forest management, including the social and economic aspects. Data for the first four sub-indicators are collected through the FRA country reporting process, while data on certified forest area are obtained from the main certification bodies. For each indicator, a detailed description of definitions and methodology is provided in the SDG metadata repository (UN, 2020). The result is presented as a dashboard showing progress for each sub-indicator. While progress has been made on the last three of the sub-indicators, the first two are showing negative trends at the global level due to the net loss of forest area.

With regard to Target 3.2 of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030 (UN, 2017a) (see Box 52), figures reported to FRA 2020 indicate that the area of forest under long-term management plans has increased significantly in the past 30 years to an estimated 2.05 billion hectares (equivalent to 54 percent of the global forest area) in 2020 (FAO, 2020).

While the previous chapters indicate that progress is being made in conserving forest and forest biodiversity, the widespread loss of biodiversity continues to pose a serious risk to human well-being and security. In assessing a range of interactions among SDGs, IPBES (2019a) found that current negative trends in the status of biodiversity and ecosystems will undermine progress towards 80 percent (35 out of 44) of the SDG targets assessed. Thus, at issue are not only the effects of economic development activities on biodiversity but also the effects of biodiversity (or rather, biodiversity loss) on economic development.

This chapter looks at the trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity conservation and other sustainable development goals and provides examples of successful approaches. It further outlines some of the key elements of an enabling environment for balanced solutions and presents some innovative tools to help monitoring progress.

SOFO 2018 highlighted the potential contributions of forests to the SDGs, and a recent publication by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations’ Special Project on World Forests, Society and Environment (Katila et al., 2019) analyses the impact of the SDGs on forests. Both documents highlight the crucial role of forests in meeting the SDGs. While the different SDGs are interlinked and indivisible and actions that harness strong synergies between SDGs are mutually reinforcing, there may be trade-offs in the short term.

Three key messages in Katila et al. (2019) are particularly pertinent:

1. Human needs shape the value people place on forests. Given that people and their interests are very diverse, the implementation of one or more SDGs will, in many cases, result in both winners and losers, depending on the impacts on forests.

2. The assumption of an a priori positive correlation between forest conservation and societal development is misleading. Increasing the forest area is not always the best answer to complex development needs and while fulfilment of some of the SDGs might result in forest loss, this may drive social and economic development, e.g. through agricultural expansion or more space for housing and infrastructure.

3. It is crucially important that potential trade-off