A new study produced by a collection of NGOs, think tanks, and academics said that international commitments to halt deforestation have not yet been backed up by sufficient action or funding to tackle the challenge.

The groups have tracked deforestation rates against global commitments and found that action is moving too slowly, and exacerbating in some cases.

The Forest Declaration Assessment‘s new study, released on Tuesday, showed the world’s progress on deforestation is well behind what’s needed to hit global targets made at COP26.

“All these promises have been made to halt deforestation, to fund forest protection. But the opportunity to make progress is passing us by year after year,” said Erin Matson, a senior consultant at Climate Focus and the report’s lead author.

The Forest Declaration Assessment (FDA) is backed by environmental NGOs, think tanks, and researchers, including the Zoological Society of London, WWF, World Resources Institute, and CDP.

FDA tracks progress against global goals including the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, using the 2018-20 average deforestation rate as a baseline. The Glasgow Declaration aims to halt deforestation by 2030 and was signed by 145 countries at COP26, covering 90% of the world’s forests.

Global deforestation increased in 2022 to 6.6 mln hectares of forest loss, well above the upper limit of 5.4 mln hectares by the end of 2022 to be on track to meet halting deforestation commitments, the report said.

Global deforestation between 2010-2022 (Source: Forest Declaration Assessment 2023)

This challenge is particularly acute for primary tropical countries, where 4.1 mln ha were lost in 2022 compared to the 3 mln ha the commitments need to be on track by 2030.

Plant and animal species in forests are also declining drastically. The report used tracked species abundance of 1,428 forest specialist species through its “forest species index”, which showed these species have declined by more than 79% since 1970.

However, tree cover loss in areas of high conservation does appear to be improving, forest loss in these areas has declined by 30% between 2018 and 2022, the report said.

Ten countries that had the greatest absolute areas of deforestation displayed mixed progress in 2022. Malaysia, Paraguay, and Indonesia were deemed as being on track, but the positive effect was outweighed by the failure to reduce deforestation in countries like Brazil and Bolivia in 2022.

Of the three countries with the greatest absolute areas of deforestation, only Indonesia met the Assessment-identified target for 2022, with a 21% decrease in deforestation from 2018-20 baseline levels.

The study also explored how forest degradation trends look globally, which results from a gradual loss of trees and species and so often not as obvious as deforestation due to land conversion.

The decline in forest structure, species composition and ecological functions was mixed, with data only available through 2021, the report said.

There was increased degradation in tropical and non-tropical regions of Latin America and Africa; however, in tropical and non-tropical Asia, Europe, and North America the degradation rate slowed.

Part of the challenge of reducing deforestation remains the shift of funding allocations away from high-conversion industries such as agriculture and extractives, the authors said.

There is “a yawning gap” between actual and required funding to halt deforestation, according to the FDA, although they acknowledged that tracking green investments is not possible due to a lack of transparency and disclosure information.

However, the annual $2.2 billion in public funds channelled to projects to protect forests every year is barely a fraction of the investment needed, the group said.

Just 58 out of 150 assessed financial institutions have a deforestation policy and 42 actively monitor compliance, suggesting that the private sector is still lagging in terms of action on deforestation.

The group welcomed the upcoming EU deforestation regulation. However, they raised concerns about forest degradation being too narrowly defined, which currently excludes degradation from unsustainable timber harvesting, and only considers degradation as the conversion of primary or secondary forests to plantations.

Next month, the Forest Declaration Assessment and Systems Change Lab will launch a “Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration Dashboard” to track the collective progress countries have made toward the goals of the Declaration.

By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com

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