STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014
8
Forests are more than a solution to climate change
The science is clear about two things. First, climate change poses
a significant threat to human well-being, with developing societies
and poor households most vulnerable to harm. The effects of
extreme weather events, rising sea levels, food insecurity, water
scarcity, and displacement will be felt disproportionately by poor
communities who tend to lack essential infrastructure, rely more on
natural resources for food and income, and with fewer assets, have
a harder time coping with shocks.
1
Second, protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests is an
essential component of any strategy to stabilize the climate.
Deforestation accounts for 11% of annual global greenhouse gas
emissions, and the mitigation potential of forests is even greater
due to the potential to reduce forest loss as well as to increase the
carbon sequestered by forest regrowth.
2
Emerging evidence increasingly supports two additional
propositions. Forests make essential – and often invisible –
contributions to development above and beyond their role in
mitigating the emissions that cause climate change. Further,
measures to protect forests can be aligned to advance rights,
livelihoods, and governance objectives, multiplying the positive
impacts of action, including action by and for affected communities.
Forests contribute to rural livelihoods and broader
development goals
Development planners often assume that commercial exploitation or
conversion of forests to other uses are the best ways to boost national
economic growth and rural incomes. But forests already make
significant contributions to rural livelihoods and broader human
well-being in ways not yet captured in national statistics. As a result,
the losses of forest goods and services are seldom weighed against
the potential benefits of intensive logging, mining, or conversion of
forest lands to plantation agriculture. Yet the value of intact forests
for the food security, energy security, health, and safety of societies
throughout the tropics is becoming increasingly evident.
Food security is a top priority on development agendas, but the
role that forests play – both directly via livelihood contributions
and indirectly through ecosystem services that benefit agriculture
– is often overlooked. A study published in 2014 revealed that
households in and around tropical forests derive on average 21%
of their income from the harvest of wild forest products. A third of
this is in the form of forest foods such as wild fruits and bushmeat,
which are often important for nutrition.
3
Clearing forests for food crops could actually undermine food
security by destroying the ecological infrastructure that supports
Why forests are critical for development
By
Frances Seymor
Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington, DC; Director General of CIFOR, the Center for International Forestry Research 2006–2012
Small rainforest in a big world
Source: Based on data from the MODIS Land Cover Group, Boston University
Rainforest
Land
How much rainforest
in the world?
Million square kilometres
9
Total Earth surface
Water
361
Land
149
