STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014
9
agricultural productivity. Forests regulate water quality and
availability by reducing runoff, filtering, and facilitating water
recycling.
4
New science suggests that forests play a much greater
role in driving the water cycle at broader scales than previously
thought, carrying moisture from oceans into continental interiors
and essentially driving rainfall patterns.
5
Energy security is also provided by forests. For communities without
access to modern energy sources, forests provide fuelwood and
charcoal. Forested watersheds supply water to reservoirs behind
hydroelectric dams as well as to irrigation systems, and protect
against erosion and sedimentation that shortens the useful life of
such infrastructure. A recent study calculated that cloud forests,
though covering only a relatively small area (4.4%) of relevant
watersheds, supply 21% of the surface water to the reservoirs
above dams in the tropics.
6
Human health is supported by healthy forests beyond providing
nutrition and clean water. For the majority of people in
developing countries who rely largely on traditional medicine,
access to forest plants and animals with medicinal properties
is critical to well-being.
7
And as deforestation is commonly
achieved through intentional burning, and degraded forests
are more vulnerable to wildfires, a significant benefit of
maintaining intact forests is the avoided damage to respiratory
health caused by smoke and haze.
8
Human safety is also served by intact forests, which increase
resilience to other extreme events in addition to forest fires.
Complex root systems increase water infiltration and prevent
erosion, helping to reduce both landslides and flooding. For coastal
communities, mangrove forests intercept wave energy, providing
some protection against storms and tsunamis.
9
Further, many of
the goods and services provided by forests are important for
climate adaptation, by enhancing resilience to the extreme
weather events that are expected to increase in frequency and
severity with climate instability.
10
Protecting forests can be aligned with rights,
livelihoods, and governance objectives
The contributions of forests to development described above are of
greatest value to the most proximate communities
11
who thus have the
most to lose from forest destruction or appropriation of forest wealth
by others. People in and around forests are thus essential partners in
the struggle to protect forests for climate and development benefits.
Recognizing the rights of local forest stewards is a first step. State
conservation efforts, sometimes legitimized by international
support, have often come at the expense of local communities.
12
Indigenous communities empowered to exercise customary rights
over forest resources are increasingly recognized as effective forest
stewards. In the Xingu Indigenous Park in Brazil’s Mato Grosso,
local enforcement efforts have secured the borders of indigenous
lands, despite pressure from ranchers, loggers, miners and other
outside actors vying for control.
13
Increased transparency and accountability are tools to fight
deforestation as well as to improve governance more generally. While
some deforestation results from intentional government policies, a
significant proportion is due to illegal logging, encroachment into
formally protected areas, and licensing of forest exploitation and
conversion through corrupt practices.
14
Elites are thus enabled to
effectivelyprivatizepublicassets,imposecostsondownstreamandlocal
communities, and undermine respect for the rule of law. Civil society’s
response to Indonesia’s forest fires in 2013 demonstrated the power of
on-the-ground monitoring coupled with remote sensing technologies to
detect illegal removal of forest cover, effectively pressuring government
officials and corporate leaders to improve forest management.
15
Forest protection efforts, designed appropriately, can thus be a triple
win, safeguarding the rights and livelihoods of local communities
while generating climate and development benefits for society at large.
The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Sara del Fierro in the
preparation of this essay.
