Climate youth leaders call for urgent protection of forests on International Arbor Day
carla-anide guillaume (can), clara azarian (fra), hannah schartmann (ger), rachele de angelis (ita), tetsu watanabe (jap), jouja maamri (Uk), pauline melvin (us), ariane giraneza (eu)
Over 2 billion people rely on forests. They are a renewable resource that provides materials for building, fuel, and office supplies. People around the world depend especially on the Amazon for food, water, wood, and medicines, making forests an essential part of our life.
Forests help to stabilize the Earth’s climate by absorbing carbon dioxide and therefore, they help to mitigate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Further, forests play a critical role in global and regional carbon and water cycles.
Rainforests also provide a habitat for over 30 million species of plants and animals. The biodiversity in tropical rainforests covers half of the Earth’s wildlife and at least two-thirds of its plant species. Many indigenous people have been living in harmony with the rainforest for thousands of years.
Forests are currently threatened by human activities
We are most concerned about the alarming destruction of tropical rainforests over the last decades. Over half of the tropical forests worldwide have been destroyed since the 1960s, and every second, more than one hectare of tropical forests is destroyed or drastically degraded. Deforestation and forest degradation are the biggest threats to forests worldwide.
Moreover, wildfires have destroyed millions of trees in forests. These disasters are getting more frequent. We all have the memories of major fires in Australia, in California, in the Amazon Forest but the Congo Basin Forest, though less publicised, has also been majorly impacted, especially in 2019.
Destroying rainforests means that a key natural buffer against climate change is quickly disappearing. The world’s forests absorb 2.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Forest destruction emits further carbon into the atmosphere, with 4.3–5.5 Gt CO2 eq/yr generated annually. These greenhouse gas emissions contribute to rising temperatures, changes in patterns of weather and water, and an increased frequency of extreme weather events.
Therefore, we need to act fast to protect this life-sustaining treasure for the millions of species and people that depend on it. We cannot tackle the climate crisis without protecting our forests worldwide.
There are solutions to protect these ecosystems at every level
Protecting and restoring forests as a vast carbon sink is essential for mitigating climate change. Therefore, we call for an urgent protection of these vulnerable ecosystems and their wildlife, including a forest landscape restoration and a sustainable agriculture development. Further, agricultural projects in rainforests with indigenous peoples should be promoted since agriculture is the main cause of deforestation.
There are also great opportunities this year to push forward the protection of these ecosystems at an international level. The coming COP 15 for the Convention on Biological Biodiversity and the COP 26 for the Convention on Climate Change must adopt ambitious goals of conservation, restoration and sustainable use of those essential resources. The IUCN World Conservation Congress in September 2021 will also be an opportunity for countries to raise their ambition and adopt strategies to reduce deforestation.
Also everyone can contribute to the protection of forests on an individual level, too, such as reducing consumption of deforestation prone products like palm oil and purchasing sustainable, forest-friendly companies. Reintroducing trees in megacities will also be a way to face climate change consequences like heat waves. Everyone can help to fight against the climate crisis by planting trees. Planting trees is a simple way to reduce carbon dioxide.