Deforestation rates continue to be shockingly high in many countries of the globe despite the increase in awareness regarding forest. The forests, which host more than 70% of terrestrial biodiversity, play a key role not only in sustaining the livelihoods of more than one billion people but also in mitigating climate change.
Expressing concern at the rapid disappearance of forest worldwide, the Friends of the Earth International and the Global Forest Coalition has called on world governments to take immediate action to halt deforestation and forest degradation.
In an e-mailed statement from Rome, the two leading networks of environmental and Indigenous Peoples' Organisations also called the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Committee on Forestry to stop promoting unplanned plantations. Moreover, they have urged the governments to immediately halt the conversion of forests into biofuel plantations in their respective countries.
Governments should also recognize urgently Indigenous Peoples’ territories, promote community-based forest management and restoration, ban illegal logging and related trade, and implement immediate deforestation moratoria, added in the statement issued by Simone Lovera and Andrey Laletin from Italy.
Mentionable that the State of the World’s Forests, released by FAO, reveals that the expansion of large-scale monocultures of oil palm, soy and other crops for agrofuel production has been a key factor in the failure to halt deforestation. It also added that the potential for large-scale commercial production of cellulosic biofuel will have unprecedented impacts on the forest sector.
"If cellulosic biofuel leads to a strongly increased demand for wood, it will have a dramatic impact on the world's forests, especially in regions like Africa and Asia, which are already facing increased pressure on forests due to the failure to combat illegal logging and the rapidly rising demand for wood in general," said Andrey Laletin.
Another driver for deforestation is illegal logging - 20% of the timber supply comes from illegal sources. Europe remains one of the main markets for illegal timber despite a 2003 EU action plan to combat illegal logging and related trade. Strong legislation to halt illegal timber trade and to decrease Europe's devastating impact on the world's forests should be adopted as a bare minimum - there is no time to lose, Friedrich Wulf of Friends of the Earth Switzerland stated.
An additional worrying trend is the massive replacement of forests by large-scale tree plantations in many countries. However plantations cannot be equal to the forests, argues Isaac Rojas, the coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Program of FEI. He also added that all over the world, plantations destroy the lands and livelihoods of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, as well as biodiversity and water resources.
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