An estimated 13 million hectares of forests were lost each year between 2000 and 2010 due to deforestation. In tropical rainforests particularly, deforestation continues to be an urgent environmental issue that jeopardizes people’s livelihoods, threatens species, and intensifies global warming. Forests make a vital contribution to humanity, but their full potential will only be realized if we halt deforestation and forest degradation.
Current deforestation trends point toward catastrophic and irreversible losses of biodiversity and runaway climate change. With better governance and smarter land use, it would be possible to meet global demand for food and forest products without any further loss of forests between now and 2030, but urgent action is needed. Actions to tackle deforestation will require new policies and laws, better implementation of existing laws, tough crackdowns on corruption, and economic opportunities for local communities, whether they be the 300 million people living in forests or the more than 1 billion people directly dependent on forests.