2014年，森林的未来看起来很光明。政府，公司，非政府组织和土著群体，致力于实现十个雄心勃勃的目标New York Declaration on Forests(NYDF). This major international declaration aims to protect forests, driven by the understanding that halting deforestation is essential to mitigating climate change and maintaining other benefits of forests. These goals include减少森林砍伐by 2020 and stopping it by 2030, while restoring an area of degraded land larger than the size of India.

今年的评估of progress on the NYDF firmly concludes that deforestation is not slowing enough to achieve this goal. In fact, by some measures, we are further from stopping deforestation now than we were six years ago. On top of that, limited data is making it difficult to fully assess progress on forest restoration. Although this reality presents a steep uphill battle, rapidly accelerating actions to end deforestation and restore forests offer hope that the 2030 goals can still be achieved.

我们朝着错误的方向前进以结束森林砍伐

两个独立的数据集表明，世界并没有阻止森林砍伐。Global Forest Watchdata — created using a globally standardized remote sensing methodology — indicates that annual tropicalprimary forestloss has actually increased by 41% since the NYDF was signed, and annual global deforestation has increased between 55% and 64%. The United NationsForest Resources Assessment 2020also indicates insufficient progress toward the NYDF goals. This aggregation of country-reported statistics on forest change shows a slight drop in deforestation since 2000, but nowhere near the amount required to achieve the 2020 or 2030 targets.

Despite the differences between the two datasets, they share a key message: the world failed to halve deforestation by 2020 and, as a result, is not on a trajectory to stop it by 2030.

Fires used to clear land for pasture in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region can be seen from an airplane. Photo by Jordi Ruiz Cirera/WRI.
Fires used to clear land for pasture in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region can be seen from an airplane. Photo by Jordi Ruiz Cirera/WRI.

Each year, the world loses about1000万公顷(24.7 million acres) of forest area — equivalent to 27 soccer fields per minute. Every year that deforestation is not reduced as quickly as possible will require even larger reductions in the following years to achieve our goal. In the meantime, deforestation will continue to cause emissions, the loss of forest benefits and the curtailment of Indigenous rights. If the past 19 years are any indication, the necessary decrease in forest loss seems unlikely in the next decade. Although unlikely, the world can’t afford to not attempt reaching this goal.

为什么进步这么慢？

The issue largely arises from the disparity between the commitments made and the actions taken to meet them. Goals two through four of the NYDF track specific contributing factors to global deforestation, while goal five outlines restoration targets. In each of these categories, actions fell short of what is needed.

Goal 2：结束农产品的森林砍伐

Forest clearingfor new agricultural landis the largest cause of deforestation. However, removing deforestation from supply chains is happening unevenly. Even where commitments exist, implementation and consequences are hard to trace through complex supply chains. Last year, nearly one-third of 350 major companies with supply chains at risk of causing deforestation did not report anything about their activities to stop deforestation. Some sectors are progressing faster than others —81%of Indonesian palm oil exports in 2018 came from companies with no-deforestation pledges, while just 32% of Brazilian beef exports in 2017 were produced under a commitment.

Goal 3：减少其他部门的森林砍伐

虽然mining and infrastructurelike roads and dams are notglobally majorcauses of deforestation, they can heavily impact forests at local scales. Companies in these sectors generally provide even less information than the agricultural sector on what they are doing to prevent deforestation. For example, a recent World Bank报告无法确定任何针对环境风险和减轻环境风险的采矿业务，金融机构通常没有提供有关其采矿和基础设施投资与其可持续性原则一致的程度的数据。随着对采矿材料的需求的增加，这些部门的森林影响有望加剧，并且基础设施项目将农民，伐木工人和偷猎者带到森林边境。

Goal 4：支持基本需求的替代方案

Efforts are increasing to find ways to meet the基本需求社区，例如菲尔伍德和食物，没有进一步的森林砍伐。但是，这些努力并没有在必要的规模上进行，通常并没有解决贫困的根本原因，从而限制了它们的效力。For example, programs that seek to take pressure off forests by improving the agricultural productivity of smallholders’ existing farms often fail to invest in underlying conditions to secure farmer livelihoods such as land tenure, public services and market access, alongside improvements in governance to ensure forest protection measures are respected. But some governments,像马拉维S，已经开始努力工作，并帮助社区可持续地管理森林，同时种植快速生长的树木以满足对柴火的直接需求。

Goal 5: Restore Forests

为了恢复，这些缺点可能与缺乏大规模投资和全球一致数据的缺乏有关。恢复3.5亿公顷将需要billions of dollars。资助者已承诺通过40亿美元AFR100在非洲和倡议20x20在拉丁美洲。即使有许多of成功的项目在每个区域。例如，非洲萨赫勒（Sahel）的绿墙面临每年43亿美元的资金差距到2030年。尽管报告表明政府，私人投资者和企业家开始激励，财务和扩大其工作，但也没有系统和独立的方式来跟踪该资金到达何处或多少筹集。

This underscores the importance of developing a global method that consistently tracks where those trees are growing and that complements existing tree cover loss data. That approach will need to work inside the forest and外部it on farms and pasture, where restoration has themost benefits for people。Regional pilots of this method in Central America and东南亚, conducted as part of the 2019 and 2020 NYDF Progress Assessments, are promising. But understanding tree cover gain and loss together — and assessing the overall health of forests — will requireimproved data and techniques。

Transforming Commitments into Real Action

在危地马拉，Impact Impact Investor 12tree在保护天然林的同时正在增长可持续的可可。12tree摄影。
在危地马拉，Impact Impact Investor 12tree在保护天然林的同时正在增长可持续的可可。12tree摄影。

虽然最新的NYDF报告在其消息中是鲜明的，但可以扭转潮流的新举措正在增长。零供应承诺的增长表明，在政府，公司，金融机构和公民社会之间，停止森林砍伐的动机仍然存在。和创新的恢复计划，例如50 private-sector projects与Initiative 20X20和增长保持一致Land Accelerator network, whose entrepreneurs are helping 120,000 farmers produce more sustainably, are boosting funding for forest protection and restoration.

前进将需要协调的努力，提高透明度，采用环境保障措施，减少对高明商品的消费，并增加公司和政府的野心和融资。不断增长的投资和保护和恢复森林的承诺必须与同等行动相结合。如果不这样做，将在未来几年内封锁森林的命运。