Forests and natural ecosystems absorb carbon and reduce the levels of emissions in the atmosphere, providing a way to help tackle climate change.
Forests not only store carbon, but they are essential to the global economy. Every year, lost ecosystem services from land degradation and desertification cost us about $6.3-10.6 trillion. Avoiding deforestation helps protect this value and causes a chain reaction of other positive impacts, like supporting endangered species, empowering women in local communities and creating a market for sustainably produced commodities.
Climate mitigation
Halting tropical deforestation forest degradation brings us immediate carbon reductions.
Climate adaptation
Forests tackle climate change from re-building landscape resilience to regulating flooding and drought to keeping land healthy and productive.
Biodiversity
Forests are a hub for the conservation of biodiversity. Protecting habitat for millions of animals and plants, including many endangered species.
Clean air
Trees produce oxygen, cleaning the air that we breathe and directly improving the health of populations (both locally and all over the world).
Medicine & health
Rainforests rich native biodiversity constantly inspires surprising medical breakthroughs and delivers cures for diseases.
Poverty alleviation
Forests provide vital resources for some of the worlds most disadvantaged communities who live in and around them.
Indigenous people
Forests are the natural home to many indigenous populations, and their way of life is under very real threat of deforestation.
Sustainable development
Forest carbon projects help communities to develop viable sustainable business models that don’t depend on forest destruction and improve local livelihoods.
Empowering women
Women are stewards of the forest, who strengthen communities and protect ecologies.
Food security
Forests safeguard the valuable ecosystem services around food production, from preventing erosion to fixing nutrients into the soil.
Energy security
Forests provide wood fuel in the developing world and maintain water supplies essential for hydropower.
Water security
Forests sustain our global water supply and are critical to the water cycle. In fact, trees help to create rain!