State of the Rainforest 2014

State of the world’s rainforest

important goal, and necessary reforms in forest governance have been initiated, along with a moratorium on new deforestation concessions in significant parts of the forest. However, these policy reforms are opposed by powerful groups in Indonesia, and the effects remain to be seen. Brazil, DRC and Indonesia are only three countries, but they hold some 60% of the world’s remaining rainforests within their borders and represent the main rainforest regions of the world: the Amazon, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia/Oceania. Looking closer at these countries, one will find on the one hand, that reduced deforestation is possible and compatible with economic development; and, on the other, that countries face significant challenges in seeking to shift over to a low-deforestation development path. The tropical rainforest covers approximately nine million km 2 (about 6% of the terrestrial Earth), 3 although one should be aware of significant uncertainty with regard to the extent of forest cover and differences in deforestation trends depending onmethodology used (see following pages). The rainforest represents huge areas that provide livelihood for millions of people and habitats for an immense biological diversity. It also plays a vital role for global climate, rainfall and the water cycle. Still, the extent of the world’s rainforest today is not larger than what would fit within the borders of the United States. Spread out along the Equator, it is

The Earth’s most varied and most mysterious ecosystem, the tropical rainforest, hasbeen reduced tohalf of itsoriginal size.Most of this loss has taken place over the past five to six decades. Despite increased awareness of the key role played by the tropical forests in solving the most urgent global environment and development challenges, the rate of tropical deforestation remains alarmingly high. Looking more closely at developments in the last five to ten years, however, we can note both significant policy changes and important examples indicating that it is indeed possible to avoid continued deforestation of the magnitude that has characterized recent decades. Brazil, the worlds’ largest rainforest country, has reduced deforestation from an average of 19,500 km 2 annually for the period 1996–2005, to 5,800 km 2 in 2013. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the world’s second largest rainforest country, has kept deforestation rates low. DRC has maintained a ban on new logging concessions since 2002, to ensure that the concessions granted are consistent with its forest legislation. In Indonesia, the world’s third largest rainforest country, the forests are under immense pressure. Although the international official forest statistics, the FAO’s Forest Resources Assessment, 1 reported a significant decrease in Indonesian deforestation in the decade 2000–2010 compared to the previous decade, other reliable sources report increasing deforestation 2 (see section 3). On the political level, Indonesia has made reduced deforestation an

Global forest cover

Original forest cover Current forest cover

Source: WCMC online database, accessed August 2014

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STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014