State of the Rainforest 2014

Papua New Guinea (~1.4 mill km 2 ) – will have to be at the core of the world’s efforts to halt deforestation. Also mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar and parts of West Africa and Central America have smaller, but important, areas left of the rainforests that once covered much of the land in these regions. Primary forest – the original “jungle” Primary forest, sometimes also referred to as ‘intact forest’, can be defined as a forest of native species where the ecological processes have not been significantly disturbed. Primary tropical moist forests, or rainforests, are the terrestrial systems with the highest diversity of species. According to FAO, 4 some 36% of the world’s total forest area is primary forest (13–14 mill km 2 ); 57% is naturally regenerated forest and 7% is plantations. There is substantial uncertainty with regard to the accuracy of figures on primary forest, as the forest monitoring and reporting in many countries is poor. FAO 5 reports that 400,000 km 2 of primary forest was lost or affected by human activity to the extent that it changed into secondary, or ‘naturally regenerated’, forest between 2000 and 2010. This data does not include a DRC, a major rainforest country. 6 In its assessment of the main rainforest basins, 7 FAO estimates 62% of the forests in these areas to be ‘primary forest’. A review of primary forest in different climatic zones, estimates the ‘equatorial’ zone – the rainforest region – to have just over 6 million km 2 primary forest. 8 Not surprisingly, Brazil is on the top of the list of tropical countries, with 2.5 million km 2 primary forest – only Canada and Russia have

Average annual emissions per decade and last year available Billion tonnes of Carbon per year Global Carbon emissions are increasing, emissions from forests are not

10

Fossil fuels combustion and cement emissions Land use change and forestry Uncertainty margin

8

6

4

2

0

1960-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-99 2000-09 2003-12 2012

Source: Le Quéré et al., Global carbon budget, 2013

an increasingly fragmented and vulnerable ecosystem. Protecting the remaining large contiguous areas of rainforest is a global responsibility.

The three main tropical rainforest regions that remain – the Amazon (~5 mill km 2 ), the Congo Basin (~2 mill km 2 ), and Asia including

Carbon emissions from gross forest loss, 2000-2005

Billion tonnes of Carbon 0 to 1 1 to 2 2 to 3 3 to 4 4 to 5 5 to 10 10 to 50 50 to 100 100 to 200 More than 200

Note: Study area includes the humid tropics, dry tropics and temperate forest biomes of 75 countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

Source: Harris, N., L., et al., Baseline Map of Carbon Emissions from Deforestation in Tropical Regions, 2012

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STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014

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