The science is clear: halting loss of tropical2 forests—the home and heritage of Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and local communities (LCs)3 who have long been their guardians—is necessary to address climate change and achieve the Paris Agreement goals.i Yet, tropical forest loss and degradation have proven difficult to reduce, generating large greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and threatening IPs…
The global warming consequences – from greenhouse gas emissions and a reduction in the capacity of forests to absorb and store carbon – are grave, and likely to be especially acute in tropical regions themselves. Forest loss also leads to the breakdown of critical ecosystem services, such as water provision, and interferes with regional climatic patterns, with serious knockon effects for a…
Climate change is already impacting tropical forests around the world, including through distributional shifts of forest biomes, changes in species composition, biomass, pests and diseases, and increases in forest fires (high confidence). These impacts are often compounded by non-climatic factors such as conversion of land for other uses, burning to clear land, mining, and road and infrastructu…
Forests are home to a huge variety of plant and animal life – from tiny microscopic fungi species, to enormous trees that are sometimes taller than 80 metres high. Forests provide vital services that ensure people have clean air to breathe and water to drink (and they do it all for free!). For some people, the forest is a place where they go for work, for religious practices or even just for …
As well as protecting water resources, forests also conserve biodiversity. National commitments to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity are being fulfilled through measures to safeguard water and establish “protected” and “protective” forests, as well as many kinds of forests certified for sustainability. Forests also provide carbon fixation and several other environmen…
The USDA Forest Service recognizes that the threat of invasive plant species to public and private forests is serious and thatsuccessful progress in prevention, control, research, and restoration from the negative impacts of such invasions is only possible using a concerted and organized effort. Thus, the Forest Service-Eastern Region (Region 9), the Northeastern Area (NA) State and Private For…