The positive environmental contribution of trees, generating life-giving oxygen from harmful carbon dioxide, has been well understood since the 1700s.  Yet it was only around half a century ago that voices from around the world began calling for their greater protection.  Global groups like the World Wide Fund for Nature (founded 1961), Friends of the Earth International (1971) and Greenpeace (1971), together with hundreds of national and local organizations, emerged in quick succession; fighting to safeguard the planet’s forests, prevent rampant habitat loss, and protect these natural carbon repositories for a cleaner atmosphere.

Unfortunately, despite the decades of good work undertaken in the decades since, their mission remains far from complete.  Forests and woodlands around the world are still being destroyed at an alarming rate.

The fight against deforestation continues.

And in December 2024, it gained a powerful new instrument: The European Union Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR).  The EUDR is the latest piece of international legislation designed to preserve our dwindling woodlands and forests.  Its aims are fourfold:

  • To reduce the EU’s impact on global deforestation and biodiversity loss
  • To promote deforestation-free supply chains
  • To limit the EU’s greenhouse gases emissions
  • And to protect human rights and the rights of indigenous people

The new law compels companies trading in key commodities linked to deforestation to verify that their goods will not lead to further forest degradation.  The rules cover not only the seven core materials – cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy, and wood – but also any derivative products such as furniture, beef, leather, paper goods, chocolate and rubber.

The EUDR outlaws introducing any of the above items into the European marketplace without:

  • establishing they have not caused deforestation or degradation
  • complying with the environmental and land-use regulations of the countries of origin
  • ensuring goods are covered by a due diligence statement

EU member states will have the authority to issue fines (up to 4% of business turnover), seize goods, or suspend further trading for any companies failing to comply.

Why would we need such strict legislation to safeguard what are, in effect, the lungs of planet Earth?  In short, because our appetite for exploiting trees is remorseless and accelerating.

Human pressures exert huge toll on tree life

Trees are being destroyed in their millions to make way for multiple competing ‘priorities’: agricultural operations, soy plantations, the grazing of livestock, or leveling land ready for mining and drilling, or even building of new human homes.  Timber loggers, meanwhile, supply an unquenchable thirst for wood and paper products.  Together, these industries are responsible for more than half of all forest clearance worldwide.[1]

In the Amazon, home to the world’s most famous rainforest, the proliferation of cattle ranches and arable farms is causing even more rapid deforestation.  Elsewhere, right across the tropics, ancient forests are routinely being replaced by alternative uses, such as palm oil groves, which are favored for food, personal care products and animal feed.

The global mass of humanity, seeking safety and security, exerts its own pressure on trees.  With the world’s population predicted to reach almost 10 billion people by 2050[2], enormous tracts of forested land are doomed to perish under pressure from urban sprawl, alongside the road networks needed for connectivity.  Meanwhile, wildfires, many caused by manmade global warming[3], are blamed for extinguishing many saplings and young trees, hampering regrowth.

Nor is this war on trees confined to the gigantic tropical biomes with which we are all familiar: the rainforests of the Amazon, or the Congo Basin, or the 200+ million hectares of primary growth spanning Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia.

Instead, deforestation is encroaching wherever human and economic pressures converge.  The UK, for instance, surrendered some 105,000 hectares of trees (representing an almost 7% decline in tree cover) in the two decades between 2001 and 2021.[4]  Presently, an estimated 85% of the UK’s ancient woodlands and more than 40% of its largest woods remain unprotected in law.

Across the Atlantic, more than 70% of the 766 million acres of forested land in the USA lies in private hands, beyond the remit of state or federal control.  In 2021, alone the USA lost 4.22 million acres of forest to industry, agriculture and urbanization, equating to 775 million tons of CO2 emissions.[5]

So, just how dire is the plight of trees globally – and how can initiatives like the EUDR help to reverse it?

No trees; no people

Earth is currently estimated to host some 3 trillion trees.  It might sound like a large number, but it’s actually only half as many as when human civilization first arose.[6]  The warning signs continue to mount:

  • Globally, since 1990, around 420 million hectares of trees have fallen victim to deforestation – an area of land roughly equivalent to the whole of the European continent.[7]
  • Around 4% of tropical primary rainforest has been lost since the turn of the millennium.[8]
  • Machines churn up forested land the size of a soccer pitch every two seconds. This translates to 15 billion trees being cut down annually across the world – a frightening and truly unsustainable toll.[9]
  • Africa has lost more than one-fifth of its entire tree stock in the last century alone.[10]

It is short-sighted and neglectful of us to regard trees as a resource ripe for endless plundering.  Lose enough, and our lifestyles will be greatly diminished; lose too many and our continued existence becomes simply untenable.  Trees are much more than a visual delight on a weekend stroll.  They are a life support system for our entire society.

Make no mistake, this is the planet of the trees, and we are mere visitors to their kingdom.

Trees tower over health, economic and social systems

Forests are a natural wonder worth not just celebrating but actively protecting.

They provide food for millions of people worldwide and offer natural habitats for multiple life-forms intrinsic to our food systems, like insects and fungi.  Forests are also the source of raw ingredients for medicines to help cure the sick, and wood for fires to help keep families warm.  They knit together the ground and help prevent land erosion and help maintain and moderate freshwater flows.

Forests are themselves mass incubators of life, harboring some 80% of amphibian species, 75% of bird species and 68% of mammal species.[11]

They provide shelter for humans, too, being home to approximately 70 million indigenous people worldwide.  Forests, conservatively, are pivotal to the livelihoods of around one-fifth of the global population.

Most pressingly, forests are also a vital – indeed irreplaceable – tool in the existential battle against climate change.

Trees act as natural carbon sinks, absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the air and preventing the kind of atmospheric CO2 build-up that accelerates global warming.  Research suggests that up to 45% of all the carbon stored on land may be contained within forests, together comprising billions of tons of CO2.[12]  If a tree is cut down and incinerated, its stored CO2 is released swiftly and in bulk.

Unsurprisingly, estimates suggest that deforestation is the trigger for around 12% of global warming.[13]

Such is the rate of deforestation that some tropical forests now emit more carbon than they capture, granting them the unwanted distinction of transforming from a carbon sink to a carbon source.  Some scientists, for example, argue that a south-eastern swathe of the Amazon Rainforest now meets the criteria of the latter definition.[14]  One study drawing upon 12 years of satellite data concluded that topical forests are now a net carbon source, with losses from deforestation being double that of gains from fresh forest growth.[15]

Yet hope remains.

According to the World Resources Institute, smarter forest management can deliver one-third of global emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep temperature rises within +2oC of pre-industrial levels.[16]

Preservation and reforestation make financial sense

In one scenario, forests can actually become the frontline of our fightback against global warming.  Refocusing our efforts on conservation, restoration, and land management could allow tropical tree cover to provide a significant share of the climate mitigation needed to meet environmental targets established under the 2015 Paris Agreement.[17]

We can adopt, in other words, a two-pronged ‘forests for the future’ strategy.  Part one requires restoring and replanting forests to increase carbon sequestration; part two involves reducing emissions through phasing out further deforestation.

Too costly?  Only at a superficial analysis.  At less than US$ 100 per ton of CO2 saved, these strategies are more convincing in economic terms than any emerging interventionist technology.  Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), for instance, can cost more than US$ 1,000 per ton of CO2 saved.[18]  What we need, urgently, is political and public momentum to propel reforestation, preservation and land management to the top of the global agenda.

Given the sky-high costs of delaying climate change action (one study calculates that damage from global warming could reach US$ 38 trillion annually by 2050[19]) investment in trees sounds like a smart proposition.  Research shows that every US$ 1 invested in forest restoration can unlock between US$ 7 and US$ 30 in economic benefits.  Extrapolating these figures, restoring 150 million hectares of degraded farmland to forest could create up to US$ 40 billion annually in extra income for smallholders, while feeding close to 200 million people.[20]

All this suggests that the incoming EUDR legislation could potentially inspire tangible environmental and economic benefits, while also protecting communities and industries reliant on our shared forests.

EUDR: Changes to be felt all around the world

The incoming EUDR legislation aims to cut carbon emissions caused by EU commodity consumption by at least 32 million metric tons a year.

Companies dealing in commodities linked to deforestation are likely to undergo a rapid restructure of supply chains, with increased costs and greater scrutiny.  Business advisory service S&P Global says impacts will mostly be felt across “major palm oil-producing countries in Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia, in the agribusiness industries of countries such as Brazil and Argentina, and across EU-bound cocoa exports from countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana”.

Many source countries will try to meet new European standards by closer adherence to their own anti-deforestation policies.  However, weak internal enforcement, alongside the watering down of international funding pledges made at successive COP gatherings, could lead to more countries being red-flagged by the EU.

Whether this milestone legislation will single-handedly help preserve forests is debatable.  Extra costs could prompt buyers to switch affiliations to countries deemed low-risk instead.  Source countries, similarly, could set up alternative customer bases servicing the vast markets beyond the EU.  Brazil could divert more timber supplies to China, while Indonesia could send palm oil to Africa, for example.

Concerns persist that such a sweeping law change will accidentally encompass unintended sectors.  The US paper industry, for example, with annual exports to the EU valued at more than US$ 3.5 billion, currently supplies more than 60% of the specialty pulp used to make diapers and other key medical products.  Expect sharp price rises if suppliers fall foul of EUDR rules.[21]

For the EUDR to meaningfully protect global forests, convergence with other framework agreements will prove necessary.  The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program – a family of policies devised by scientists and legislators worldwide – is designed to financially incentivize governments, farmers and communities to maintain global forest cover.[22]

REDD+ grants are offered for activities linked to slowing deforestation, promoting arboreal restoration and introducing sustainable forestry practices.  The scheme operates through a number of mechanisms including the World Bank (via the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility) and the United Nations (via UN-REDD).  A 2020 review indicated an average of US$ 220 million in annual funding commitments for REDD, with the US$ 720 million Amazon Fund a notable outlier.

Proactivity is paramount.  Researchers warn ominously that it will be ‘nearly impossible’ to contain global temperature rises to within +2oC of pre-industrialization levels if tropical tree loss persists at the current rate.[23]  We must act with resolve and vigor.

Clock is ticking on efforts to save precious forests

Deforestation is not only a problem for the developing world.  In today’s society we are all interconnected at regional and global levels.  Fumes from Indonesian forest fires affect air quality and weather patterns across the whole of Southeast Asia, for example.  Likewise, ceaseless demand for wood-based products in the USA and Europe hastens environmental decline in areas like the Congo Basin and the Amazon.  We are all jointly invested in this tug-of-war between problems and solutions.

As the COVID-19 pandemic of 2022-2021 demonstrated, we underestimate nature at our peril.

Deforestation also causes disease in humanity.  Some 60% of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals – so-called zoonotic diseases.  Reducing natural habitats in the short-term interests of logging inevitably brings animals into closer contact with people.  This encourages viruses to ‘jump’ between species.  The 2014 Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone killed more than 11,000 people – all traced back to a bite from a single fruit bat.[24]

Forests account for just 3% of climate action funding.  Indeed, the World Resources Institute estimates the shortfall in global funding for restoration and conservation currently runs to about US$ 300 billion.[25]  This represents a painfully inadequate allocation of resources, given the centrality of trees to Earth’s life support systems.[26]

It was around 350 million years ago that the first trees appeared on Earth.  Mankind has a far briefer story to tell, first emerging some 350,000 years ago.  Our brief cohabitation of the planet has not ended well for our most distant of genetic cousins.  The EUDR might not be perfect, but if we value the ongoing cohesion of our societies, we must all get behind such initiatives to ensure the protection of our global environment and the sustainability of our society.

 

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/deforestation

[2] https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population

[3] https://www.c2es.org/content/wildfires-and-climate-change

[4] https://www.bluepatch.org/is-deforestation-a-problem-in-the-uk/

[5] https://www.green.earth/blog/deforestation-in-the-united-states-causes-consequences-and-cures

[6] https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-home-3-trillion-trees-half-many-when-human-civilization-arose

[7] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20221019STO44561/deforestation-causes-and-how-the-eu-is-tackling-it

[8] https://www.wri.org/forests

[9] https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/effects-of/deforestation

[10] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/05/deforestation-africa

[11] https://www.unep-wcmc.org/en/news/earths-biodiversity-depends-on-the-worlds-forests

[12] https://www.science.org/content/article/earth-home-3-trillion-trees-half-many-when-human-civilization-arose

[13] https://www.bluepatch.org/is-deforestation-a-problem-in-the-uk/

[14] https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/whats-redd-and-will-it-help-tackle-climate-change/

[15] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aam5962

[16] https://www.wri.org/forests

[17] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/deforestation

[18] https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/ending-tropical-deforestation-tropical-forests-climate-change.pdf

[19] https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-change-damage-could-cost-38-trillion-per-year-by-2050-study-finds-2024-04-17/

[20] https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/roots-of-prosperity_0.pdf

[21] https://www.afandpa.org/news/2024/why-eu-needs-reconsider-their-deforestation-law

[22] https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/whats-redd-and-will-it-help-tackle-climate-change/

[23] https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-climate-change-equation

[24] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/deforestation

[25] https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/roots-of-prosperity_0.pdf

[26] https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-climate-change-equation

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