Progress was made in preventing global deforestation last year, but on the other hand, huge amounts of carbon sinks were destroyed.
According to a recent report, significant progress has been made in protecting rainforest areas, but despite this, the world’s deforestation has accelerated even more.
The research results of the World Resources Institute (WRI) reveal that in 2023, forests were lost globally at the rate of 10 football fields per minute. The area can be compared to an area almost the size of Switzerland.
The results were reported on Thursday by, among other things The New York Times and The Guardian -foliage.
Record forest fires in Canada and growing agriculture in other parts of the world were the most significant causes of deforestation.
– The world took two steps forward and two steps back when talking about deforestation last year, said WRI’s director of forest protection Mikaela Weisse According to The Guardian.
There is also good news
According to the report, the biggest gains in forest protection were made in Brazil and Colombia.
Both countries increased funding for environmental protection, created new programs to develop economically sustainable alternatives to rainforest areas, and worked to protect local communities who defend the forests.
The Brazilian government said in January that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest was halved last year compared to the previous year, and the ceiling was at its lowest level since 2018.
In January 2023, the country’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to end massive deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 when he took office.
The elections were indeed held at the fateful moment of Brazil’s rainforests.
More than half of the world’s rainforests are located in Brazil, and the Amazon rainforest is the largest in the world. The previous president Jair Bolsonaro during the imperial period, the destruction of rainforests accelerated rapidly.
Rainforests are described as the lungs of the world. The great rainforest is a huge carbon sink and the cradle of the diversity of life. According to estimates, about a tenth of the world’s biodiversity is located in the rainforest area.
Their destruction is often caused by illegal mining and unauthorized logging, which have progressed deeper and deeper into the rainforest.
Regulations and subsidies to help
At the Dubai Climate Summit in December 2023, world leaders agreed to stop deforestation by 2030. However, according to experts, the current pace of deforestation shows that the countries are not really committed to keeping their promises.
Researchers are also worried about the permanence of positive changes. For example, Indonesia has made the most progress in combating deforestation in the last decade, but in the last two years the loss of trees in Indonesia has increased again.
According to experts from the World Resources Institute, new forest protection regulations and subsidies could help to eradicate global deforestation.