FAO stresses the importance of trees and forests

The UN specialized agency pointed out three pathways to achieve these goals in its report The State of the World’s Forests 2022. Forest pathways towards green recovery and building inclusive, resilient and sustainable economies, released on the occasion of the 14th Seoul-based World Forestry Congress.

First, it mentioned the need to halt deforestation and conserve forest ecosystem services for their long-term benefits for climate, biodiversity, health and food security.

The text recalled that all the routes proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, aimed at limiting the increase in average temperature to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius, require carbon-neutral human activities until 2050.

To this end, he said, in addition to the decarbonization of economies, mitigation from land-based options will be necessary, for which “halting deforestation would avoid direct emissions caused by the loss of biomass and would maintain the capacity of forests to absorb carbon”. He said that forest and landscape restoration and agroforestry help diversify livelihoods and increase land productivity, while promoting sustainable forest use and creating green value chains help meet future demand for materials.