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Scientists state Earth’s ecosystems could support another 900 million hectares (2.2 billion acres) of forests, 25% more forested area than we have now. By planting more than a half trillion trees, the authors say, we could capture about 205 gigatons of carbon (a gigaton is 1 billion metric tons), reducing atmospheric carbon by about 25%. That’s enough to negate about 20 years of human-produced carbon emissions at the current rate, or about half of all carbon emitted by humans since 1960.

NASA scientists stress planting trees and saving forests is not an overall solution to the current climate change. To do that, a reduction of human emissions of greenhouse gases is needed. The United Nations stresses the significance of the potential contribution of forest-related mitigation options – halting deforestation and forest degradation, promoting sustainable forest management, increasing the area of forests through e.g. reforestation, and forest landscape restoration and increasing the value of forests through expanding markets for wood products – having a positive impact on climate change. In short, forests can play a major role in the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Forests currently absorb 30% of all CO2 emissions, 23% ocean, and the remaining 47% in the atmosphere, fueling climate change. A 2020 study says that natural forest regrowth could absorb another 23% of CO2 emissions, reducing the atmospheric % to 24%.

According to the WWF, the major causes of deforestation are:

• Conversion of forests for other land uses, including pulp, palm, and soy plantations, pastures, settlements, roads, and infrastructure.
  Researchers commonly single out an extra cause, which falls under the conversion of forests:
  Livestock farming: According to various reports on the subject, livestock farming, which is the raising of animals for use or for pleasure, including soya production, is responsible for about 70-80% of deforestation in the Amazon region. (Greenpeace)
• Forest fires: Each year, fires burn millions of hectares of forest worldwide. Fires are a part of nature, but degraded forests are particularly vulnerable. These include heavily logged rainforests, forests on peat soils, or where forest fires have been suppressed for years allowing unnatural accumulation of vegetation that makes the fire burn more intensely. The resulting loss has wide-reaching consequences on biodiversity, climate, and the economy.
• Illegal and unsustainable logging: Illegal logging occurs in all types of forests across all continents – from Brazil to Indonesia – destroying nature and wildlife, taking away community livelihoods and distorting trade. Illegally harvested wood finds its way into major consumption markets, such as the U.S., and European Union, which further fuels the cycle.
• Fuelwood harvesting: Over-harvesting for domestic use or for commercial trade in charcoal significantly damages forests.
• Mining: The impact of mining on tropical forests is growing due to rising demand and high mineral prices. Mining projects are often accompanied by major infrastructure construction, such as roads, railway lines and power stations, putting further pressure on forests and freshwater ecosystems.
• Climate change: Forest loss is both a cause and an effect of our changing climate. Climate change can damage forests, for instance by drying out tropical rainforests and increasing fire damage in boreal forests. Inside forests, climate change is already harming biodiversity, a threat that is likely to increase.

• Threat to Biodiversity. 80% of the Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests. Human destruction of forests put entire ecosystems in danger, creating natural imbalances, and putting life at threat.
• People’s Livelihood. Around 1.6 billion people, of which 1 billion are among the poorest, around the globe depend on forests for their survival by hunting and gathering raw products for their small-scale agriculture processes.
• Food Insecurity. In the future, the lack of healthy, nutritious soil will lead to food insecurity. Already more than half of the land used for food production is affected by soil erosion. According to a senior UN official, if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s top soil could be gone within 60 years. Generating three centimetres of top soil takes 1,000 years.
• Soil Erosion. Deforestation weakens the soil, making it increasingly fragile, leaving the area more vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides and floods.
• Greenhouse Effect. Trees help to mitigate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, but they become carbon sources once they are cut, burned, or otherwise removed. It is estimated that deforestation is responsible for around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions and 1.5 billion tons of carbon is released every year by tropical deforestation.

Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity and ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. Rainforests cover 6% of the Earth’s surface but are home to almost half 50% of the world’s plant and animal species. Scientists have estimated that there are 390,900 known plant species in the world. The Amazon alone exists of 80,000 of these plants from which more than 40,000 species play a critical role in regulating the global climate and sustaining the local water cycle. Not only that, more than 25% of the cancer medicine used in the world is derived from these rainforest plants. FAO states in a recent report that almost 20% of the rainforest has been lost due to deforestation. In addition, the IUCN Red List finds 35,765 out of 128,918 animal species are on the brink of extinction in the 21^st of the century. Global wildlife of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles fell by an average of 68% between 1970 and 2016 due to deforestation.

According to the Resilience Alliance, climate resilience is the capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb or withstand perturbations and other stressors, in this case the climate, such that the system remains within the same regime, essentially maintaining its structure and functions. It describes the degree to which the system is capable of self-organization, learning, and adaptation. In addition, urban resilience is the capacity of a city’s systems, businesses, institutions, communities, and individuals to survive, adapt, and grow, no matter what chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.

As the only global platform that connects cities with forests within their boundaries, as well as forests nearby and tropical forests, Cities4Forests is an initiative that aims to catalyze political, social and economic support among city governments and urban residents to integrate forests into city development plans and programs, led by the World Resources Institute, REVOLVE, and Pilot Projects Design Collective. Cities4Forests cultivates awareness among urban residents to recognize the importance of forests and trees to human well-being. The project seeks to stimulate action to better conserve, manage, and restore these forests. Participating cities gain access to special tools, databases, and technical assistance as part of a peer-to-peer exchange network. Cities receive support in conducting analyses to identify issues, quantify benefits, and prioritize actions. Cities4Forests also provides financial capacity-building, search assistance, and proactive match-making with donors, and finally, participating cities receive a citizen engagement communication package highlighting best practices and city leadership.

Cities4Forests is funded by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI), the FEMSA Foundation and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

According to IUCN, many of the world’s ecosystems have undergone significant degradation with negative impacts on biological diversity and peoples’ livelihoods. It is not possible to conserve the earth’s biological diversity through the protection of critical areas alone, which is why restoration is evident. Ecosystem restoration is the “process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed.” To put it in numbers, ecosystem restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded land between now and 2030 could remove 13 to 26 gigatons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and generate USD 9 trillion in ecosystem services.

The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Categories and Criteria (RLE) is a global standard for assessing the status of ecosystem, and can be applied at local, national, regional, and global levels. These categories and criteria will eventually allow for identification of the most degraded areas at a global level, and thus allow us to better direct restoration efforts and conservation efforts.

To date, the RLE Categories and Criteria have been applied on more than 3000* ecosystems spanning six continents and three oceans.

*Marcos Valderrabano, IUCN Program Manager Red List of Ecosystems stated in an email on 23^rd February 2021 to REVOLVE an update of 50 ecosystems on the website of IUCN to 3000 ecosystems to date.

The benefits ecosystems provide include food, water, timber, air purification, soil formation and pollination. For more detailed information regarding the benefits listed through a recent study of the European Commission, read here. More directly, research shows the physical and psychological health of human beings is improved. For example, access to green space in cities was shown to correlate with longevity, recovery from surgeries, reduced stress, mental health and self-reported perception of health, all of which translate into higher well-being. In addition, green spaces in urban areas have also been shown to influence social cohesion by providing a meeting place where users develop and maintain neighborhood ties, resulting in better individual mental health and overall well-being of communities.

As tree planting initiatives have been increasing at a global level, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Key) and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (IBGI) released a paper outlining 10 golden rules for reforestation. The rules aim to guide reforestation and tree-planting initiatives to ensure the highest gains for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and ecosystem restoration and to avoid any negative consequences behind well-intentioned programs.

1. Protect existing forests first: Before planning reforestation, always look for ways to protect existing forests, including old‐ and second‐growth, degraded and planted forests.
2. Work together: Involve all stakeholders and make local people integral to the project. Aim to maximize biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals: Restoring biodiversity facilitates other objectives—carbon sequestration, ecosystem services and socio‐economic benefits.
3. Aim to maximize biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals: Restoring biodiversity facilitates other objectives—carbon sequestration, ecosystem services and socio‐economic benefits.
4. Select appropriate areas for reforestation: Avoid previously non‐forested lands, connect or expand existing forest, and be aware of displacing activities that will cause deforestation elsewhere.
5. Use natural regeneration wherever possible: Natural regeneration can be cheaper and more effective than tree planting where site and landscape conditions are suitable. Plan ahead.
6. Select species to maximize biodiversity: Plant a mix of species, prioritize natives, favor mutualistic interactions and exclude invasive species.
7. Use resilient plant material: Obtain seeds or seedlings with appropriate genetic variability and provenance to maximize population resilience.
8. Plan ahead for infrastructure, capacity and seed supply: From seed collection to tree planting, develop the required infrastructure, capacity and seed supply system well in advance, if not available externally. Always follow seed quality standards.
9. Learn by doing: Base restoration interventions on the best ecological evidence and indigenous knowledge. Perform trials prior to applying techniques on a large scale. Monitor appropriate success indicators and use results for adaptive management.
10. Make it pay: Develop diverse, sustainable income streams for a range of stakeholders, including carbon credits, NTFPs, ecotourism and marketable watershed services.

• Urban resilience to climate change describes a city that is resilient on three levels:
  • the systems of the city survive shocks and stresses;
  • the people and organizations are able to accommodate these stresses into their day-to-day decisions;
  • the city’s institutional structures continue to support the capacity of people and organizations to fulfil their aims. (ADB)
• The water that a single tree transpires daily has a cooling effect equivalent to two domestic air conditioners for a day (Ellison et al. 2017)
• 200 million people in the world will live below the sea level line by 2100. Most people affected would live in China: 43 million. In Europe, that would be 4 million Dutch people. (Statista)
• By 2025, Asia will be home to 33 of the world’s 49 megacities. This rapid urbanization has consequences for both residents and the environment, pushing into unsustainable consumption and production models for years to come (GlobalData & UNESCAP)
• Countries in water-scarce regions will see a 6% decline in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a result of climate change by 2050 (World Bank).

• Deforestation is a particular concern in tropical rain forests because these forests are home to much of the world’s biodiversity. For example, in the Amazon around 17% of the forest has been lost in the last 50 years, mostly due to forest conversion for cattle ranching.  (WWF)
• The Amazon rainforest hosts more than 80,000 plant species. As the world’s largest pharmacy, 25% of all cancer medicine used today is derived from rainforest plants; more than 120 natural remedies are to be found for cancer treatment. (Global Resolutions)
• Every 48 hours, we lose a forest area the size of NYC. (Global Citizen)
• Nearly one in three outbreaks of new and emerging diseases are linked to land-use change like deforestation, fueling the spread of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases such as Covid19. (Ecohealth Alliance)
• Asia is home to roughly 60% of the world’s indigenous people, who have historically been marginalized and are among the most vulnerable populations. However, they hold a significant amount of knowledge that will be critical in allowing them to adapt to climate change. Despite the recognition of the critical role of indigenous knowledge, policies and plans have failed to find a place for it. (National University of Singapore)

• Deforestation is regarded as one of the world’s most pressing land-use problems. More than 1 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood. (World Resources Institute)
• Up to 28,000 species can go extinct in the next quarter-century due to deforestation. This estimation is still present in 2021. (Reid, 2012)
• Since humans started cutting down forests, 46 percent of trees have been felled, according to a 2015 study in the journal Nature. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise. (National Geographic 2017 and 2018, WWF, Crowther, et al. 2015)
• About 80% of deforestation is caused by agriculture. The single biggest direct cause of tropical deforestation is conversion to cropland and pasture, to grow crops, or raising livestock to meet daily needs. (NASA Earth Observatory)
• Due to farming and deforestation, half of the world’s topsoil has eroded away within the past 150 years. (WWF)