Explained | Global tropical primary forest cover continued decline in 2022: study

Source: The post is based on the article “Explained | Global tropical primary forest cover continued decline in 2022: study” published in The Hindu on 29th June 2023

What is the News?

World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Global Forest Watch has released a research report on forest cover.

What are the key findings of the report by Global Forest Watch?

Source: BBC

Forest cover loss in Tropical areas: In 2022, Tropical areas lost 4.1 million hectares of forest cover – equivalent to losing an area of 11 football fields per minute.

– The primary forest cover loss in tropical areas in 2022 was 10% more than in 2021.

Note: Primary forests are mature, natural forests that have remained undisturbed in recent history.They often store more carbon than other forests and are rich sources of biodiversity. 

– Primary forest loss is almost irreversible in nature: even if the green cover regrows, a secondary forest is unlikely to match the extent of biodiversity and carbon sequestering capabilities of a primary forest.

World is not on track to meet its forest-related commitments: Two key goals set by the World Resources Institute includes:

Source: BBC

– Ending deforestation by 2030: For this, the global deforestation rate needs to decrease by at least 10% annually to meet the 2030 target.

In 2022, the deforestation rates reduced by 3.1% compared to the 2018-2020 baseline.But it is still far away from the 2030 goal.

– Restoring 350 million hectares of lost and degraded forests by 2030. The overall change in tree cover over the past two decades has been a net loss of 100 million hectares. This indicates that forests are still being lost instead of being restored at the required rate.

Countries Tropical forest cover: Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo are the two countries with the most tropical forest cover and both registered losses of this resource in 2022. 

– On the other hand, Indonesia and Malaysia managed to keep their primary forest cover loss to record-low levels in 2022.

India: India lost 43.9 thousand hectares of humid primary forest between 2021 and 2022, which accounts for 17% of the country’s total tree cover loss in the period. The total tree cover loss in India between 2021 and 2022 was 255 thousand hectares.