Brussels launch of the State of the World’s Forests 2022

“Trees, forests and sustainable forestry can help the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and combat looming environmental crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss.” That is one of the key messages to emerge from the newly released State of the World’s Forests 2022 (SOFO) report produced by FAO. The report sets out three interrelated pathways involving forests and trees that can support economic and environmental recovery.  

In Brussels, Director of the FAO Liaison Office with the European Union and Belgium Raschad Al-Khafaji and Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva Dominique Burgeon were joined by FAO Deputy Director for Forestry Policy and Resources and co-author of the SOFO report Ewald Rametsteiner, who dived into details of the report and gave a technical presentation on its data and analyses.  

The briefing, which was co-organized with the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, gave the expert audience the opportunity to ask questions about the report in a lively discussion.

The pathways

The key messages of the report are that:

1. Halting deforestation and maintaining forests could avoid emitting around 3.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) per year between 2020 and 2050, including about 14 percent of what is needed up to 2030 to keep planetary warming below 1.5 °C, while safeguarding more than half the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity.

2. Restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry – 1.5 billion hectares (ha) of degraded land would benefit from restoration, and increasing tree cover could boost agricultural productivity on another 1 billion ha. Restoring degraded land through afforestation and reforestation could cost-effectively take up to 1.5 GtCO2e per year out of the atmosphere between 2020 and 2050 – similar to taking up to 325 million gasoline-powered passenger cars off the road each year.

3. Sustainably using forests and building green value chains would help to meet future demand for materials – with global consumption of all natural resources expected to more than double from 92 billion tonnes in 2017 to 190 billion tonnes in 2060 – and underpin sustainable economies with greater employment opportunities and more secure livelihoods.

Societies could make better use of forests and trees to simultaneously conserve biodiversity, better provide for human well-being, and generate income, particularly for rural people, the report says, arguing that “there will be no healthy economy without a healthy planet.”

Current investment in forests falls way short of the levels required. According to one estimate, total financing for the forest pathways needs to increase threefold by 2030 and fourfold by 2050, if the world is to meet climate, biodiversity and land degradation neutrality targets. The estimated required finance for forest establishment and management alone amounts to USD 203 billion per year by 2050.  

The recording of the Brussels Briefing is available here.

The digital, full, in-brief and e-book formats of the report are available here.