The Glasgow conference saw a plethora of announcements on forests. The most high-profile of these was the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by 133 world leaders, who committed to work to halt forest loss and land degradation. History would suggest that such commitments are very easy to make, but much harder […]
Over the past decades, forests have been cut at an alarming pace and, although the loss rate has substantially decreased, global pressure on forests and natural habitat is still high.
While the FAO in its “State of the World’s Forests” acknowledges that agricultural expansion continues to be the main driver of deforestation and forest degradation, the reasons behind the conversion of natural eco-systems are complex, non-linear and related to different types of activity. They include global demand for food but also by the need to enhance the living of rural populations.
The EU has definitely a role to play in addressing this trend. Beyond the EU, the increasing demand for all commodities to feed a growing population in the next decades will require a global effort to produce more and waste less and to do it more sustainably, so as to prevent conversion of natural habitat.