Life on Earth depends on forests. We breathe their purified air, we drink their clean water, they prevent erosion, and they help combat climate change. Besides providing essential natural resources such as timber, food, and medicinal plants, forests also host a diverse array of plants and animals. Furthermore, forests contribute to the wellbeing of local communities.
However, forests around the world are under threat. We continue to lose forests, along with the animals that reside in them, despite the important role forests play in environmental and economic health. The tropics lost more than 12 million hectares of tree cover in 2020. Every single minute, that’s about 30 soccer fields’ worth of trees. Increasing demand for forest and agricultural products, illegal logging, and poor forest management practices contribute to their destruction. A significant amount of deforestation occurs in some of the world’s most biologically diverse regions, including the Amazon, Borneo and Sumatra, the Congo Basin, and the Russian Far East. The result is that nearly half of the world’s original forests have disappeared.