Cape Town — More than 130 world leaders who gathered at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, have pledged to co-operate and reverse land degradation and forest loss by 2030 by signing the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use.
Among these, 12 nations promised to make U.S.$12 billion available for climate finance between 2021 and 2025 in a new Global Forest Finance Pledge. A COP26 statement on the governments' decision read: "Our pledge will provide support for climate mitigation and adaptation, help address the systemic drivers of forest loss, and enable the conservation, sustainable management, and restoration of forests in Official Development Assistance eligible countries. These will be delivered through funding for results-based payments, technical and financial cooperation for capacity building."
Beyond this, an additional U.S.$1.5 billion has been pledged to protect the forests of the Congo Basin, a critically important biome and home to the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world. Funds totalling U.S.$1.7 billion have also been allocated to support Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' forest tenure rights and their role as forest protectors, while U.S.$7.2 billion of private sector funding has also been mobilised.
Reactions to pledges
This reaction, while welcomed by many, also brought words of caution. Jo Blackman, head of forests policy and advocacy at London-based Global Witness, said: "While the Glasgow Declaration has an impressive range of signatories from across forest-rich countries, large consumer markets and financial centres, it nevertheless risks being a reiteration of previous failed commitments if it lacks teeth."
Meanwhile, Fran Raymond Price, global forest practice lead at green group WWF International, welcomed the move, praising their acknowledgement of the significance of forests and other natural ecosystems. However, she urged quick action. "What we need now is urgent action and implementation of these commitments, coupled with time-bound targets and a common transparent framework for monitoring and verification of such targets. There's no time to waste," she said.
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What is the key solution to deforestation?
So what is the key to counteracting deforestation if not a vast pool of funds? According to Ian Dawson, Lars Gradual and Ramni Jamnadas of The Conversation, the path to success in a mass tree-planting initiative lies in the selection of seeds and the amount thereof. Most reforestation efforts reach a limited amount of success as observed through the poorly chosen trees that fail to thrive in the habitats where they're planted. This was noted in the "Grain-for-Green" tree planting programme in China.
The importance of tree selection according to habitat is underscored by new research which found that tropical mountain forests in Africa store as much carbon per hectare as those found in African lowlands. In addition to this, African tropical mountain forests are rich in biodiversity and function as organic "water towers" by irrigating agricultural land and acting as crucial sources for systems like the Nile and Congo rivers.
