Happy Nice Mall

Stopping deforestation was one of the biggest commitments to come out of the international climate talks in Glasgow last year, but there was little evidence of progress in 2021, according to a report released Thursday.

This annual report The tropics lost 9.3 million acres of primary old forest in 2021, found by the World Resources Institute, a Washington DC-based research group. That’s 2.5 billion metric tons, or about two, and half the amount emitted by passenger cars and light trucks each year in the United States.

Brazil had the largest share of forest loss accounting for more than 40 percent of the total, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Bolivia.

Last year’s total was an 11 percent drop from 2020, but roughly equal to the amount lost in both 2018 and 2018. 2019.

Rod Taylor, global director of the institute’s global forests program, said the rate of deforestation, which has been essentially constant over the past four years, is “not good for the climate. extinction crisisand for the fate of many forest peoples.”

Most forest loss in the tropics is linked to other activities such as agriculture or mining. Forests are clean cut and burn frequently, and these fires can get out of control and contribute to destruction.

In addition to adding planet-warming gases to the atmosphere, deforestation removes habitats for plants and animals, degrades land, and affects weather patterns and flooding.

The situation has become so dire that at the United Nations climate talks held in Glasgow last November, 141 countries, including Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Promises to “stop and reverse” deforestation by 2030.

Frances Seymour, a senior fellow at the institute, said drastic action will be needed to produce the consistent annual declines needed to meet this goal.

“The figures we are sharing today may perhaps be considered as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the steps they have taken to follow up,” he said in those commitments.

There was some good news in the report, especially from Asia. Forest loss in Indonesia has decreased by a quarter from 2020, the fifth consecutive year of falling total. Malaysia also had a fifth year of decline, although forest loss in 2021 was only slightly less than in 2020.

Since extensive forest and peat fires in 2016 that resulted in a major loss of tree cover severe air pollutionIndonesia has introduced stricter regulations on the palm oil industry and others responsible for most of the loss. Companies were also pressured to pledge to reduce deforestation.

“This shows that institutional commitments and government action are clearly working and Indonesia is moving in the right direction to meet some of its climate commitments,” said Hidayah Hamzah, senior director at the institute’s Indonesia office.

Andika Putraditama, also from the Indonesia office, said a new law that has the potential to weaken environmental regulations in Indonesia is cause for concern. He said if the government can’t maintain adequate protective measures, companies must step up efforts to provide voluntary protection, such as the ethical supply chain movement that promotes the use of sustainable materials.

In West Africa, Gabon and the Republic of Congo showed decreases in tree loss. However, large-scale deforestation continued in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which lost 1.2 million acres largely as a result of small-scale agriculture and charcoal production.

In Brazil, tree cover loss has increased significantly in the western part of the Amazon basin. This may be linked to the development of roads and other infrastructures that allow mining and other deforestation activities in the area to take place.

A recent study showed that the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest area, is less capable. get rid of ailments like drought and stumpsand it is approaching a threshold at which at least part of the area will slide from forest to grassland.

“This will release enough carbon into the atmosphere to take the Paris Agreement targets out of the water,” Ms Seymour said. All the findings of the report mean, he added, “that we need to significantly reduce emissions from all sources.”

“No one should think about planting trees anymore instead of reducing emissions from fossil fuels,” he said. “It should be both, and it should be now before it’s too late.”

The report found that more than 27 million acres of forest cover had been lost in the tropics overall. But the institute focuses its analysis on ancient primary forests in moist regions, which play by far the biggest role in keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and conserving biodiversity.

The report is a collaboration between the institute and the institution. Global Land Analysis and Exploration The lab at the University of Maryland, which developed methods for analyzing satellite images to determine the extent of forest cover.