Why Forests Matter – solving climate and biodiversity crises

Forests are a vital part of Earth’s well being

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably already a forest lover – and for good reasons! Forests are beautiful and awe-inspiring landscapes, which lower our blood pressure and promote feelings of peace and wellbeing when we spend time in them. But what we might not fully appreciate during our weekend bushwalks is that forests also promote the wellbeing of our planet as a whole.

With forest environments covering 30% of Earth’s land surface, it’s a truism to say that a healthy planet relies on healthy forests.

 

Webinar: Why Forests Matter

Listen to Virginia Young and Luke Chamberlain, experts fighting for the protection of our climate, diversity and forests talk about the connection between biodiversity, forest integrity and climate action here. YouTube chapter point links below will be in bold.

Learn more about why biodiversity, carbon sinks and ecosystem integrity all matter for climate.

• The economic values of primary tropical forests are globally significant.
• Avoiding their loss and degradation is critical to meeting global climate, biodiversity, and social development goals.
• Logging ban? What is really going with Victoria’s old growth forests?
• View Virginia’s slideset here and Luke’s slideset here.

 

Virginia Young on the links between biodiversity and climate action

 

Virginia Young on forest integrity, biodiversity and climate change 

 

 

Biodiversity and climate crises are intertwined

We are living with both biodiversity and climate crises with an accelerating downwards spiral  with compounding feedback loops. To reduce this we need to protect and regenerate forests as well as ending the use of fossil fuels. The biosphere crisis is just as significant as the climate crisis.

Without biodiversity, ecosystems can’t store carbon.  More abundant biodiversity increases ecosystem resilience to climate shocks. We need synergistic climate and biodiversity action.

We can’t meet Paris Agreement goals without protecting and restoring forest carbon reservoirs . We can’t keep trading off biodiversity for climate outcomes.

“While the past may well inform the future, our forests and a vast number of Australians who depend on their services, face an unprecedented and entwined set of escalating risks as global heating and biodiversity loss escalate. This existential threat to communities can only be prevented if we tackle the climate and biodiversity challenges together. As the first ever joint workshop of the scientific advisory bodies to the Climate Convention and Biodiversity Convention noted in 2021, the climate and biodiversity crises amplify each other and urgent synergistic action to protect and restore carbon dense and species rich ecosystems is needed.

 

Bringing climate and biodiversity policy and practice together is now an accepted imperative as this decision taken at UNFCCC COP 28 illustrates:

“Further emphasizes the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems towards achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal, including through enhanced efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems acting as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and by conserving biodiversity, while ensuring social and environmental safeguards, in line withthe Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; “ (Para 33 from COP 28 CMA 5).”

Virginia Young, Wilderness Australia

 

Cool wet temperate forests are the most carbon dense on earth.  The economic values of primary forests are globally significant. Avoiding their loss and degradation is critical to meeting global climate, biodiversity, and social development goals. We have to avoid ecosystem tipping points where forests change from being carbon sinks to carbon sources. Managed forests or logged forests are at much higher risk.

 

 

Bushfire risk  is related to past damage – young regrowth is like a tinderbox, whereas old trees can survive fire. It takes up to 80 years for a forest to regain fire resistance after thinning or logging.

 

Is the concept of Net Zero unhelpful to climate action?

 

What about the concept of Net Zero?  – it is not possible to trade geo carbon with bio carbon, we have to stop burning fossil fuels. We also need information on the integrity of our carbon stocks. We need separate goals and targets for fossil fuel use and land carbon.

Virginia Young: Further reading:

• Disturbance causes variation in sub-canopy fire weather conditions

• Bushfire Science Report No. 3

• Empirical analyses of the factors influencing fire severity in southeastern Australia

• Information and recommendations relating to the strategic review and analysis of the current expanded forest biodiversity programme of work in the context of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

• Submission on SBSTA62 agenda item 14: Cooperation with other international organizations

• Increasing collaboration across the Rio Conventions to achieve synergistic climate and biodiversity outcomes at COP30

• Connectivity Conservation: forging the nexus between biodiversity protection and climate action in Australia

• The Critical Importance of High Integrity Forests for Climate Abatement & Biodiversity Protection

 

Healthy forests help create a healthy environment

 

Water Cycle

Forests play a key role in the water cycle, capturing, storing and releasing water, encouraging humidity and rain. They act as a “biotic pump” drawing water from the ocean, driving regional rainfall and provide fresh waters for cities and help to recharge aquifers (DEECA). Less than 1% of all water on earth is available to drink.

 

Forests:

• Act as natural sponges, catching rain in their canopies and roots, helping to prevent flash flooding by preventing immediate surface runoff.
• Actively generate rainfall from evapotranspiration, releasing water vapour and small organic particles (e.g. pollen and fungal spores) that help clouds form.
• Improve water quality by preventing sediments from entering water catchments.
• Help prevent erosion from water runoff.

 

“The value of stormwater retention of parks in Melbourne alone is estimated at $46 million per year.”

Parks Victoria

Victoria’s forests are unique. They hold immense value for First Nations peoples, are home to the Mountain Ash, the tallest flowering plant on earth, and are descended from the Gondwanan supercontinent, contributing to a high diversity of ecosystems, including rare orchids, unique marsupials, and specialized wildlife.
The landscape features six distinct types, ranging from alpine ash and mountain ash to red gum, providing a high variety of habitats.

 

Soil Fertility

Globally, forests play a major role in soil fertility – with half of forest biodiversity living underground, according to the WEF: “these organisms are miniscule in size, but their importance to the ecosystem is enormous”. Forest logging really impacts soil biodiversity and health “harvesting trees severs the critical flow of resources below ground, directly reducing the abundance and diversity of soil life.”

 

Biodiversity – forests are home to 80% of land based species

Forests are critically important for biodiversity, and are home to “more than 80 per cent of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects. However, biodiversity is declining faster than at any other time in human history” according to the UN. Although terrestrial ecosystems are vital to human life, the rate of species extinction is accelerating – “forest loss, land degradation and the extinction of species pose a severe threat to both the planet and people”.

 

Healthy forests help create a healthy climate

Photosynthesis draws down carbon from the air

Without plants, particularly trees, the world’s ability to store CO2 would be drastically reduced. CO2 is the byproduct of oxygen usage by living beings and is released in chemical and industrial processes.

 

Trees are irreplaceable in maintaining atmospheric oxygen

Without plant photosynthesis (land and ocean), the process that absorbs CO2 and releases O2, life on Earth as we know it would not exist. Although forests do not make the majority of the world’s oxygen (it is made by phytoplankton) forests store carbon, filter our air and are crucial in maintaining our current 21% oxygen level.

Trees are key in regulating atmospheric chemistry including water vapour concentration. 

 

Trees are involved in energy balance

Trees absorb solar energy and reflect some back to the atmosphere, depending on their reflectance (albedo) and the time of year. They provide shade and create micro climates.

 

 

With forests under threat, our climate is under threat

 

Deforestation impacts our climate

Deforestation:

• Decreases rainfall, even changing weather patterns hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.
• Increases surface runoff, leading to landslides, soild degradation, salinity, erosion and flooding.
• Increases local temperatures.

 

Forests are under threat

According to the UN, the world is facing a triple crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. In 2020, forests covered 31% of the world’s land surface, but that area is shrinking, primarily driven by agriculture: “Agricultural expansion is the direct driver of almost 90 per cent of deforestation.”

“Lost forests mean the disappearance of livelihoods in rural communities, increased carbon emissions, diminished biodiversity and the degradation of land.”

UN, Sustainable Development Goal 15

 

The shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources

 

 

 

New research illuminates just how much forests contribute to carbon sequestration – they draw down twice as much carbon as they emit. However many of the world’s large forests are being degraded by harvesting or by rising temperatures, for instance in SE Asia and parts of the Amazon, thus shifting from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

 

“Tropical rainforests are far and away the most important ecosystems for mitigating climate change. Tropical rainforests collectively sequester more carbon from the atmosphere than temperate or boreal forests, but they’re also increasingly destroyed for agricultural expansion. The world’s three largest tropical rainforests are located in the Amazon, Congo River basin and Southeast Asia.”

World Resources Institute

 

“Overall, the data show that keeping existing forests standing remains our best hope for maintaining the vast amount of carbon forests store and continuing the carbon sequestration that, if halted, will worsen the effects of climate change…protecting primary and mature secondary forests today is most important for curbing climate change.”

World Resources Institute

 

In Australia too

Sadly, the same is true in the forests of north-east Queensland. Scientists studying carbon data from 11,000 trees in north-east Queensland, collected over a span of 49 years — from 1971 to 2019, found that after 2020, something changed. The forest started releasing more carbon than it could absorb.Unlike the Amazon, where deforestation through logging and land clearing was the key driver, the forests studied in Queensland showed minimal human interference. The shift to carbon source coincided with climate-related events such as temperature extremes and declining water availability.

 

More about our speakers

Virginia Young

Virginia Young is a Director for Wilderness Australia, and has been involved with large scale ecosystem regeneration, particularly in Australia’s south west.

• Virginia was the National Forest Campaign Co-ordinator for The Wilderness Society for many years and developed a national and international campaign focus for TWS on the role of forests in mitigating climate change.
• Virginia pioneered a continental-scale approach to nature conservation in Australia with the establishment of ‘Wild Country’, and formed the Wild Country Science Council of eminent Australian scientists to provide independent advice to guide the initiative.
• She established Ecosystems Climate Alliance in 2007.
• She was recognised as one of 20 ”Global Wilderness Visionaries” by the World Wilderness Congress in 2010.
• She is the Past President, Australian Committee for IUCN with involvement in the IUCN Task Force on primary forests and intact forest landscapes.
• Virginia is a Board Member for The Great Eastern Ranges, and a Director for the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society
• Virginia is a member of IUCNs Climate Specialist Group of the World Commission on Protected Areas
• Nature Thematic lead for the IUCN Climate Crisis Commission.
• She is the Past Chair of Gondwana Link Ltd, Australia’s first major connectivity conservation programme.

IUCN: “Virginia works with global science leaders to communicate the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity for carbon retention, climate mitigation and adaptation to encourage synergistic climate and biodiversity action  She is a Senior Research fellow with Griffith University.”

 

Luke Chamberlain

Luke Chamberlain is a campaign and policy officer at Environmental Justice Australia  Luke is “building momentum to permanently protect Victoria’s forests beyond the end to most native forest logging in the state”, and previously worked in the EU, building an alliance of over 120 organisations “to protect forests from being burned for so-called renewable energy”, and is still working against biomass burning in the US.

Luke has decades of experience in fighting for the protection of native forests in Australia and internationally, including with the Wilderness Society.

Learn more about protecting our threatened forests

 

What can we do as a society and in communities?

Stopping native forest logging and supporting ecosystem regeneration is essential in fighting the climate crisis.

Here is a list of organisations that are worth supporting. Acting together we are stronger whether that is through collective citizen science, or taking on vested interests or through engagement and advocacy to politicians, governments and business.

• Victorian Forest Alliance – Forests organisation peak body in Victoria with over 60 member groups including Lighter Footprints
• Victorian National Parks Association – currently acting against loophole logging as well as supporting new protected areas
• Larger NGOs including Environment Victoria, Wilderness Australia, The Wilderness Society and Environmental Justice Australia
• Effective local organisations including legal heroes Kinglake Friends of the Forest and WOTCH – get involved in citizen science and advocacy

 

What can we do as individuals to reduce our emissions?

• Moving towards a plant-rich or plant-based diet, especially locally sourced, reduces an individual’s climate impact.
• Going electric at home, with solar and in many cases a household battery not only reduces personal emissions, but also can reduce energy bills by up to 90%.
• Use active transport (walk, cycle, scoot) and public transport. Holiday locally. Switch from ICE vehicles to EVs. Second-hand EVs are becoming more available.
• Avoiding fast fashion, buying second hand, recycling can all help.
• One of the most significant actions we can do as individuals is vote for representatives who will act transparently and accelerate climate action.

 

Care about forests? Join Lighter Footprints Forests Working Group!

This webinar was organised by Lighter Footprints’ Forests Working Group – we’d love you to join us!

Read more about our recent actions here.

 

Resources

• Forests and Water Fact Sheet – DEECA
• Natural and Urban Water Cycle – Melbourne Water
• What role do forests play in the water cycle? – European Forests Institute
• Article on how forests are moving from carbon sinks to carbon sources – World Resources Institute
• Forests and water toolbox – FAO
• Sustainable Development Goal 15 Biodiversity – UN

 

Lighter Footprints

• Lighter Footprints’ Forests Working Group – join here!.
• Recent Forests Working Group report
• Check out  information pages on Forest Protection and Urban Forests
• Check out our highlights videos with tree legends Dr Greg Moore and Dr Judy Bush on Urban Forests and City of Boroondara chief arborist Chris Spencer and biodiversity lead Amy Shaw
• Meetings with Prof David Lindenmayer – watch a highlights video here, download his slideset here, watch Forest Wars book launch video here