Love trees? Then celebrate – 21 March is the International Day of Forests!
Without healthy, thriving forests, our planet cannot sustain life. But they are facing serious threats from human activity. As much as 80 percent of the world’s forests have already been degraded or destroyed.
The good news is that people are fighting back to protect these crucial parts of our planet. Here’s a look at eight different people-powered fights for forests from all over the world.
The rainforests and peatlands of Indonesia
More than a quarter of Indonesia’s forests have disappeared in the past 25 years, destroyed for products like paper products and palm oil. Even worse, the destruction from these industries is driving conditions that fuel immense forest fires – displacing people and wildlife, and sending massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Consumers all over the world are demanding that international brands using products like palm oil act to stop this forest destruction. Join the call to protect the rainforests of Indonesia!
Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest
In February, we celebrated the protection of Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest – one of the largest remaining coastal temperate rainforests on Earth. A staggering 85 percent of the forest, totaling 3.1 million hectares, will now be off limits to industrial logging. When the campaign started in the early 1990s, less than five percent of the rainforest was protected.
This victory was only possible because environmental groups, Indigenous Peoples, government officials, forestry companies and everyday people pushed for it. Learn more and spread the good news about the protection of this incredible forest!
The Amazon rainforest
Cattle ranching is the single biggest use of cleared rainforest in the Amazon. Nearly 80 percent of deforested areas in Brazil were used for pasture as of 2009. The survival of the Amazon rainforest is fundamental for numerous plant and animal species, and for many Indigenous communities that depend on healthy forests for their livelihoods.
That’s why people in Brazil are demanding that Amazon destruction be taken off their plates – for major supermarkets to stop supplying cattle connected to deforestation.
Want to cut down your own meat consumption for the environment? Make a pledge here.
Tasmania’s World Heritage-listed forests
“This is what climate change looks like,” said David Bowman, Professor of Environmental Change Biology at the University of Tasmania. Earlier this year, fires ravaged areas of Tasmania, Australia’s island state. Caused by dry lightning strikes, the fires have destroyed tracts of ancient World Heritage-listed forests. Some of the trees were over a thousand years old. In 2015, Tasmania experienced its driest spring on record and record-breaking high temperatures in December.
The fires in Tasmania are a clear reminder that the time is NOW to address climate change.