To stop the infernal cycle of deforestation, let's go forest positive

THE numbers are out; we lost over four million hectares of primary forest in 2020, up 12 per cent from 2019. Agriculture is the main cause of deforestation globally. But despite hundreds of food companies having pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, massive forest clearing has actually increased by 43 per cent since 2014.

Palm oil is the main driver of forest loss in Asia. Some consumers and brands, fed up with the environmental destruction for new plantations, have boycotted palm oil altogether. However, boycotts are not the solution. They just result in buying a different, less productive vegetable oil from somewhere else that needed to clear even larger areas.

The movement to buy certified products is important to make sure that we're not buying from companies that are actively deforesting. Yet, it too does not actually protect forests from clearance by other companies that aren't certified.

What we need is to go forest positive: Invest in and buy from responsible growers actively protecting standing forests.

There are millions of hectares of forests outside officially protected areas still vulnerable to clearance for commercial agriculture. In many cases, these forests belong to communities who keep these forests standing for sustenance and cultural value. By linking consumers, companies and thoughtful investors who are buying commodities in those landscapes with these local forest protectors, we can match each purchase to conservation. This ensures our products are not only deforestation-free, but also truly forest positive.

The good news is that forest protection is affordable, accessible, and inclusive to all. At the Forest Conservation Fund (FCF), we have found excellent, community-run conservation projects that cost about US$40 per hectare, per year. At that price, compensating each hectare of palm oil or rubber or coffee that a company needs with an equivalent forest protection hectare costs just 1 to 2 per cent of the export price of those commodities.

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The John Lewis Partnership, owner of Waitrose supermarkets in the UK, recently announced a commitment to create a forest positive footprint by working with the FCF to protect an area of rainforest in Indonesia equivalent to the plantations they need to grow the volume of palm oil used in their store-brand products.

DECENTRALISING THE SOLUTIONS

All across South-east Asia, local communities living in harmony with forests for generations are getting recognition from governments for their land rights. A small amount of financial support for them to patrol their forests, monitor biodiversity, and invest in forest-friendly livelihoods like honey and rattan production, low-impact fish farming, or eco-tourism, will go a very long way.

The FCF recently approved a conservation project run by the Dumagat and Alta indigenous communities in the Philippines, who in 2020 were granted land tenure for over 24,000ha of tropical rainforest for protection. This Philippine Eagle Ancestral Forest not only houses some of the last remaining habitats for the critically endangered national bird of the Philippines, but also stores over 4 million tons of carbon - the equivalent of the annual emissions of 3 million passenger cars.

Deforestation represents about 10 per cent of planetary greenhouse gas emissions, so it is critical to keep these forests standing if we want to stabilise our climate. But forests are also critical for the biodiversity they protect and the ecosystem services they provide.

Three indigenous villages managing the Kubu Raya mangroves in the Indonesian part of Borneo are not only protecting threatened songbirds and the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, but also ensuring that palm oil plantations inland are protected from flooding and siltation.

Through the FCF, companies buying from those plantations can safeguard their supply, secure carbon and biodiversity benefits, and support the indigenous communities of Kubu Raya by investing in the conservation of these critical forests.

The scale of the deforestation problem can be overwhelming, and the number of actors involved complex. By decentralising the solutions and letting smaller conservation projects bloom, we can successfully protect the millions of hectares of forests remaining out there. Each forest has its own unique challenges and who better to understand, steward and navigate them than the local communities?

Tackling global deforestation is going to be a mix of top-down and bottom-up approaches: international treaties and climate change agreements coupled with the empowerment of local actors to conserve the forests they value so dearly. Supporting forest conservation is an affordable, accessible, and inclusive way for companies, investors, and individuals to become not just deforestation-free, but truly forest positive.

• The writer is executive director of Forest Conservation Fund.