5 20 10 THE PLANET IS LOSING BATTLE AGAINST DEFORESTATION The rate of world deforestation continues to accelerate, despite governments' promises to reverse it. Now, the world loses 64 million acres a year of forested land, which is equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom, according to a new study by Climate Focus. Thirty-seven governments as well as many multinational companies, NGOs and groups representing indigenous communities have signed the New York Declaration on Forests since it sprang from the UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit in 2014. This declaration pledged to cut the deforestation rate in half by 2020 and to end it by 2030. Unfortunately, this feel- good, non-legally binding declaration has been hugely unsuccessful. Since the declaration was penned, tree cover loss has skyrocketed by 43 percent, while tropical primary forests have been slashed. The world is now in worse shape than when the well-intended pledge was made. Some countries, however are making an effort. Indonesia slowed its rate of deforestation by a third between 2017 and 2018. Others such as Ethiopia, Mexico and El Salvador, are determinedly planting trees. But these attempts are overshadowed by deforestation in much of Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. Major forests in these regions saw marked decreases 15 in tree cover between 2014 and 2018. The recent Amazon wildfires are bringing deforestation to a whole new level. Climate scientists worry about feedback loops, where climate change makes trees drier, leading to increased flammability and more fires and carbon dioxide, which in turn makes things drier, hotter and even more flammable. Commercial agriculture was the leading cause of deforestation across the 24 "deforestation fronts" (tropic and subtropic areas) with hundreds of thousands of square miles of forest chopped down to create space for livestock and grow crops. Other main drivers of large-scale deforestation include road building, mining and land speculation. WWF's researchers said the extensive habitat destruction was not only of the leading causes 25 of biodiversity loss, as animals lose the ecosystems which support them, but are also becoming an increasing threat to human life due to outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases such as Covid-19. As wild habitats are destroyed, the risk of a zoonotic disease event is increased as humans and livestock are driven into closer contact with wild animals. Adapted from Harry Cockburn, www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/deforestation- uk-trees-amazon, Wednesday 13 January 2021. BENDU Ambiance moi ندج gro ps Gor présentation ​