We Are Losing These Forests

Intact forests are in rapid decline: from 2000 to 2016, we lost about 9% of the planet’s intact forests, or 0.6% per year. Industrial logging, agricultural expansion, and infrastructure development are all driving the destruction of intact forests at twice the rate of deforestation overall. If the destruction continues at this pace, half of what currently remains will be gone by 2100. Other climate threats lie in the intact boreal forests in Canada and Russia, where over half the planet’s forest permafrost lies. Disturbance from fires, clear-cutting, and oil and gas exploration expose permafrost to warmer air, and it thaws, releasing methane that accelerates climate change in a dangerous feedback loop.

Our Strategy

Reversing the current trajectory of decline and unlocking the carbon value of intact forests on a global scale is a critical piece of the climate change puzzle.

To end all loss of intact forest by 2030, WCS, along with our strong network of partners, will:

• Strengthen the scientific case for the critical role of intact forests in helping the international community meet its global climate, conservation, and sustainable development targets.
• Build, promote, and win consensus for global policy commitments for valuing and conserving intact forests, using the scientific case as an entry point. These commitments will drive and shape both new government actions to protect intact forests and new flows of global climate funding for intact forest preservation.
• Scale up direct action for intact forest conservation at the national level. WCS will develop and manage model intact forest conservation programs using best practices we have proven out over decades around the world—and we will multiply our impact by assisting national governments in securing new protections for the world’s remaining 10 million square kilometers of intact forest.

Strengthen the scientific case for intact forests

Current forest metrics do a poor job of quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions associated with loss of intactness. As a result, policy targets and funding commitments do not prioritize the conservation of intact forests and focus solely on deforestation. As part of our larger effort to strengthen the scientific consensus and policy commitment around intact forest protection, WCS is developing the first-ever metric of forest intactness designed to incorporate the multiple values of carbon, forest integrity, biodiversity, ecological processes, and risk scenarios into a single composite index.

This index of intactness will strengthen the case that intact forests are important for carbon storage and sequestration; will be an essential tool in cases ranging from land use planning to intergovernmental investments; and will fill a key gap in our ability to link interventions to measurable gains or losses in the varied values of forests.

Build, promote, and win consensus for global commitments for intact forests

We are targeting both climate and biodiversity global policy regimes with the goal of embedding commitments to intact forests in each, for example:

• For the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, we will advocate for specific policy options on how developed and REDD+ countries can best incentivize the mitigation and financing of intact forests.
• For the Convention on Biological Diversity 2030 post-Aichi targets, we will advocate for a global target for the long-term retention of biodiversity and functional, natural ecosystems that addresses ecological intactness.

Why WCS?

WCS’s mission is to conserve more than half of all animal and plant species and the world’s largest wild places. Our strategy is to focus on the planet’s most important, ecologically intact places with the greatest biodiversity and resilience to climate change. We do not parachute in and out of key conservation sites; we stay as long as it takes to get the job done and build capacity to have a lasting impact.

With a global staff of over 3,700, WCS has more boots on the ground than any other conservation organization—and runs programs spanning more than three million biologically critical square miles in nearly 60 countries. WCS is a trusted advisor to key decision makers—at all levels of government and in major global forums—because of the integrity of our staff, the authority of our scientific research and field work, and our large and influential network of local, indigenous, and NGO partners.

As the world’s premier wildlife conservation organization, WCS has a long track record of achieving innovative, impactful results at scale. We build on a unique foundation: our reach is global; we discover through best-in-class science; we protect through work on the ground with local and Indigenous People; we inspire through our world-class zoos, aquarium, and education programs; and we leverage our resources through partnerships and powerful policy influence.

Lessons Learned from a Century of Successful Land Conservation

WCS has led the way in protecting the planet’s most critical natural strongholds for over a century, helping to create more than 300 national parks, reserves, and other forms of protected areas on land and at sea. We assist countries, communities, and Indigenous groups in establishing, expanding, and managing protected areas in a variety of ways, depending on specific capacity needs and socio-economic conditions. In the over 600 protected and conserved areas where WCS currently works, our approach ranges from supporting management through technical assistance to direct ownership and management of land.

The following examples illustrate WCS approaches to intact forest conservation:

• WCS is leading the charge to protect forest resources across five landscapes in the Western Amazon and Andes. WCS support to Bolivian national parks and to the Tacana Indigenous People resulted in a 94 percent reduction in deforestation between 2005 and 2014. In Bolivia’s Greater Madidi Landscape, WCS’s scientific guidance, training, and technical assistance helped secure legal tenure over this extensive indigenous land, shaping the management of 1,503 square miles of wild lands. Within this indigenous land, we have supported more than 20 enterprises in managing and marketing natural forest resources.
• In Congo-Brazzaville, WCS has full management responsibility for the protection of 1,600 square miles of lowland rainforest in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, part of a public-private partnership with the national government. This framework has enabled WCS to professionalize park operations, directly manage ranger teams, and implement the conservation strategy—reducing pressures on the forests as well as maintaining healthy populations of elephants, gorillas, and other wildlife that rely on them.
• WCS is working to strengthen inclusive national and jurisdictional strategies and policies, including key implementation and community management approaches, to conserve intact forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, and enhance global policy mechanisms to better support intact forests.
  
  • Project title: Building inclusive, effective strategies for intact forest conservation
  • Donor: The project is supported by The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), represented by the Department for Climate and Environment
  • Objectives: The project contributes to the following outcomes: 1) approved and implemented policies for sustainable forest and land use in tropical forest countries and jurisdictions, 2) improved livelihoods for Indigenous Peoples and local communities through strengthened land tenure and 3) effective international structures for reduced deforestation in tropical forest countries.
  • Implementing Partners: This project is led by WCS, with key support from local and global partners. In Indonesia, this includes close coordination with Gunung Leuser National Park and the Aceh Natural Resources and Conservation Agency, as well as local NGO Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (YEL). In DRC, we have partnered with Program d’Actions pour le Développement Intégré du Paysan (PADIP), in full collaboration with Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), the DRC’s national conservation agency.