This article was originally published on New Climate Economy.
“The land use sector incorporates all of the natural capital stocks and ecosystem services that provide the world’s people with benefits such as water filtration, food, fibre, fuel and livelihoods.
Enabling financing for, and better provision and management of, “natural infrastructure” is therefore critical to delivering on our global aims of inclusive growth and climate action. Global demand for food, fuel and fibre is growing rapidly, increasing pressure on natural capital and ecosystems and exacerbating climate risks. By 2050, agriculture will need to supply 70% more food than today to feed a growing population, delivering on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: ending hunger, in a way that does not harm the soil, water, biodiversity, ecosystem services or climate upon which human well-being and development depend.1
Wood products are also increasingly in demand, propelled by the emerging and developing countries. One 2012 projection is for a tripling in demand by 2050, while a widely accepted and more recent projection forecasts increases from 28% (for sawnwood) to 192% (recycled paper products for pulp) to 2060.2 Although the majority of tree removals in 2015 still came from natural forests, planted forest area increased by 66% from 1990 to 2015, and now accounts for 7% of the world’s total forest area.3 Of the estimated 264 million hectares (ha) of planted forests in 2010, roughly three-quarters had commercial wood product production as their main purpose.4 These plantations are highly concentrated in a small number of countries, including China, United States, Russia, Japan and India.5 On a smaller scale in terms of total area but larger scale proportionately, plantations of major tree crops are growing in tropical forest countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Liberia, and Peru.6 Remote sensing shows that more than half the tree cover of peninsular Malaysia, for example, now consists of tree plantations, and plantations constitute nearly 16% of tree cover in Indonesia.7…”
Read on at: New Climate Economy.
