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About Us
Why Forests Now? Back to top
Deforestation is responsible for about 20% of all carbon emissions, more than the entire global transport sector. Mitigation must continue across all sectors, including additional limits on industrial emissions, but efforts to meet vital reduction targets by 2030 will be negated unless we tackle emissions from forests now.
Tropical forests also support half the species of life on Earth and sustain the livelihoods of 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people. Action on forests now will help tackle climate change and address food, energy and environmental security for everyone – increasing the likelihood of meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals
We are at a watershed moment. In tropical forests the complex challenges facing our planet meet like nowhere else. And beneath all the complexity lies a simple fact: if we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change.
What is the Countdown to Copenhagen? Back to top
At the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali in December 2007 (COP 13), an international framework to pay for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) was given a tentative go-ahead. Final agreement must be reached by December 2009, when negotiators meet in Copenhagen (COP 15)to finalise a new international climate deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Many countries and NGOs are now working on the practicalities of including forests, and forest-owning nations are focusing on capacity-building, but there is little time to reach consensus and collaboration is vital.
The Forests Now website and you Back to top
This website is focused on forests and climate change, and on the countdown to the key UN climate meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. It is a resource not only for Forests Now endorsers but for the wider global community working to protect tropical forests. Its main aim is to offer tools which facilitate communication and collaboration amongst that community.
At the site's heart is a political calendar: a timeline at the top of each page pulls out key milestones along the countdown to Copenhagen, while fully-featured year, month, and week views provide information about relevant events around the world. Practical information is available for each event, and you can also share your own events with the community and call on colleagues to take specific actions.
The site also gathers together relevant news, case studies, guest editorials and reference material, and provides a platform for you to have your say on the key issues. We hope you find it useful and that you can join us - through suggestions, insights and information – and help improve it. The website is a collaborative work in progress.
Finally we invite you to read the Forests Now Declaration and to add your name to the list of endorsers if you support its aims.
Forests Now History Back to top
In 2007, hundreds of people from across the world - including Heads of State, forest peoples, eminent scientists and economists, businesses and NGOs - joined in calling for urgent action to protect tropical forests by signing the Forest Now Declaration. By October 2008, 870 people had signed the declaration.
It was set on its way in the rainforest canopy of the Brazilian Amazon in September that year by leaders from the Government, Indigenous Peoples, NGO and scientific communities. From there it went across the world's tropical forests and carbon capitals, receiving endorsements along the way, and was presented at the UNFCCC climate meeting (COP 13) in Bali in December 2007.
The Declaration calls for a series of carbon policies and market reforms to incentivise the protection of tropical forests and safeguard the vital services they provide, including the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. Forests continue to fall because they are worth more dead than alive, and the Declaration urgently calls on governments to reverse this situation. The declaration highlights the importance of these forests not only for the climate, but also for the people that depend directly on them for their livelihoods, for the immeasurable biodiversity they support, and for the whole humanity.
The Declaration and this website are the result of collaborations between many endorsers. The Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of 37 scientific institutions in 19 countries, has played a coordinating role.
Contact Us Back to top
Please email us at info [at] ForestsNow.org.
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