International Effort to Save Forests Should Target 15 Countries

London/Nairobi, 20 August 2001 - Efforts to save the world's last, critically important forests, should initially focus on just a handful of countries, a new report has found.

A unique satellite-based survey of the planet's remaining closed forests, which include virgin, old growth and naturally-regenerated woodlands, has found that over 80 per cent are located in just 15 countries.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the key organizations behind the report, believes that targeting scarce conservation funds on these 15 key countries may pay dividends in terms of environmental results.

Importantly, the survey also reveals that the pressure from people and population growth on most of these remaining closed forests, such as those in Bolivia and Peru, is low.

Others, such as the remaining closed forests in India and China, are under more pressure from human activity and may require a bigger effort to conserve and protect, the report concludes.

But overall an estimated 88 per cent of these vital forests are sparsely populated, which give well-focused and well-funded conservation efforts a real chance of success.

The findings have come from scientists with UNEP working with other researchers including ones from the United States Geological Survey and NASA, the United States space agency.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, says:" The importance of healthy forests cannot be underestimated. Forests are vital for the well being of the planet. They provide a variety of socio-economic and ecological goods and services. These include watershed management, with forests regulating the quantity and quality of rainwater discharging into rivers. They also help counter soil erosion and the spread of deserts.

"They play a vital role in reducing the impacts of climate change by soaking up carbon from the air. Forests also harbour some of the world's most precious and endangered wildlife, provide food and medicines for many local communities and indigenous peoples across the globe and support eco-tourism, which can be economically important, especially in developing countries," he adds.

But despite their important role and numerous international conferences, conventions and agreements including the Forestry Principles, drawn up during the Earth Summit in 1992, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, forests around the globe remain under increasing threat.

"Short of a miraculous transformation in the attitude of people and governments, the Earth's remaining closed-canopy forests and their associated biodiversity are destined to disappear in the coming decades. Knowing it is unlikely that all forests can be protected, it would be better to focus conservation priorities on those target areas that have the best prospects for continued existence. I believe this new study provides this new focus. I urge governments, communities and international organizations to act on our findings and recommendations," he says.

The report, which the authors claim is the most comprehensive and reliable assessment ever made of global forest cover, has used satellite-based information to identify the extent and distribution of the World's Remaining Closed Forests (WRCF).

These are defined as forests with a canopy closure of more than 40 per cent. Such a level of canopy closure is considered vital if the forest is to be considered healthy and able to perform all its known environmental and ecological functions effectively. Such forests are also home to some of the world's rarest and most unique species including the elusive cloud leopard of Russia and the lion-tailed macaque of the Western Ghats in India.

Ashbindu Singh, Regional Coordinator at UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assesment, says: "We have found that 80.6 per cent of the WRCF are located in 15 countries. These are Russia, Canada, Brazil, the United States of America, Democractic Republic of the Congo, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Co