June 2009. Forests are precious assets. They are home to much of the world’s biodiversity, store vast amounts of carbon, support the livelihoods of the world’s poorest people, provide fuel and building materials, protect our watersheds and offer a shield against extreme weather.
But our natural forests are being rapidly degraded. Agricultural expansion, infrastructure development, logging, climate change, fire and alien invasive species are all taking their toll. However, if we go a little deeper we often find that behind these immediate causes lie inadequate government policies that promote market failure and corruption and fail to tackle poverty. Read more