Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Technical Annexes

This technical annex focuses on Goal 4 of the New York Declaration on Forests, which aims to support alternatives to deforestation driven by basic needs, such as subsistence farming and woodfuel reliance. The report identifies a lack of global datasets to monitor progress, relying instead on proxy indicators like clean cookstove distribution and financial flows. It highlights the complex, non-linear relationship between poverty and forest loss and provides case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru to illustrate localized interventions.

• Subsistence and smallholder activities are not the primary drivers of deforestation in most high-loss regions, though they are estimated to be responsible for approximately 33% of deforestation across tropical and subtropical countries in Africa, Asia, and America. Additionally, fuelwood and charcoal are responsible for approximately 27-34% of forest degradation.
• The relationship between poverty and forest loss is non-linear; while low-yielding production can increase the land footprint for subsistence, increasing wealth can also drive forest loss by providing the financial and technological means to deforest.
• Monitoring progress for Goal 4 is currently inadequate due to a lack of global datasets quantifying support for alternatives to basic-needs-driven deforestation. The report uses the distribution of clean cookstoves and financial support for woodfuel interventions as proxy indicators.
• Clean cookstove distribution is accelerating, with 93.5% of the 13.37 million replacement cookstoves distributed in 2013 going to priority intervention countries. China received 47% of all distributed cookstoves, followed by Ethiopia (19%), Kenya (7.5%), and Bangladesh (5%).
• Financial support for woodfuel interventions is increasing. Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the sector rose from an annual average of US$3.6 million (2006-2009) to US$47 million (2010-2013), and cookstove project developers received approximately US$273 million in 2014.
• In the Mai Ndombe region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, forest loss is driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and charcoal production for Kinshasa. A coordinated investment of approximately US$95 million (2015-2020) is planned across four pillars: agriculture, energy, forest, and enabling activities.
• The Tambopata-Bahuaja REDD+ Project in Madre de Dios, Peru, addresses small-scale agriculture as a driver of forest loss by working with over 1,100 smallholder farmers to produce certified 'zero-deforestation' organic and Fairtrade cocoa.
• There is a lack of coordination between agricultural ODA and climate mitigation ODA. Countries receiving the most agricultural ODA per capita are typically least developed countries where food security is urgent, whereas forestry mitigation ODA tends to concentrate in middle-income countries.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2015). Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Technical Annexes. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2015Goal4.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Technical Annexes. 2015. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2015Goal4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Technical Annexes |date=November 2015 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2015Goal4.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2015progress, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests Technical Annexes}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2015}, month = nov, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2015Goal4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }