Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests

This report provides a 2016 progress update on the first ten goals of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF). It evaluates global trends in natural forest loss, private sector commitments to deforestation-free supply chains, restoration pledges under the Bonn Challenge and UNFCCC, and the evolution of international climate finance and forest governance.

• Global natural forest loss shows a divergence between net and gross rates: while the annual net loss of natural forest area decreased by 25% in 2015 compared to a 2000–10 baseline, the annual gross rate of tree clearing increased by 9% between 2011 and 2014 relative to a 2001‐10 baseline.
• Private sector commitments to eliminate deforestation from supply chains have increased, with 415 companies making pledges as of 2016, up from 307 the previous year. However, these commitments are unevenly distributed across commodities: palm oil (59%) and wood products (53%) are most addressed, while soy (21%) and cattle (12%) receive significantly less attention.
• Forest restoration pledges have grown significantly. Under the Bonn Challenge, the number of committing entities doubled to 38, with total pledged areas reaching 124.3 million hectares. Additionally, 114 parties to the UNFCCC submitted intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) with land sector targets totaling an estimated 161.6 million hectares of restoration and afforestation.
• The 2015 Paris Agreement formally integrated land use and REDD+ into the global mitigation framework through Article 5, signaling the central role of forests in climate mitigation. Analysis of 162 INDCs shows that 98 Parties proposed quantified emission mitigation targets including land use, while 60 proposed non-emissions targets.
• International public finance for forestry in developing countries increased, with combined bilateral and multilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) for climate change mitigation rising from US$548 million in 2013 to US$739 million in 2014, driven largely by increased allocations from the UK, Japan, and Germany.
• Results-based finance (RBF) for forest emissions reductions saw a growth in pledges of over US$6.4 billion since 2014, though actual disbursements lagged at US$440 million. Germany, Norway, and the UK collectively pledged over US$5 billion for the 2015–2020 period.
• The forest carbon market experienced substantial growth between 2013 and 2015, increasing in value from US$152 million to US$762 million and in volume from 25 MtCO2e to just under 88 MtCO2e, largely due to the Australian Emissions Reduction Fund.
• Forest governance and the rule of law face severe challenges, with 2015 recorded as the worst year for killings of land and environment defenders, totaling 181 deaths. However, some policy progress was noted, such as Japan adopting legislation to promote legal timber and Indonesia preparing to issue FLEGT licenses for EU exports by the end of 2016.
• Efforts to reduce deforestation driven by basic needs focused on clean cookstoves, with nearly 20 million new cookstoves and fuels distributed in 2014, although financing for these interventions remained flat.
• The report identifies a critical data gap regarding the impact of non-agricultural economic sectors on forests. While mining and infrastructure are major drivers, there are no comprehensive global datasets to measure their specific impacts, though initiatives like Trase and studies on gold mining in South America are beginning to fill these gaps.

APA

Streck, C., Haupt, F., Roe, S., Behm, K., Conway, D., Schulte, I., & Kroeger, A. (2016). Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests. Forest Declaration Assessment. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2016NYDFGoal1-10Updates_Full.pdf

Chicago

Streck, Charlotte, Franziska Haupt, Stephanie Roe, Katharina Behm, Darragh Conway, Ingrid Schulte, and Alan Kroeger. Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests. Forest Declaration Assessment, 2016. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2016NYDFGoal1-10Updates_Full.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{streck2016progress, author = {Streck, Charlotte and Haupt, Franziska and Roe, Stephanie and Behm, Katharina and Conway, Darragh and Schulte, Ingrid and Kroeger, Alan}, title = {{Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2016}, month = nov, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2016NYDFGoal1-10Updates_Full.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }