Protecting and Restoring Forests: A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress

This executive summary evaluates progress five years after the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), concluding that the goals to halve tropical deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030 are unlikely to be met. The report highlights an acceleration in the loss of primary forests, inadequate restoration progress, and a significant gap between 'grey' finance for agriculture and 'green' finance for forest conservation.

• The goals of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) to halve tropical deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030 are not on track, with the 2020 targets now considered likely impossible.
• Loss of humid tropical primary forests has accelerated by 44% relative to the 2002–2013 baseline, increasing from 3.0 to 4.3 million hectares per year. This loss is particularly severe in Latin America, and in June 2019, deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon rose by 88% compared to the previous year.
• Annual CO2 emissions from tropical tree cover loss between 2014 and 2018 averaged 4.7 gigatons, a figure that exceeds the total 2017 greenhouse gas emissions of the European Union.
• Progress on forest landscape restoration is limited; as of April 2019, only 18% of the 2020 goal (26.7 of 150 million hectares) has been realized. A pilot study in the Mekong region found that most tree cover gain occurred outside of forests, while natural forests suffered a net loss of 0.3 million hectares.
• Private sector efforts to eliminate deforestation from supply chains have stalled, with only 8% of companies having zero-deforestation commitments that cover all operations and supply chains.
• There is a severe imbalance in financing, where 'grey' development finance for agriculture is 15 times greater than climate mitigation finance for forestry. Forests receive less than 1.5% (USD 3.2 billion) of the USD 256 billion committed by developed country donors and multilateral institutions to climate change mitigation since 2010.
• In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, shifting agriculture accounts for 70% of total tree cover loss, driven by population pressure and a lack of livelihood alternatives for the rural poor.
• Indonesia saw a reduction in the rate of deforestation of more than 30% in 2017 and 2018 compared to the 2002–2016 average, though these gains are threatened by severe fires.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2019). Protecting and Restoring Forests: A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019NYDFReport_ES_EN.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. Protecting and Restoring Forests: A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress. 2019. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019NYDFReport_ES_EN.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=Protecting and Restoring Forests: A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress |date=September 2019 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019NYDFReport_ES_EN.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2019protecting, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{Protecting and Restoring Forests: A Story of Large Commitments yet Limited Progress}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019NYDFReport_ES_EN.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }