Forest Declaration Assessment

The 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment finds that global forest governance is currently insufficient to meet 2030 targets. While some countries have successfully reduced deforestation through moratoria and strengthened enforcement, these gains are often fragile or being reversed by legislative rollbacks. The report highlights persistent tenure insecurity for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, widespread corruption in the timber trade, and significant gaps in the implementation of demand-side regulations in importing nations.

• Global forest governance is not yet strong enough to meet 2030 goals, with significant amounts of deforestation remaining illegal; between 2013 and 2019, at least 32 million hectares of tropical deforestation driven by commercial agriculture were illegal.
• Policy tools like moratoria and strengthened enforcement have led to deforestation reductions in countries such as Indonesia, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guyana, and Brazil, though some achievements, particularly in Brazil, have been reversed.
• Indonesia's Omnibus Law on Job Creation is identified as a major setback, removing the 30% minimum forest cover requirement for islands and eliminating strict liability for businesses whose concession areas burn.
• Tenure insecurity remains a critical issue globally, with at least 50 percent of lands and territories held by Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and local communities (LCs) lacking legal recognition.
• Demand-side regulations, such as the U.S. Lacey Act and the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), have helped reduce illegal timber imports, though the EUTR faces inconsistent enforcement and insufficient sanctions across member states.
• Corruption is widespread in forest regions, facilitating illegal timber trade; for example, an investigation found 1.6 million rosewood trees were illegally harvested in Senegal and exported through The Gambia to China between 2012 and 2020.
• There is a trend of 'protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement' (PADDD), with 74 countries enacting over 4,400 such events since 1892, primarily driven by industrial-scale resource extraction.
• Recent legal developments in Ecuador and India have recognized the 'rights of nature,' allowing ecosystems to be legally represented in court to prevent mining and other harmful activities.
• The Republic of the Congo's 2020 Forest Code is noted for integrating Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and legally recognizing independent forest monitoring by civil society.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2022). Forest Declaration Assessment. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022Theme4.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. Forest Declaration Assessment. 2022. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022Theme4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=Forest Declaration Assessment |date=October 2022 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022Theme4.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2022forest, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022Theme4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }