Over millions of years different ecosystems have established patterns of carbon flows through the global environmental system. Now human endeavors are changing this natural exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial ecosystems, primarily as a result of fossil fuel burning and changing land use. As a result more carbon dioxide is accumulating, with atmospheric concentration increases more than 28 percent over the past 150 years.

Forests constitute the front line in the battle against climate change. Trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, compensating for some of the GHG produced by cars, power plants, and factories. The world’s forests trap as much as an estimated 638 billion tons of carbon.

It is stored in biomass – trunks, branches, foliage, roots, and so on – and in soil. Clearing forests not only eliminates these CO2 absorbers; cutting and burning trees and disturbing the soil also releases stored carbon into the atmosphere. According to estimates, deforestation accounts for at least 20 percent of annual global carbon emissions.

It also depletes natural resources and has a devastating impact on local and global biodiversity. Land conversion is the single greatest cause of terrestrial species’ extinction.