Protected forests face increased pressure from economic sectors such as mining, oil and gas, and infrastructure as some tropical forest countries expand commercial concessions and weaken forest protection regulations.
Clear data is lacking on the aggregate impacts of these sectors on forests, limiting the capacity to assess progress on addressing them. However, selected case studies of national policy developments and voluntary initiatives reveal some models for addressing these drivers of deforestation.
Biodiversity offsets are gaining popularity as a mitigation tool as demonstrated by an increasing number of tropical forest countries adopting regulatory requirements for offsets and the 2017 launch of a global inventory of biodiversity offset policies.
Voluntary initiatives that report companies’ environmental performance and information disclosure policies continue to develop; for example, the Standard for Responsible Mining is being finalized with plans to offer certification in 2019.
Advances in tools that can overlay spatial datasets portraying the world’s protected areas and global forest cover with areas of mining, oil and gas, and infrastructure development may help foster public understanding and debate around these issues.
The Forest Declaration Assessment and the Forest Declaration Platform have been supported over the years by the Climate and Land Use Alliance, the Good Energies Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) of Germany, and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), which supported this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.
This project is supported by the Climate and Land Use Alliance and the Good Energies Foundation. Research that contributed to this project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.