What is the New York Declaration on Forests?

It was launched in 2014 at the UN Climate Summit in New York in response to then–UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call for bold, cooperative commitments to address climate change.

The NYDF established ten shared global goals — including halting natural forest loss by 2030, restoring 350 million hectares of degraded land, improving forest governance, scaling up forest finance, and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Endorsed by more than 200 governments, companies, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, and civil society groups, the NYDF became a major global reference point for collective forest action throughout the 2010s.

A decade of impact and legacy

The NYDF galvanized international efforts to protect and restore forests. It brought together unprecedented coalitions of governments, companies, and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations that pledged to eliminate deforestation from agricultural supply chains, protect tropical forests, and mobilize finance for restoration.

Its launch marked the first time the world’s leading economies, forest nations, and private sector actors agreed to a shared timeline for halting forest loss. In the years that followed, the NYDF helped shape related initiatives such as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use (2021) — which reaffirmed and expanded the 2030 forest goals first articulated in New York.

Although the NYDF Global Platform, which facilitated coordination among endorsers, has concluded its operations, the declaration itself remains an active reference point for endorsing entities and other stakeholders. Its vision and goals continue to inform accountability efforts through the Forest Declaration Assessment, the civil society-led initiative that tracks progress toward halting and reversing forest loss by 2030.

How the NYDF shaped global forest goals

The NYDF anticipated and aligned with several major international frameworks that emerged soon after its launch, including:

the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — especially Goal 15 on forests and ecosystems;
the Paris Agreement (2015) — linking land-use change to national climate targets; and
the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) — which calls for halting nature loss by 2030.

Its targets to end forest loss and restore degraded land remain central to global climate and nature agendas today.

Endorsers of the NYDF

The NYDF was endorsed by over 200 entities including more than 50 governments, more than 50 of the world’s biggest companies, and more than 50 influential non governmental organizations and Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
View the full list of endorsers here.