The forest in danger

Although the world’s 7.6 billion people make up only a barely measurable fraction of all living creatures, humanity has already caused the loss of 83 percent of all wild mammals and half of all plants.

This illustrates the extent of humanity’s impact on our planet. In this context, ongoing global deforestation contributes significantly to the loss of biodiversity and promotes the progression of climate change. Deforestation leads to serious and long-term negative impacts on the environment, climate and society.

In addition, the World Economic Forum(WEF) estimates that up to 50 percent of gross domestic product worldwide is indirectly or directly dependent on nature. Accordingly, the preservation of our forests is of crucial importance for ecosystems and animal diversity, and ultimately also for our economic prosperity.

As a sustainable asset manager, we want to help stop harmful deforestation by influencing companies to fulfill their responsibility to protect forests and to report transparently on their efforts to combat deforestation.

Why the fight against deforestation is important

Deforestation occurs when existing forest areas are cleared in order to subsequently convert the land for agriculture, livestock farming, commercial forests or the extraction of raw materials. This mainly affects forest areas, but also other biodiversity-sensitive areas such as swamps, savannahs, moors or grasslands.

An estimated 10 million hectares of forest are lost worldwide every year due to a short-sighted pursuit of profit and a lack of regulation – an area larger than Austria. As a logical consequence of this ongoing deforestation, the earth has lost about as much forest area in the last 100 years as in the previous 9,900 years.

However, forests and other ecosystems are of existential importance to humanity and the loss of these areas has far-reaching consequences:

On the one hand, progressive deforestation is accelerating the loss of biodiversity. Forests are the habitat of more than 80 percent of living organisms on land.

While some species adapt to changing environmental conditions in good time, progressive deforestation has a particularly negative impact on creatures that require largely undisturbed wilderness. If these animals are driven out of their natural environment, their contact with humans increases. In tropical forests in particular, this carries the risk of new pathogens being transmitted to humans, making the occurrence of new pandemics more likely.

In addition, forests are among the largest natural CO2 reservoirs. The loss of forest areas releases the previously stored CO2 into the atmosphere.

In 2022 alone, this amounted to an estimated 2.7 billion tons of CO2 worldwide. By comparison, Germany emitted around 666 million tons of CO2 in 2022. The CO2 released will further accelerate climate change.

Once forest areas have been cleared, the risk of soil erosion increases. Soil erosion occurs primarily when the soil is directly exposed to flowing water, heavy rain or strong winds due to the lack of protection provided by the trees.

In intact forest areas, the soil is protected by roots, branches or fallen leaves. In contrast, unprotected eroding soil is more susceptible to flooding, landslides or sandstorms and can contribute to water pollution.

In addition to the loss of fertile soil, eroding soil also contributes to climate change, as CO2 previously stored in the soil is increasingly released through erosion.

However, deforestation also damages the natural water cycle.
In healthy natural ecosystems, water is largely absorbed by trees and then released back into the environment through their foliage.

Forests therefore make a major contribution to regulating the humidity of the atmosphere. If forests are lost, this can affect temperature and humidity regulation, resulting in less rainfall, among other things. This in turn has serious consequences for plants, animals and humans.

In addition to the negative consequences for natural ecosystems, deforestation often goes hand in hand with serious human rights violations. Local communities often have their land taken away from them and cleared without their consent. This is often done through intimidation and threats of violence. Non-governmental organizations and activists who oppose these practices are confronted with public denunciations or legal proceedings due to corruption, among other things.