CIEL Senior Attorney Melissa Blue Sky reflects on her recent experience in Korea at the World Forestry Congress and considers legal approaches to protecting forests.
Upon arriving in the Republic of Korea ahead of the World Forestry Congress (WFC), I was immediately stuck in traffic. It took two hours to travel twenty miles from the airport into the city of Seoul, but throughout the ride, I was struck by the abundance of lush, green forests interspersed among and surrounding the congested roads and skyscrapers of the metropolitan area with 26 million inhabitants.
The next day, in an effort to adjust to the time zone, I took a walk in the city and spotted little round signs for the “Seoul Trail.” I followed the trail with some trepidation at first, as it led me along a highway before finally passing through an underpass to reach a forested section of the trail. Along this section of the 157-kilometer trail, I passed elders walking barefoot, children with their families, groups outfitted as though they were about to embark on a mountaineering expedition, and in certain sections, no one at all. Walking in the Yangjae Citizens Forest, even so close to such a dense and enormous city, brought me a sense of calm.
The benefits of being in forests are myriad and well-documented: reducing stress and blood pressure, strengthening immune systems, and improving concentration. But more importantly, humanity, plant and animal species, and life on earth as we know it are all dependent on the continued existence of forests.
Korea is the only country that has successfully afforested — or restored degraded and deforested lands — since World War II. Although deforestation began in Korea as early as the 18th century, it accelerated in the mid 1900s, when almost half the forests were destroyed. In the 1960s and 1970s, the exploitation of forests for fuelwood, illegal logging, and shifting cultivation continued to drive forest degradation and deforestation. In 1961, the Korean government passed the Forest Protection Act, giving special enforcement powers to forestry authorities, and subsequently developed five national forest plans with an integrated framework to prioritize reforestation and forest protection. The government also involved the population in the effort, consulting with them on new forest policies and including residents in the nationwide tree-planting movement.
At the opening session of the 15th WFC, the Minister of the Korea Forest Service reflected on the country’s afforestation success. He said that establishing a plan was the easy part, but the results wouldn’t have been possible without a strong commitment to implementation. That sentiment remains true today, and it was an important reminder to shape discussions at the Congress over the next five days.
CIEL has been active in the movement to prevent deforestation and fight illegal logging for three decades, linking its work on forests with broader efforts to halt biodiversity loss and combat climate change. CIEL works to use the power of the law to turn abstract ideas and lofty goals into lasting forest protections. At the WFC, there were hundreds of sessions and side events, most related in some way to the dual question of how to stop deforestation and forest degradation on the one hand, while restoring or replacing forests on the other. But the most important question is: How do we do this in a way that actually leads to results?
The WFC happens once every six years as a “global platform for members of the international community to come together and issue recommendations and declarations on major forest issues.” This year, I spoke during a session about how we can strengthen laws to halt and reverse deforestation, presenting findings of a study on legal frameworks to effectively tackle illegal timber trade. Land clearing for agriculture is now the largest driver of deforestation, and laws are under development in the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom to address commodity driven deforestation. In my presentation, I highlighted key lessons to apply to future import laws to ensure agricultural commodities aren’t grown on deforested lands.
The law is an invaluable tool in this work because we’ve seen voluntary commitments, both political declarations and corporate zero deforestation pledges, fail time and again. Reforestation and afforestation offer expensive photo ops, but often fail thereafter. In November 2021, over 100 countries at the United Nations climate talks announced the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use, aiming to end deforestation by 2030. While it sounds like a victory, the specifics about how this will be achieved are still unclear.
But we must find an effective solution, and quickly. Currently, an estimated one-fifth of global emissions come from forest degradation and deforestation. The upside is that restoring forests and preventing deforestation has the potential to account for one-third of the emissions reductions needed to stay below 1.5°C warming.
Recent attempts to reduce deforestation and meet this potential for emissions reductions have included financial agreements between forested and donor countries to incentivize forest protection. Some of these agreements have seen early success, while payments in others are on hold, pending positive results. Gabon is one country that has made this agreement with donors. Notwithstanding a serious scandal of illegal logging involving government officials, there has since been significant work undertaken to shift to in-country processing, create jobs, and reduce timber harvesting so that much of the value of the harvested trees remains in the country, even after exporting finished or semi-finished products. In theory, policy change, complemented by donor funding, can reduce logging and deforestation, increasing the likelihood that forests will remain standing. Financial incentives are one element, but political will and long-term reforms in forest sector governance may yield more durable forest protection if done properly.
In order to achieve lasting results in forest protection, country pledges to reduce deforestation and increase afforestation need to be translated into national laws and policies with strong penalties and enforcement. Public involvement will also be critical, as we saw with Korea’s reforestation efforts. Gabon’s progress shows some promise, but unfortunately, in many countries, agreements to conserve forests are only made to receive donor funding, and the scale of that funding pales in comparison to what the government can get through leasing for oil drilling.
Halting deforestation by 2030 requires the creation and enforcement of strong national laws in both forested countries and importing countries in order to protect forests from logging and agriculture. This is our best chance to conserve forests and uphold their crucial role in halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation and desertification, and reducing emissions to combat the climate crisis. Our lives and our planet depend on forests, and so we must act like it.