Forests are essential to life on earth: more than 1.6 billion people rely on them for their livelihoods, they’re critical in the fight against climate change, they maintain biodiversity, and protect land and water. Yet the threats against them continue to multiply. Around the world forests are being plundered for timber, including bioenergy, and cleared to make way for agriculture, mines and infrastructure.

Fern works to protect forests and respect the rights of forest communities. They identify the threats facing the world’s forests and people, and work with affected peoples, social and environmental organisations and policy makers to devise and deliver solutions. Their purpose, as a European NGO, is to address the root causes of this forest destruction from a European perspective. The EU’s pivotal role in global trade and aid means it has immense influence on the world’s forests and the peoples who depend on them.