COP29: FAO highlights crucial role of primary forests for climate and biodiversity goals

Baku – A recently launched technical brief from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) underscores the critical role of primary forests in combatting climate change and halting biodiversity loss as crucial discussions take place at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The brief, Bridging nature and climate through protection of forests with high ecological integrity, emphasizes that conserving primary forests is essential for meeting global climate and biodiversity targets—a focal topic for policymakers, experts, and climate leaders at COP 29.

The paper’s findings were highlighted at a Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) event organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Global Environment Facility, FAO and the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat on mobilizing finance for climate and biodiversity in primary forests, which put primary forests at the forefront of the COP agenda and lent further weight to the urgent need for effective forest conservation.

“Keeping primary forests standing is one of the most important land sector contributions we can make to climate change mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity conservation,” said FAO Senior Forestry Officer Amy Duchelle.

Primary forests

Primary forests are defined by FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment as naturally regenerating forests of native tree species, where there are no clearly visible indications of human activities and ecological processes are not significantly disturbed.

In addition to hosting the majority of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, these forests store the largest proportion of terrestrial carbon stocks and help regulate global and local temperature and rainfall effects, while also sustaining the livelihoods and cultural heritage of forest-dependent people, particularly Indigenous Peoples.

However, these primary forests continue to be lost at a rate of at least 1.3 million hectares per year in the last decade, according to the technical brief. It highlights that a significant share of the world’s primary forests falls outside any formal protection status, underscoring the urgent need for effective measures to ensure their conservation and sustainable use.

Accounting for the full value of forests

Approximately 30 per cent of the world’s forests are primary. The area of primary forest has decreased by at least 80 million ha since 1990, although the rate of loss more than halved in 2010–2020 compared with the previous decade. Combined, three countries – Brazil, Canada and the Russian Federation – host more than half (61 percent) of the world’s primary forests.

The FAO paper explains that protecting primary forests has been overlooked in international policy frameworks, and in particular carbon trading mechanisms, which focus on carbon fluxes rather than stocks. Less than five percent of climate finance is used to support forest protection.

To remedy this, the paper recognizes emerging innovative public and private financing sources, including mechanisms based on area of forest conserved and a focus on multiple ecosystem services, which go beyond carbon.

Indigenous stewardship at the heart of forest conservation

The paper also underlines that Indigenous communities are one of the key players in protecting primary forests, citing evidence that Indigenous Peoples with secure land rights outperform both governments and private landholders in preventing deforestation, conserving biodiversity, and producing food sustainably.

However, they often lack secure tenure rights and financial support, according to the publication, which calls for more recognition for the role they play as stewards of forests and ecosystem integrity, and greater financial support and inclusion as key stakeholders. Integrated landscape approaches are needed for effective conservation of primary forests, the paper explains.