FAO publishes updated estimates on global human proximity to forests and trees

Rome – Some 75 percent of the global population living outside urban areas are within 1 km of a forest, according to new research by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that aims to improve our understanding of human-forest interactions.

Launched today at the FAO Science and Innovation Forum in Rome, The number of forest- and tree-proximate people – A new methodology and global estimates also states that around 80 percent of people living outside urban areas are within 1km of agricultural lands with trees outside forests.

These are the key figures in the detailed new set of data and analysis of human proximity to trees and forests that was used to inform this year’s FAO State of the World’s Forests report.

“These estimations indicate the relevance of forests and trees to provide ecosystem services and support rural livelihoods,” said Ewald Rametsteiner, Deputy Director of FAO’s Forestry Division. “They should help decision-makers to develop more targeted policies for sustainable landscapes and local economic development.”

Forests - a basis for resilience and recovery

Forests cover 31 percent of the Earth’s surface and provide a wide range of benefits and services. Forests support human livelihoods and health in many ways, including by providing food and fuel, generating ecosystem services, and contributing to livelihoods and culture. In turn, human activities affect forest and tree cover and forest ecology, including through deforestation and degradation, as well as through conservation and restoration. 

“Critically, people depend on forests and trees – and they are a key resource to draw on for green recovery and alleviating poverty,” said Rametsteiner.

The research uses a new methodology that combines forest cover, tree cover and human population density data for 2019. The findings estimate that 4.17 billion people lived outside urban areas and within 5 km of a forest of a minimum size of 1 hectare, and 3.27 billion people were within 1 km.

The study explains that 87 percent of the people living outside urban areas and within 5 km of a forest are in low- and middle-income countries and that quantifying these spatial relationships should help identify those affected by both positive and negative forest changes, the study says.

Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform

The maps produced in the study are openly available at FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform, and data can be consulted at country level.

The study has also made available all programming code needed to reproduce the analysis in Google Earth Engine, encouraging further analysis and development of this research.  

Interested users are encouraged to provide feedback on the data and the method used through the FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform accessing the links below:

Forest-proximate people: https://data.apps.fao.org/catalog/dcat/forest-proximate-people

Tree-proximate people: https://data.apps.fao.org/catalog/dcat/tree-proximate-people

Google Earth Engine code: https://bitbucket.org/cioapps/sofo2022/src/master/

Global Core Set of forest-related indicators

The research forms a key part of FAO’s work towards further improving a Global Core Set (GCS) of forest related indicators and represents a first step towards developing GCS indicator 13 – “Number of forest dependent people in extreme poverty.”

The study provides an essential global data set needed but does not attempt to analyze the proportion of people who are forest dependent or living in poverty.

Researchers explain that this would require forest-dependence data and poverty data that does not currently exist at the global scale needed and suggests machine learning may help to develop this kind of analysis in future. The study could be used as a blueprint for more detailed studies at country level.