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Tree harvesting is not the same as deforestation

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 307–309 (2022)Cite this article

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Millions of people rely on potentially sustainable harvesting for their income and energy. Yet specious assumptions about deforestation continue to drive ineffective bans on these practices. This occurs at the peril of the climate and the poor.

COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, marked a renewed international focus on reducing emissions from the world’s forests and woodlands, with a wide coalition of nations committing US$12 billion over the next four years to halt deforestation1. Although a welcome boost for emission reduction targets, intensified efforts to end deforestation herald a time of great risk and uncertainty for hundreds of millions of people in the Global South who rely on the harvesting of trees from natural forests for their income and energy2. Climate science and policy must not forget these people in the race to reduce emissions from deforestation — for the sake of the world’s poor and its forests. (See Supplementary Information for summaries of this Comment in French and Portuguese.)

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Fig. 1: Bringing wood charcoal to market in Mozambique.

Mike Goldwater / Alamy Stock Photo

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out under the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) programme, with financial support from the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada (IDRC project no. 109238-004). The views expressed herein are those of the creators and do not necessarily represent those of the FCDO, IDRC or its board of governors. We thank C. Bec and P. Nieto for providing the French translation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Geoff J. Wells, Casey M. Ryan, Samuel Bowers, Peter Hargreaves & Janet A. Fisher

  2. Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique

    Luis Artur, Natasha Ribeiro, Jone Fernando & Aide Farao

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  1. Geoff J. Wells
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Contributions

The Comment originated from discussions among all co-authors, with G.W., C.M.R. and L.A. further distilling the key points. G.W. led and coordinated the discussion and wrote the manuscript, with edits from all co-authors. J.F. and L.A. provided the Portuguese translation.

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Correspondence to Geoff J. Wells.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Summaries of this Comment in French and Portuguese.

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Wells, G.J., Ryan, C.M., Artur, L. et al. Tree harvesting is not the same as deforestation. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 307–309 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01326-4

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