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Climate change and forests

Most people know how important forests are – they soak up carbon dioxide (particularly crucial at the moment) and help regulate the global climate. They also tend to be particularly rich in plant and animal species.

When large areas of forest are destroyed – whether razed for commercial reasons or dried by a warming climate – it’s not only bad for the local species and communities that rely on them, it’s disastrous for life on Earth as we know it.

Dying trees emit their stores of CO₂, adding to atmospheric greenhouse gases, and setting us on a course for runaway global warming.

Forest and vegetation loss can also cause soil erosion, landslides in mountainous areas and loss of agricultural land.

Impacts vary in different kinds of forests. Sub-Arctic boreal forests are likely to be particularly badly affected, with tree lines gradually retreating north as temperatures rise.

Temperate forests are perhaps less at risk, although in southern regions they’re likely to be more vulnerable to fire and pests.

In tropical forests like the Amazon, where there’s abundant biodiversity, even modest levels of climate change can cause high levels of extinction.

The other complication is that tropical forests are often in countries where there’s less access to information, technology and financial resources.

What WWF is doing
We’re working with local communities, governments and businesses to promote sustainable forest management, and we’re carrying out research to understand the best responses in different forest areas. 

Helping forest environments adapt to climate change will only succeed if other pressures are tackled too – and that includes rampant and often illegal forest logging, conversion and unsustainable timber extraction.

We’re encouraging the attitude that forests and the species they naturally contain are of more value kept alive and healthy rather than cut down or destroyed.

Find out more about our work to protect the world's forests