hardy plotted, not only for performance with also from her stand against the war steadfast, which is here in amsterdam. yet now has launched a new attraction for tories with a head for heights. is the well as long as glass bottomed bridge surpassing if 526 meters struck chain gone down china, the glass bottomed bridge in the north west sun. my province can support up to 450 people over time while giving them a spectacular view. of the lush jungle far below. ah, clara again, i'm fully battle with the headlines on al jazeera. ukraine says russia has intensified it's offensive in the east. the dumbass region has seen an increase in fighting. present voted means lensky says, a situation there is difficult. char stratford has more from his, tim ukraine, a lot of heavy shirley of various locations in the east overnight and into the

smaller or most particularly the tail of our proposal. lucy chance and her a town called hillis go. now these tales are all east of here, and they are part of, according to what you current military are saying. this is campaign by the russians to try and push dell and swelled the urban centre of stravinsky yourself. to bert kraemer tossed, china's manufacturing has dropped to its lowest level in more than 2 years. activity slowed sharply in april, as shanghai came under a locked down as part of the government syrup over 19 policy. factories have been closed and consumption has taken a hit. the u. k. government has sent a minister to the british virgin islands for tops after the territories premier was arrested in the us on charges of conspiring to traffic cocaine and launder money. hundreds of asians have protested against gang violence that killed at least 20 people. this week, crowds shouted insults at the government and the police who have lost control of

parts of the capitol hotel. prince tennis champion, boris becker, has been sentenced to 2 and a half years in prison by a british court. the 51 year old german was found guilty of hiding millions of dollars worth of assets to avoid paying his debts. electricity, black counts, have a threatening in india, coal reserves are running out at power stations as everyone tries to keep cold during a record breaking heat wave, the government council $600.00 passenger train services to prioritize fuel shipments to power stations. some have only 24 hours worth of cold left and vietnamese launch a new attraction for tourist with a head for heights. it's the world's longest glad glass. bottom bridge in grand on china, the glass bottomed bridge can support up to 450 people. and those are the headlines coming up next step since i story, stay with us. ah,

the world is losing its trees thus, despite a decades long effort to stop deforestation, a report has lost his goal of ending the practice by 2030 is now out of reach. so what's behind this destruction? and can it be stopped? this is inside story. ah hello there and welcome to the program. i'm laura kyle. a report by global forest watch says the earth lost a staggering 11100000 hectares of forests last year. wildfires fined by global

warming and human activities such as logging and farming a, causing our forest to shrink ever further. the losses include nearly $4000000.00 hectares of tropical rain forests, which a critical to capturing carbon dioxide. the rate of tropical deforestation last year was equivalent to 10 football pitches every single minute. all that despite are pledged by more than a $140.00 countries to end and reverse deforestation by the year 2030. and while some have made progress, that deadline won't be met without a sharp decline, and forest loss is worldwide. well, let's take a look at some of the other findings of this report. tropical rain forests losses last year resulted in 2.5 giga tons of carbon dioxide emissions. that's equivalent to india's annual fossil fuels emissions and that's the 3rd largest polluter. 40

percent of all tropical rain forest loss was in brazil. wildfires responsible for under a quarter of that. most of it came from agriculture expansion and milking and was global tropical forest law slightly decreased in 2021 for real forests in cold climate. so unprecedented losses. 6.5000000 hector's when last 2 wildfires in russia alone. ah, let's bring in our guests now and in the us state of north carolina, we have friends to see more. she's distinguished senior fellow at the world resources institute, which release this report in amsterdam, west van eden global communications director at just take it as an organization working to re green africa and an oxford u. k. michael jacobs and environmental economists at the university of sheffield. if i was welcome to all of you, francis you were involved in producing this report. it makes

a pretty shocking reading. i use surprise that was still saying this much deforestation across the world some to decades after the organization. the global 4 is what started monitoring these for us. you know, disappointed, but not surprised. as you suggest, we do now have 20 full years of data from satellite imagery, monitoring and have seen just a steady persistence, stubborn loss, so forth at this level. you mentioned it last year in 2021 more than 11000000 hector's, just in the tropics and of that 3750000 pictures of the primary tropical forest, which are the most valuable from the point of view of carbon sequestration by diversity conservation indigenous peoples, so it's really a catastrophe, but really for the last 20 years that last of tropical human tropical forest

primary force has hubbard between 3 and 4000000 hector's for 20 years now. so it's another step. i would also say that in fact, the pledge to end for the last by 2030 was made in november. so most of this loss had already occurred by the time of the pledge. so maybe we can see this as the baseline against which to judge performance against those pledges. ok, we'll certainly look more at those pages a little later in this discussion. right now, folks a little bit more on the impact of this deforestation and west we've got 10 football pictures of the virgin forest being lost every minute. i might get this when i was a teenager in the age myself has i'm so 20 years ago. these figures were being bounded around, then i remember full size, but we'll pitch size patches are waiting for us being lost every single minute. it was shocking, then it's shocking. now, what is the impacts of this and the impact is devastating, as we all know. so i think, you know, we're in the midst of global climate crisis,

as i think, especially depend list, but i think the majority of people are now aware. however, what is sometimes lexus, all the doom and gloom that's being portrayed, which is scientifically very true, does not lead to a lot of hope and inspiration for people to actually be able to do something. so we just try to do is to really focus on solutions, nature based solutions. and even though the numbers are devastating, again, no denying that we do believe that re greening as possible and that there are a lot of things that we can do as humanity. if we only have the will to do it together, it's not rocket science, but we need to do it now because the time to talk about climate change and deforestation is really over. absolutely, and i'm glad you all had to, to provide some of beacon of hope on ego very active in east africa. and we will get more onto that a little bit later. but that's what we're just keeping with the report. indonesia, for example, is a success story in this report. it has reversed some of the deforestation. why is that happening well and how?

well, i think to, to, to government really opening up to the fact that they have some natural resources which are really valuable. and the more and more luckily, people are trying to recognize these as acids and not as you know, natural resources alone, but really as you can um, recall assets to a country. so the, i think the example of indonesia as a perfect example, that yes, we can turn the tide if there is only a will and also legislation to back it up. micro of course, as a tenuous success in indonesia, we've got to remember that there was always going to be pressure to we use for us to land. what sort of pressures that indonesia face and can withstand it. the pressure is a huge and they just grown larger. we are now experiencing a very short rise in food prices, which of course is causing a great difficulties for many poor people around the world. but it increases the

incentive for clearing land for agriculture. and in indonesia, there has been a, a moratorium on new palm oil forest plantations. carmel is one of indonesia principal exports, and it's something consumed in huge numbers of products, not just foods actually, but more. but other products as well that use vegetables and that moratorium has definitely contributed to the reduction in the loss. the rates of loss of indonesia is rain forest. remember, this is not an absolute declining a or absolute increase in forest rates are rates of loss, which is slowing. that's good news. but with the ending of that moratorium and with very high food prices, you will see huge pressures to plot more trees to take more land or from the virgin forest to turn it into plantation land and in other parts of the

world. for example, brazil to grow crops which are, which are more profitable than they were even last year. so the land pressures which arise not just within those countries, but of course, from our consumption. we in the northern countries on the major consumers of many of the things which come from those places are huge. and that is why we have so much deforestation. the economic pressures are leading to it and that has been quite a campaign, hasn't been michael against palm oil. and we, i think most people are aware of it. if not aware of how wide spread it is found in all our products to why hasn't that caught on more what it's called all the little bits and one of the major a successes of. busy last few years has been the number of multinational corporations, particularly northern ones, where there is some consumer pressure from consumers in northern or countries global law countries. and so that has been a relative success story,

but it isn't every come every company. and there are many companies that are not taking part in that attempt to reduce form oil from a di forested areas. and the problem is that the pressures are huge and when a product is very profitable, it becomes much harder to prevent farmers and land owners are planting crops, cutting down trees, or because they make so much money from deuce doing so relative to the alternatives and unfortunate although it is absolutely true, but forests are in themselves resources in a global market, your competing against the other things you could do with that land. and that's where high food prices will make things more difficult. absolutely. i mean francis, if we look at brazil, for example, one of the main precious errors, agriculture put in castle on to the land, clearing it for beef, which is a huge commodity on the global market. the pressures that chapels narrows under to create more money for his country,

a huge and we see that reflected that when the amount of deforestation, so what can be done to stop that domestic pressure? so i think comparing the indonesia and brazil cases over the last 20 years is quite illuminating in that they have their deforestation trajectories. have diverge not once, but twice, even though they face a common international environment. so you may recall that, you know, in brazil, in the early years of this century, the amazon was up in plane and had, you know, historically i unprecedented deforestation rates. and yet, when the little administration came in and, and really mounted the whole of government approach to enforcing the law and providing incentives and disincentives to municipalities, you know, to perform. and the soy traitors association imposed a voluntary moratorium on sourcing soil from recently before the gland and the combination of all these things,

including recognizing indigenous territory. establishing new protected areas brought the rate of deforestation down by something like 80 percent even while increasing, continuing an increase in the production of the main commodity drivers of before station, which then as now were beat and soy. and that success was maintained for about a decade of dramatic reduction in deforestation rates. but then the political economy domestically changed. and since then a lot of that success story has been unraveled in the last few years. and we've seen, i think just in the last year, an uptick of 9 percent in the part of the brazilian amazon that's being cleared for this commodity agriculture. but by contrast in indonesia, the 1st 15 years of this century, we had a steady upward margin of before. and as has been suggested, that was due mostly to poem, while would also clearing for festering timber for the pulp and paper industry. but for me, the key factor in indonesia was the catastrophic forest fires in 2015,

which the, you know, all indonesia and suddenly realize the cost of not protecting florist, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, respiratory disease cost of the economy. and that's when the law enforcement moratorium, enforcement as well as these private sector commitments really kicked in. but if you can't rely on the national leadership to take leadership, and indeed for a station, where does the role of the international community come in front says, i mean, should we be using? and it's more of an incentives approach or even a punitive approach, such as sanctions i think it needs to be a mixture of carrots and sticks. and, and the question you ask is, is right to the point in terms of how international cooperation is approach. i think at the outset, we need to recognize that a heavy handed approach or an approach that could be interpreted correctly or

incorrectly as protectionist in nature, will have exactly the opposite effect that we might want. and we've seen again and again, you know, i sort of national sovereignty protection response to heavy handed in positions of restrictions or worth a reaction to, for example, putting into place domestic biofuel mandates as an alternative market for, in this case poem, while in case the european or other markets are close me and so we don't want to do is, is, is have the perverse effect. so in my view, a mix of care at some fixed for example, i think it's perfectly reasonable to work with the producer countries to close markets, to illegally produce commodities that's already been done for illegal timber. and now we're in the process of how it can be done for commodities produced on illegally cleared land. but in addition, we need to provide carrots and the one that we have an international framework for

is performance based finance for success in reducing emissions from deforestation called red plus. it's been agreed to under the paris agreement by you know, 200 countries. and we really need to really up the finance, the positive award for doing what, what countries can do, but need the incentive to so, leslie you thing and he positive rewards in the areas where you're working. i mean, you're in east africa, you're doing a lot to re green those countries. but also got born in this report was found to decrease this deforestation rates as being a success story l. these countries being rewarded for their efforts? well, i think the countries maybe not per se, but i think the did the communities which in the end is where we believe the change where you start in the local community and they're being rewarded and it gives you one example. you know, we worked a lot with agra forestry, which is basically focusing on, on small farmers in eastern, but now also expanding to our chapter in africa. you know,

combining trees the crops is not only providing them with, you know, more healthier soils, etc. but really providing with more people, so by inspiring communities and helping them to realize sustainable a gra, 1st practices on their land. you will see that their economy intensified and again keep in mind are over 350000000. small farmers in steps are in africa. so can you imagine the potential impact if we are able to inspire and educate those communities to, to, to take better care of their lands in the more sustainable way, which is not only economically benefit them, but in the end will benefit all of us true carbon sequestration by combining trees with props. so there are beautiful examples and i think the community is benefiting in the end will make sure that the countries benefit as well. ok, well that's, i mentioned just a little earlier, 141 countries signed a declaration at the 26 climate summit in glasgow last year. hold and reverse deforestation by 2030. now signatories agree to promote sustainable trade and

development. that doesn't work in deforestation. and to increase investments in rural. busy and indigenous communities to develop sustainable agriculture and forest management. thought critics like greenpeace. the pledges 2030 go effectively allows other day another decade of forest exploitation and is non binding. michael brazil was one of those 141 countries to sign this pledge. and yet we are saying no sign of it halting d for a station is literally chopping down the street as it finding away its promise not to do so. wouldn't how much stored you lay in thought pledges? how much optimism do you attached to them? well, it must be better to have the pledges for not to have them. there is no question, but when countries signed decorations like this in public and it was also companies and finance ears who signed that expiration. and they do come under some pressure,

usually domestic pressure, but also international pressure to abide by those pledges. but of course that pressure may be much less than the pressures that they have internally domestically . and in the case of brazil and both scenario, you get the, the feeling that frankly he signed that in order to make brazil look good on the instructional stage, but had absolutely no intention of enacting it at home. but in other countries, those pledges do mean something. so it must be better to have them than not. but greenpeace is right that in themselves, the pledges are not really enough. and we're seeing is of course in climate change, action in every field. this is true in, in the general targets that countries and companies have got and it's specific energy targets and so on. which is the targets are the easy part to say we will achieve something by 2030 or in many other areas. 2050 is an easy thing for

a politician or indeed a company to do. the hard thing is to enact the policies, all the behavioral changes which make those targets realizable. and that's where we need to see much more action. and so i'm happy that there are targets, but what you need to see are on the ground policies to make the targets achieved. and in particular, in the forestry field, it isn't just about the land use a policies, it's about the enforcement of them. the difference between energy and, and forestry, is that there are rather small number of energy uses the big companies that produce most of the energy in the world. and you can regulate them and tax them and give them incentives. and they are part of a, of an organized system of policy in most countries. deforestation occurs thousands and thousands of landowners and people who use other people's land. and it occurs over massive areas. the very size of the areas that we're talking about, the size of the u. k. of re id the forest. it just gives you an idea of how

difficult it is to enforce the law, let alone where there hasn't been no law. this is also about enforcement and that's where much more money and effort needs to go. and also, i suppose, where organizations like wessel just think it come in because they are on the ground working with those local communities at the very grassroots level west. do you think that there is enough organizations like q laws working throughout the world? oh, there's never enough to begin with. no, i think there can be more. and i think one important thing to add is here is we're talking about legislation and government pressure and regulations, and i completely agree that kind of, it's very difficult. it's easier when it comes to the energy sector because they're a limited amount of players. and you can put, you know, laws on them and make them behave accordingly. but i think when it comes to when it comes from restoration because not only about conservation but really restoration, which is think it is all about communication is so important. and again,

like i said previously, not only to do my part where we state the facts, like, you know, the amount of deforestation that's going on, we need to keep doing that very important. but also people tend to react better to hope and inspirational stories. so what just, just trying to do, not only in africa, but especially folks on europe and africa just to tell us stories of how relatively simple and again, relatively it is to recreate in almost lots of land, low most low tech, you know, going back to the roots are farming where we used to come from and not this intense meet producing farming, but really looking at, you know, agra forestry, a small, the potential of the small farmers. and we really believe positive storytelling goes along the way. so we work with a lot of partners will help us in time to tell the story. and what we see is there so much young people, especially reacting to that, getting a lot of positive energy from, you know, at least there is a part of the solution. and we're not here to say, you know, this is the solution already behind them, which is think it is doing. but what we do see is that people are in dire need of positive stories when it comes to climate change. we should keep logistic when the

big polluters but but positive storytelling is really something that goes along with, well, i completely take the point and agree with you. but unfortunately, i'm going to have to go back to the biggest doom and gloom aspect of this report at the bottom because it's a crucial, but we haven't touched on yet. and frances is that the b, amazon rain forest is almost at tipping point. now this, i found incredibly scary. what does it mean to be a tipping point? because it also says that if this happens, it blows out of the water all efforts to contain global warming. can you expand a little bit more on that for us? certainly. so the idea of a tipping point is that at a certain degree of tree cover lost in forest ecosystem like the amazon, that one can get into a positive feedback loop in which increased the continuing deforestation leads to warmer and dryer conditions, which makes the forest more vulnerable to fire,

which in turn releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to warmer and dryer conditions and more vulnerability to fire and so on. and scientists have been warning about the possibility of a tipping point in the amazon rain forest for quite a number of years now in which if we pass that point, the entire rain forest ecosystem would be converted into a grassland savannah. and if that happened, all of the carbon that's currently contained in the vegetation, which some of the most carbon dense as well as bio diverse place on the planet would be released up into the atmosphere. and that would, that's what would blow the parents agreement targets out of the water. and unfortunately, the latest science is showing that, that tipping point may be closer than we had originally understood. and that it's being driven not only by the global warming and climate change that to which all emissions contribute and also the local deforestation causes warmer conditions. it

dries up the rainfall such that the whole thing could, could pip more quickly than we thought, michael? what's your thought on this? just brief in the last that we have left. all we're going to reach that tipping point. i defer to the scientists on this, but as francis says that they are warning that these points are much closer than they used to be. and that is unsurprising because of the, the trends in deforestation. and it teaches us a really important lesson which is that the earth is not something that you can simply ponder on a linear scale and say, well in the end, if we lose all the trees, but we lose the trees because what you lose our whole ecosystems and the climatic balance that those ecosystems have created, we live in a world. ringback we did not create and we are totally dependent on that world, the natural world for regulating the life conditions in which human societies live

. and that's a really profound lesson which human societies used to understand. and actually the people who live in the rain forest tend to understand that they have lived in harmony with their natural environment for a very long time. and it's of course, industrial society starting in the north of the world which are tended to regard the natural environment is something to be exploited rather than to be live within . and as part of and that is a very profound economic lesson that we will need to learn and we need to learn it very rapidly. or else, as francis says, we may hit those tipping points. and then we really do not know how catastrophic that could be. absolutely, well, let's hope that this program helps people take that on board and that we do learn it and we don't reach that tipping point. thank you very much. to only be for joining our discussion today, frances seymour wessel than eton and michael jacobs. and thank you to for watching. you can see this program again, any time by visiting our website,

this algae 0 dot com. and for further discussion do go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a j inside story. from me laura kyle and the whole team here it's bye for now. ah may oh to 0 frontline reporting it in depth analysis. we bring you the latest from the ukraine war and the unfolding humanitarian crisis documentary. but in spite, whitney springs wild issues into focus through compelling human stories. the

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