Forest Trends Impact Report 2021
View PublicationWe are a conservation organization. But as you turn the pages of this Impact Report, you’ll find not untouched natural landscapes, but people — the faces of the people we work with every day.
“Conservation,” in the sense of putting up a fence around a pristine area, is a 20th-century idea. That approach may still be appropriate in a few special cases, but it’s not scalable. Often it is not ethical, either. Traditional and indigenous communities have long been part of these landscapes. Eighty percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found on their lands. In the 21st century, we predict that we will find ourselves looking anew at ancient traditions of caring for the land, re-imagined for a modern, globalized economy.
In this report, you’ll find stories about a new Amazon “bioeconomy,” and forest-based value chains that redirect economic forces away from environmental destruction and toward regeneration. You’ll read about re-thinking infrastructure investments to work with nature, rather than against it, to manage climate and water risks. You’ll learn about global strategies like voluntary carbon markets that are driving a new wave of green finance to nature-based solutions. And you’ll learn about the everyday people doing this important work.