Almost 1/3 of land on Earth is covered by forests.
As a matter of fact, our little blue planet is actually pretty green!
So let's take a look at the top 10 facts about our forests!
Fact 1 - They are havens of biodiversity.
Forests are home to 80% of all land-based species of plants, animals and insects.
In turn, forest species help keep their habitats healthy,
spreading seeds from the fruit they eat and acting as important pollinators.
Fact 2 - They are full of secrets.
We still don't know all there is to know about our forests.
There could be as many as 9,000 tree species still unknown to science...
and we already know about 63,000 of them.
Fact 3 - They can make rain.
It's not magic. Forest moves so much water from the soil to our atmosphere
that they can create their own localised weather systems.
Parts of the Amazon can even trigger their own rainy season.
Fact 4 - They are great at storing carbon.
Carbon storage is the process of capturing and trapping carbon or CO2,
keeping it out of the atmosphere.
Forests are so good at it that they become giant carbon sinks,
trapping more carbon than they produce.
Fact 5 - Tropical forests are the carbon storing champions!
Forests in South America hoard around 30% of all the CO2 stored in our planet's forests.
That's about 82 gigatonnes!
Fact 6 - Deforestation releases that CO2 in our atmosphere.
Losing trees is bad enough.
Cutting down forests represents a tragic loss of habitat, species and livelihoods.
But deforestation also creates a dangerous feedback loop
as all the carbon stored in these destroyed forests
is released back into the atmosphere, accentuating the impacts
of climate change and pushing forests towards tipping points.
Fact 7 - Forests used to cover half of our Earth's land.
Today, they still cover a third, but it used to be so much more.
Sadly, the total number of trees has been almost halved
since the start of human civilization
and we are still losing more every day.
Around 15 billion trees are being cut down each year, and
that's roughly a football pitch every two seconds.
Fact 8 - The UK has a responsibility to protect forests across the world.
In 2018, the UK was the 2nd net importer of forest products in the world.
That's beef, leather, timber, soy, palm oil, pulp
and paper, cocoa and rubber.
To supply our annual demand of these products,
we require an area that's 88% the size of the UK
and nearly 1/3 of it is located in countries at high risk of deforestation.
Our leaders promised to bring an end to deforestation in our supply chains...
but they are off track to deliver this important pledge.
Fact 9 - Your money could be contributing to the destruction of forests
and other vital habitats.
By no real fault of your own.
WWF's Forest Pathways Report found that governments are spending
between £378 billion and £1 trillion of public funding
on subsidies, tax breaks and incentives
that could harm these important ecosystems.
That's 100 times more than on projects aiming to restore our forests.
Fact 10 - There is hope for our forests!
We are seeing forests recover around the world thanks to the hard work of
Indigenous people, local communities, charities,
partners, committed governments and passionate individuals.
In the UK, the Wild Ingleborough project has seen around
85,000 native trees planted to restore our lost biodiversity.
In Tanzania, 73,500 trees have been planted in the last five years
in the Pugu-Kazimzumbwi Nature Reserve.
In the Amazon, Indigenous people are training to use drones
to help protect their lands and forests from illegal deforestation.
We can all play our part in bringing our forests back to life.
You can call on leaders to keep the promises they made at COP26
to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.
You can demand that our food systems no longer fuel the destruction of our forests.
And if you would like to take it a step further, you can help
support our vital restoration work by becoming a WWF member today.
We hope you enjoyed this video
and learned more about the beauty and power of our forests,
as well as the urgent need to protect them.
You can find out more about ways to bring our forests back to life
in our Forest Pathways Report.
And as always, don't forget to subscribe to never miss new updates!