(animal sounds)
(dramatic music)
(city sounds)
The Indo-Pacific.
A region of diverse landscapes,
wildlife, and cultures.
Its natural resources,
including one of the world's three major rainforests,
have helped to create some of today's
fastest growing economies.
It is also home to a tenth of the world's remaining intact
tropical forests.
(animal sounds)
Intact forest are more than just tree-covered landscapes.
They are complex networks of living and non-living elements,
with few signs of human activity,
that are large enough to sustain entire ecosystem functions.
(monkeys howling)
They improve food security and water availability
while protecting people from natural disasters
and climate change.
And as the world confronts the health,
social, and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the Indo-Pacific's intact forests will play a key role in
creating more resilient societies.
Maintaining the forests' integrity
will improve human wellbeing
and support the natural systems we depend on.
And yet, their trajectory has been in decline for decades.
Twenty years ago,
the Indo-Pacific was home to the second largest expanse of
undisturbed rainforest in the world.
It covered roughly 188 million hectares,
an area about twice the size of the island of New Guinea.
But it was losing forest more quickly than anywhere else.
Satellite records show that by 2019,
this forest had been reduced
to less than half of what it had been in 2001
with most cleared for resource extraction
and infrastructure expansion.
In the northwest, the main drivers have been forestry,
shifting small farms,
and large-scale commercial agriculture.
In the central region, the leading factor was
clear-cutting for palm oil production.
And in the east, losses came from shifting small farms
and palm oil plantations.
Today with forests fragmented and degraded,
few are large enough, and intact enough,
to sustain all ecosystem functions
while providing the full range of benefits
that people depend on.
The intact forests that remain are essential.
(rainforest sounds)
About 30% are scattered widely,
but roughly 70% are concentrated just within the islands of
Borneo and new Guinea, with around half,
about 30 million hectares, in the New Guinea region alone.
(bird sounds)
These forest systems provide many undervalued benefits
that are easy to overlook.
They support the highest levels of terrestrial biodiversity.
Up to 25,000 species of trees
provide habitat and food for
millions of forest-dependent plants, animals, fungi,
and microbes.
Together their interconnected networks
provide services that societies depend on,
like nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, pollination,
and pest resistance.
All for free.
(thunder crackling)
Beyond supporting biodiversity, intact forest systems also
influence cloud cover and rainfall.
(thunder crackling)
They redistribute runoff,
stabilize water tables,
and regulate movement of nutrients and sediments,
helping to maintain soil fertility for food production
and preventing erosion.
And with today's climate extremes, intact forests
buffer people from the increasing intensity and frequency of
heat waves, droughts, and floods.
These forests have also provided material and spiritual
resources for forest-dependent communities
for over 50,000 years.
And today, over 100 million people,
roughly one quarter of the indigenous peoples worldwide,
rely on their direct use for food, water, shelter,
and livelihoods.
Forests provide benefits to human health
by decreasing the negative impacts of smoke and haze
by being better able to
withstand wildfires than disturbed forests.
They yield compounds that supply millions of people with
medicines worldwide.
Intact forests also reduce contact between humans and
disease vectors,
preventing the transmission of established
and emerging infectious diseases
that can impact human health and economic stability
at global scales.
(rainforest sounds)
The benefits of intact forests also reach worldwide.
They provide a free service for mitigating the impacts of
global climate change
by storing carbon in their trees, soils, and peatlands.
The Indo-Pacific is estimated to hold up to 140 billion tons
of carbon, with more than 40 billion tons
in tree biomass alone.
Keeping them intact will play a vital role in preventing
global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius
by 2030.
(airplane whirring)
The benefits of intact forests are increasingly clear.
Yet current land use plans
are often at odds with maintaining their integrity.
For example, as of 2020,
land concessions have been issued for much of the
western half of New Guinea.
Millions of hectares have been allocated
for industrial logging and wood pulp production,
mining operations,
and oil palm plantations.
Major infrastructure projects,
including a 4,000-kilometer- long road network,
are under way to facilitate these land use plans.
Throughout the Indo-Pacific,
many intact forests face similar pressures.
(upbeat music)
If human health, indigenous cultures, food security,
and low-cost tools for fighting climate change
are to be provided by intact natural systems,
then the current trajectory of use
needs to be reconsidered.
Once intact forests are degraded,
their benefits are lost for generations.
No known alternatives can restore all the services
they provide.
(rainforest sounds)
Societies around the globe have exploited nature to shape
the world we live in
without recognizing the full value of
intact natural systems.
This relationship has fueled development for centuries,
but it is not sustainable
for achieving economic growth
while also reducing carbon emissions
and ensuring human wellbeing.
Only by safeguarding these natural systems
can we continue to draw on the environmental, economic, and
human benefits they provide.
(bird noise)
For the forest-rich regions of the Indo-Pacific,
protecting intact forests
is a low-cost pathway for building more resilient and
prosperous societies
for today
and for the future.
(rainforest sounds fade)