The article is taken from the Greenpeace website:

The crisis facing global forests

Primary forests are one of the most important ecosystems on earth: Russia, Canada and Brazil have the largest areas of primary forests in the world, while primary forests in African countries, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are extremely rich in biodiversity and have Very high conservation value. But only 20% of the world's original forests remain intact because illegal logging and destructive logging are devouring them.

Global forests are facing an unprecedented crisis. Eight thousand years ago, forests covered nearly half of the Earth’s landmass. Today, the remaining virgin forests account for only 7% of the earth's land area, and are rapidly decreasing at an average annual rate of 7.3 million hectares (equivalent to the land area of ​​Ireland). Forests have provided habitats for millions of animals and plants over the past thousands of years, and provided the resources necessary for life for indigenous peoples. Today, due to industrial development, there are very few primeval forests left around the world. It also faces the fate of being cannibalized.

Deforestation not only destroys the earth's ecosystem, reduces biodiversity, increases greenhouse gas concentrations, makes climate change an increasingly serious problem, but may also trigger human rights violations and racial conflicts. There are many reasons for the disappearance of forests: large-scale deforestation, including land reclamation, mining, plantation, and infrastructure construction, are all the main causes of forest destruction. According to the World Resources Institute's risk assessment of existing virgin forests: "Industrial logging has become the biggest threat to virgin forests..., affecting more than 70% of endangered forests." 

The virgin forest that took thousands of years to form has been processed into the floors we step on, gorgeous furniture, paper for schools and offices, inconspicuous paper towels, and even disposable chopsticks. If the rate of forest loss continues, the species that exist in the forest will become extinct by the middle of the 21st century.

Illegal logging has caused even more serious damage to forests around the world. The World Bank estimates that illegal logging costs timber-producing countries US$10 to US$15 billion in annual revenue, equivalent to one-tenth of the world's total timber trade revenue (approximately US$150 billion per year). The lost revenue in these timber-producing countries is critical to building essential public services such as schools and hospitals. Poor management and corruption in timber-producing countries, as well as the failure of timber-consuming countries to prohibit the import of illegally logged timber, have repeatedly allowed logging companies and timber traders to plunder virgin forests without restraint.

Forests and climate change are actually closely related!
Did you know that virgin forests play a key role in stabilizing the global climate, purifying and conserving water sources?

Global forests store approximately 433 billion tons of carbon. Calculated at the current average rate of global carbon emissions, this number is greater than the total carbon emissions created by humans burning fossil fuels, producing cement, transportation, etc. in the next 45 years! So if these forests are destroyed, the carbon they release will seriously exacerbate global climate change.

At present, greenhouse gas emissions caused by the destruction of global forests account for about one-fifth of the total global greenhouse gas emissions. The third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China is surprisingly Indonesia in Southeast Asia! The main reason is that Indonesia's peatland forests have been destroyed by massive logging. Protecting global forest resources can significantly mitigate climate change and is crucial to curbing global climate change.

Forests and Biodiversity, Endangered Species
The destruction of forests around the world has led to the degradation of habitats and ecosystems, resulting in species extinction at an alarming rate. As of the end of 2004, IUCN scientists estimated that 23% of the world's mammals, 12% of its birds, 61% of its reptiles, 31% of its amphibians and 46% of its fish were endangered. Most of these species live in the last remaining primeval forests on Earth, and these data don’t even cover the tens of thousands of plants and insects that play important roles in forest ecosystems around the world.

Human rights violations and ethnic conflicts
More than one billion people around the world rely on forest resources for their livelihoods. They live in harmony with and depend on forests, making them the primary guardians of forests around the world. In many areas, indigenous peoples have legal rights to protect their lands from logging companies. But these residents often have difficulty dealing with the large consortiums and companies behind the loggers.

Greenpeace estimates that more than 90% of logging in Papua New Guinea is illegal because logging companies in most cases fail to obtain the knowledge and consent of traditional landowners, the indigenous peoples of the forests, in accordance with the country's laws. Investigations by the Papua New Guinea government and the World Bank also found that many logging operations clearly violated environmental regulations and trampled on human rights.

In addition, the destruction of global forests may also trigger ethnic conflicts. For example, in Myanmar in Asia and Congo in Africa, illegal logging is often intertwined with military or ethnic armed issues, posing a great threat to social stability and the personal safety of residents.

Greenpeace demands
Protecting forests also protects climate and biodiversity!

Greenpeace hopes to reduce deforestation to "zero" by 2020. Over the past ten years, Greenpeace has worked hard to protect forests. Thanks to public support, Greenpeace has achieved the following achievements:

Brazil's livestock industry pledges to protect Amazon forests, stops buying soy grown on deforested farmland
Reached an agreement with 8 environmental organizations and 21 logging companies to protect Canada'sBoreal Forest
Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, Disney and other companies have terminated their cooperative relationships with APP Sinar Mas Asia Pulp and Paper Company, which illegally deforestation

But there is still a long way to go to protect forests. In addition to forests in the Amazon and Canada, forests in Indonesia and the African Congo also require public power.

We now call on Yum Brands, one of the world's leading restaurant chains, and its well-known brand KFC to permanently remove deforestation paper packaging from their supply chains as soon as possible. At the same time, we formulate and implement a truly global sustainable procurement policy.