Charting the future of high forest low deforestation jurisdictions

Abstract

High forest low deforestation jurisdictions (HFLDs) contain many of the world’s last intact forests with historically low deforestation. Since carbon financing typically uses historical deforestation rates as baselines, HFLDs facing the prospect of future threats may receive insufficient incentives to be protected. We found that from 2002 to 2020, HFLDs ( n = 310) experienced 44% higher deforestation rates than their historical baselines, and 60 HFLDs underwent periods of high deforestation (deforestation rate > 0.501%) at 0.983 ± 0.649% (mean ± SD)—a rate 7.5 times higher than the 10-y historical baseline of all HFLDs. For HFLDs to receive sufficient carbon finance requires baselines that can better reflect future deforestation trajectories of HFLDs. Using an empirical multifactorial model, we show that most contemporary HFLDs are expected to undergo higher deforestation from 2020 to 2038 than their historical baselines, with 72 HFLDs likely (>66% probability) to undergo high deforestation. Over the next 18 y, HFLDs are expected to lose 2.16 Mha y −1 of forests corresponding to 585 ± 74 MtCO 2 e y −1 (mean ± SE) of emissions. Efforts to protect HFLD forests from future threats will be crucial. In particular, improving baselining methods is key to ensuring that sufficient financing can flow to HFLDs to prevent deforestation.