Welcome to SEARCA Knowledge Center on Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management in Southeast Asia (KC3)

Sustaining forests: Investing in our common future

Every day forests provide benefits vital to life on Earth and to the quality of human life in particular. Currently, some 410 million people are highly dependent on them for subsistence and income, and 1.6 billion people depend on forest goods and services for some part of their livelihoods. In a more general sense, the entire global population depends on forests for their carbon-sequestering services. Forests have always been crucial to human life and economies, and they will become increasingly significant as the global human population grows by another 30 percent – to 9 billion people – by mid-century. At the same time, our forests face many threats as a result of unsustainable use. As we move forward, our forests must play a critical role in supporting the growth of a global green economy. Innovative solutions, however, must be found to ensure sustainable forest management in the face of the many threats at hand.