Forests Can Be Assets or Liabilities. It Up to Us

The world’s forests are premium assets. They generate priceless benefits — from capturing carbon and generating rain to supplying food, medicine, wood and countless other products.

But neglected forests can quickly turn into liabilities.

Forests face growing threats from deforestation, encroachment and climate change. With their decline, we not only lose the bounty that healthy forests provide; changes to forest ecology are creating new threats to communities — escalating wildfires, exacerbated droughts and increased vulnerability to storms.

We’re already starting to see this shift from assets to liabilities play out in countries around the globe. The question is: Will it trigger action?

The Tremendous Value of a Forest Is Increasingly Clear

A growing body of research reveals just how critical healthy forests are to society.

For example, forests mitigate climate change by removing and storing carbon from the atmosphere as the trees within them grow. According to the Woodwell Climate Research Center, forests hold 861 gigatonnes (GT) of carbon in their branches, leaves, roots and soils. That’s nearly 5,000 times the CO2 emitted annually from aviation. On top of that, they absorb nearly 16 GT of carbon dioxide per year, almost as much as the annual global emissions from agriculture.

Regenerating forests typically absorb carbon fastest when they are between 20 and 40 years old. But even mature forests continue to pull carbon from the air while creating other benefits. 

Forests act as rainmakers, pulling moisture up through the roots of trees and releasing it into the atmosphere. This not only provides water locally, it creates “rivers in the sky” that convey immense amounts of water vapor, delivering rainfall to farms and cities up to thousands of kilometers away.

Forests are also nature’s air conditioners. They release organic vapors that react with the atmosphere to form aerosols, which have a cooling effect. They even have natural thermostats, so far as they tend to release more vapors at warmer temperatures.  

Forests also enhance our ability to cope with climate change.  

Healthy forests buffer people from droughts, floods, heatwaves and storms — disasters that are becoming more common as global temperatures rise.

Inland forests slow water movement and reduce soil erosion, preventing the floods and landslides that excessive rainfall would otherwise cause. Trees and plants reduce stormwater run-off by deflecting or sopping up raindrops as they fall and block the rush of water on the ground. Roots act as a net that holds soil in place.

Forests also absorb, hold and slow the release of water much like a sponge. In times of drought, the delayed release of stormwater held within forests can prolong the availability of water to downstream communities.

On the coasts, healthy mangroves provide a first line of defense to communities. They buffer them against surges, winds and large waves from extreme storms. Their tangled, above-ground roots and branches dissipate wave energy and protect the seabed, as well as the many creatures that live there. They also reduce how far inland surges penetrate, protecting low-lying communities from flooding.

Mangroves also trap sediments and organic matter to form watery, oxygen-deprived soils resistant to breaking down. Over time, a deep, peaty carbon store is created that absorbs roots as they die and allows the mangrove to raise the soil surface — a natural defense mechanism against rising sea levels.

And the amenities provided by forests go well beyond climate mitigation and adaptation.

Forests supply a wide range of products for subsistence or commercial use. These include materials such as wood, rattan and bamboo; foods such as fruits, berries and mushrooms; and medicines such as quinine for malaria, physostigmine for glaucoma and paclitaxel for cancer. Forests serve as places for recreation and tourism. They provide habitat for much of Earth’s biodiversity, including housing nearly 70% of mammal species. And they support cultural and spiritual identity, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Forests Are Assets at Risk

Like most assets, forests offer more amenities when they are well maintained. But if they deteriorate, we don’t just lose their services. Degraded forests can actually work against communities, becoming major liabilities to people and nature.

We’re already seeing this happen in some forests around the world.

Forests are shifting from carbon sinks to emissions sources

For example, deforestation and forest degradation are transforming healthy forests from carbon sinks into emissions sources.

When forests are cleared, felled trees and branches are often burnt or left to decay, releasing their stored carbon into the atmosphere.  Logging, charcoal production, invasive species or wildfires can damage a forest in ways that fall short of complete deforestation, but still spew carbon emissions and limit forests’ ability to absorb more. In many countries, forest degradation results in more carbon emissions than deforestation. Degrading forests may suffer a death by a thousand cuts as their carbon, biodiversity and water regulation values progressively decline. 

Globally, forests are still operating as a net carbon sink, but it’s shrinking. Recent WRI research shows that the forest carbon sink reached its lowest level in at least two decades in 2023, absorbing only a quarter of its typical amount of carbon due to wildfires and agricultural clearing. And in some places like Bolivia and Canada, forests have already become net sources of carbon, further fueling the climate crisis.  

Some forests are changing from resilient buffers to climate hazards

Healthy forests are a buffer against climate change, but they are also extremely vulnerable to it. While the assembly of plants that make up a forest can adapt to a new climate — with species “migrating” to higher altitudes or cooler latitudes to escape hotter conditions —they’re not shifting fast enough. A recent study concluded that Latin America’s forests are only adapting at 8% of the speed necessary to withstand the impacts of climate change.

In addition to losing their ability to shield humanity from climate change, degrading forests can also become climate hazards themselves.

Hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change are causing forest fires to become more frequent and severe. Wildfires are burning more than twice as much forest today as they did 20 years ago. Wildfires caused almost half of all tree cover loss in 2024.

Forest fires destroy properties, wildlife and crops. They coat cities in choking haze and toxic chemicals. They also create a dangerous "fire-climate feedback loop” When forest fires become larger and more frequent, they generate more emissions, accelerate the pace of climate change, and leave forests even more vulnerable to extreme droughts, pests and fire.

Our Forest Assets Need Preventative Maintenance

In the same way that commercial property owners typically set up sinking funds to cover ongoing maintenance and repair of their assets, humanity needs to act now to enhance the resilience of its forest assets.

Critical tasks include:

• Surveillance and patrols. Because forests are vast and often remote, they require monitoring via remote sensing, backed by field inspections, to detect and deter deforestation and illegal logging.
• Fire-proofing. Removing overgrown vegetation, diseased trees and dead debris through controlled burns or mechanical thinning can reduce forests’ fuel loads. Fire breaks, zero-burn land-clearing practices and fire bans are also important.
• Climate-proofing. We can improve forests’ resilience to extreme weather. This includes vigorously controlling diseases and pests, diversifying tree species and their genetics, staggering the age of regenerating stands, and “assisted migration” to help species and seeds move beyond their historical ranges.
• Keeping the asset intact. Fragmented forests have more “edges” that are vulnerable to runaway fires and human encroachment. Forest edges are exposed to higher light levels, daytime temperatures, dryness and wind speeds — conditions that cause local extinction of sensitive amphibians, insects and plants. Smaller, isolated forest patches are less able to support viable populations of larger roaming animal species. Preventing fragmentation of intact forest tracts is therefore critical.  
• Retaining outstanding values. Just as owners of a listed “heritage” property are obliged to conserve its current condition and prevent it from falling into disrepair, high conservation value forests need special protection. This can involve recognizing them as World Heritage sites or Indigenous territories, as well as designating them as protected areas or set-asides within forestry concessions.

The compounding pressures on forests demand a step-change in their vigilance and care. Humanity needs to both do more and spend more on the upkeep of the world’s forests. Otherwise, we will squander premium assets we simply cannot afford to lose.