Global leaders must ramp up investment in sustainable tropical forest management or risk large-scale deforestation caused by changes in land use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is according to the Executive Director of the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), Sheam Satkuru, who addressed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at COP28 in Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ITTO is an intergovernmental organisation established in 1994 to promote the conservation of tropical forest resources and their sustainable management, use and trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF)<\/em><\/a> has reported that two-thirds of global forest cover loss occurs in the tropical and subtropic regions and includes hot spots\u2014or “deforestation fronts<\/em><\/a> “\u2014 in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deforestation accounts for up to 10% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions,\u00a0according to the UN Global Forest Goals report<\/em><\/a>, with a\u00a0recent report identifying that more than 50% of deforestation occurs in 5% of producing areas\u00a0<\/em><\/a>\u2013 including in the Amazon, Cerrado and Gran Chaco biomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n