Protecting essential forests

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Clearcut of state-owned Finnish old growth forest.

Without healthy forests, Earth cannot sustain life. They absorb a massive amount of greenhouse gasses and are home to hundreds of millions of people and two-thirds of the known terrestrial species, including the largest share of threatened species.

However, 72 percent of Indonesia's forest landscapes and 15 percent of the Amazon’s have already been lost forever. Now the Congo’s forests face the same threat. While the causes vary from region to region, they all have one thing in common: human activity.

Agri-business is responsible for massive rainforest destruction as forests are burned to make way for cattle ranches, or cleared for palm oil or soya plantations. Agricultural products are used in Europe to make toothpaste, chocolate and animal feed.

Industrial logging for timber, pulp and paper is devastating much of the world's rainforests to make the disposable wood products we find in our European stores - paper for our glossy magazines, toilet paper and packaging.

The mass destruction of rainforests is responsible for up to a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - more than every plane, car, truck, ship and train on the planet combined.

With so many of the world's forests already destroyed, we urgently need to protect what is left. Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation, globally, by 2020.

Greenpeace’s European unit campaigns for:

-    policies to eliminate Europe’s deforestation footprint
-    a moratorium on destructive activities in the last intact forest landscapes
-    a meaningful, international financial mechanism to reduce deforestation in developing countries