What might lie ahead for tropical forests (commentary) – Mongabay

Analysis of Tropical Forest Trajectories and Implications for Sustainable Development Goals

Introduction: The Worsening Crisis and the 2030 Agenda

Recent data indicates an alarming acceleration in the loss of tropical primary rainforests, with 6.7 million hectares lost in 2024, primarily due to fires. This trend places the global pledge to halt deforestation by 2030, a key component of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in severe jeopardy. The escalating crisis is driven not only by traditional deforestation but by a convergence of ecological, technological, and governance failures that threaten progress across multiple SDGs, most notably SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 15 (Life on Land).

I. Governance Collapse and Institutional Weakness: A Threat to SDG 16

The Erosion of State Authority

A critical impediment to forest protection is the disintegration of state governance in key tropical regions, directly undermining SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). This is evidenced by:

• The absence of state patrols and the prevalence of illegal dredging in Peru’s Madre de Dios.
• Extortion and the imposition of parallel “environmental rules” by armed groups in Colombia’s Caquetá.
• The de facto incentivization of forest burning through debt relief policies in Bolivia’s lowlands.
• The inability of under-resourced Indigenous guards to perform state functions without state protection.

Implications for Global Environmental Frameworks

The collapse of on-the-ground governance renders international climate and biodiversity mechanisms ineffective. The foundational requirements for achieving SDG 13 and SDG 15, such as reliable carbon accounting, verifiable restoration projects, and enforceable biodiversity offsets, all depend on the existence of a functioning state capable of upholding contracts and property rights. Without strong institutions, these global policy instruments cannot be implemented successfully.

II. Ecological Feedback Loops and Climate Destabilization: Imperiling SDG 13 and SDG 15

The Amazon Tipping Point and Fire Proliferation

The Amazon basin is increasingly susceptible to fire, transitioning from a carbon sink to a potential carbon source and threatening the stability of regional climate systems. This degradation creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop that severely compromises SDG 15.

1. Forest logging and fragmentation lead to drier local conditions.
2. Intensified droughts make these degraded forests highly flammable.
3. Fires consume vast areas, thinning the canopy, heating the soil, and further drying the air.
4. The diminished forest cover disrupts the regional water cycle, reducing rainfall across the basin.

This cycle pushes vast areas toward a savanna-like state, representing a catastrophic loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The release of stored carbon from these fires directly undermines global efforts under SDG 13 to combat climate change.

III. Technological and Biological Frontiers: Dual-Use Risks and Opportunities

Artificial Intelligence and Agriculture (SDG 2, SDG 9, SDG 15)

The application of Artificial Intelligence in agriculture presents a significant dichotomy. Technology, a focus of SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), can either accelerate or mitigate forest loss.

• Negative Potential: An AI system optimized solely for agricultural yield (addressing SDG 2, Zero Hunger) could coordinate autonomous machinery to clear forests with unprecedented efficiency, operating without regard for environmental safeguards.
• Positive Potential: Conversely, an AI trained to optimize for ecosystem services could become a powerful conservation tool, predicting fire spread, detecting illegal logging, and designing resilient restoration plans that support both livelihoods and SDG 15.

The Engineered Forest (SDG 9, SDG 15)

Biotechnology offers novel approaches to reforestation but carries substantial ecological risks that must be managed to ensure alignment with SDG 15.

• Gene-Edited Species: Trees engineered for rapid growth or drought tolerance could accelerate reforestation on degraded lands but pose an unknown risk if they escape into wild ecosystems, potentially altering evolutionary dynamics.
• Microbial Interventions: The use of fungal inoculants and synthetic mycorrhizae to restore soil health and enhance carbon storage represents a significant frontier in ecosystem restoration, shifting focus to subterranean ecological functions.

IV. Socio-Economic Drivers and Geopolitical Realignments

Climate-Induced Migration and Land Use (SDG 8, SDG 11)

Human demographic shifts driven by climate change are a defining force impacting forest frontiers and complicating the achievement of SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).

• Climate stresses such as drought and crop failure are projected to drive millions of people into forested areas, increasing pressure on ecosystems as governments may relax protections to resettle displaced populations.
• Conversely, some regions may experience land abandonment as agricultural viability declines, allowing for natural forest regrowth. However, these second-growth forests are often fragile and cleared again, creating a cycle of loss and temporary recovery that masks a net decline in ecological integrity.

The New Geopolitics of Forests (SDG 17)

Forests are increasingly central to international diplomacy, creating new dynamics relevant to SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

• National Leveraging: Forest-rich nations are positioning themselves as “green OPECs,” using their carbon stocks as leverage for climate finance or debt relief, although these initiatives often lack enforcement.
• Indigenous Sovereignty: Indigenous federations are pioneering the use of blockchain and other technologies to create independent registries of territorial rights and forest data, asserting digital sovereignty and offering a new, bottom-up model for verifiable stewardship and partnership.

V. Conclusion: An Accelerating Challenge to the 2030 Agenda

The future of tropical forests is threatened by a complex interplay of governance failure, ecological feedback loops, unregulated technological ambition, and demographic pressures. These processes are accelerating faster than the institutional capacity to manage them. The result is a fragmented landscape of simultaneous loss and fragile recovery. The resilience of these vital ecosystems, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, depends on whether global and national institutions can grant nature the time and space to heal by strengthening governance, aligning innovation with sustainability, and empowering local stewards.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

The article discusses a complex web of issues surrounding tropical forests that connect to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The analysis reveals connections to the following goals:

• SDG 15: Life on Land: This is the most central SDG, as the article’s primary focus is on the accelerating loss of tropical rainforests, the failure to meet deforestation pledges, the degradation of forest ecosystems through fires, and efforts in restoration and regrowth.
• SDG 13: Climate Action: The article explicitly links deforestation and forest fires to climate change. It discusses ecological feedback loops, such as how forest loss weakens rainfall and creates drier conditions, exacerbating fires and pushing the Amazon toward a “tipping point.” This directly relates to climate mitigation and adaptation.
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: The article highlights a critical issue of “weakened governance” and the “vanishing state” in forested regions like the Amazon. It describes areas where state authority has collapsed, police no longer patrol, and armed groups enforce their own rules, which undermines all environmental and climate policies.
• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: The potential dual role of technology is a key theme. The article explores how innovations like AI-driven agriculture and gene-edited species could either massively accelerate forest destruction or become powerful tools for conservation and restoration, depending on their governance and application.
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: The article touches on the “human frontier,” explaining how climate-induced disasters like droughts and floods are driving internal migration. These population movements place new pressures on forested frontiers as governments may relax protections to resettle displaced people, linking environmental collapse to humanitarian crises and settlement patterns.
• SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals: The discussion on the “geopolitics of trees” addresses global partnerships. It mentions how nations with large forests are leveraging them for climate finance and debt relief, and how Indigenous federations are using new technologies like blockchain to assert control over their territories, representing new forms of partnership and data sovereignty.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

Based on the issues discussed, several specific SDG targets can be identified:

1. Under SDG 15 (Life on Land):
   • Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests… The article’s core theme of accelerating forest loss and lagging restoration directly addresses the failure to meet this target.
   • Target 15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally. The article explicitly mentions that “the 2030 pledge to halt deforestation recedes into fantasy,” directly referencing the goal of this target.
   • Target 15.3: By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil… The article’s description of the Amazon tipping point, where vast areas could “flip to savanna,” is a direct reference to the processes of desertification and land degradation that this target aims to combat.
2. Under SDG 13 (Climate Action):
   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. The article’s focus on runaway fires, drought, and the breakdown of the water cycle highlights the increasing vulnerability of forest ecosystems and the communities dependent on them to climate-related hazards.
3. Under SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions):
   • Target 16.3: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all. The description of regions in Peru and Colombia where “police no longer patrol” and “armed groups extort” residents illustrates a complete breakdown of the rule of law, which is a prerequisite for enforcing environmental protections.
   • Target 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. The article argues that the “disintegration” of state authority and the “absence of on-the-ground governance” unravels the entire framework of climate policy, showing the failure to maintain effective institutions in these critical regions.
4. Under SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals):
   • Target 17.3: Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources. The mention of nations positioning themselves as “‘green OPECs,’ leveraging carbon stocks for debt relief or climate finance” directly relates to mobilizing financial resources for conservation.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

Yes, the article mentions and implies several quantitative and qualitative indicators that can be used to measure progress:

• Indicator for Target 15.2 (Halt deforestation): The article provides a direct, quantitative indicator of failure. It states, “In 2024, the tropics lost 6.7 million hectares of primary rainforest.” This figure can be used to measure the annual rate of forest loss.
• Indicator for Target 15.3 (Combat land degradation): The article provides a specific metric for fire-related degradation: “In 2024, fires consumed more than 4.6 million hectares of primary forest” in the Amazon. The area of forest land affected by fire is a clear indicator of degradation.
• Indicator for Target 15.1 (Restore ecosystems): The article provides a metric for restoration, stating, “More than 11 million hectares of moist forest were in some stage of natural regrowth between 2015 and 2021.” This indicates the rate of forest regrowth, although the article qualifies this by noting many of these forests are cleared again.
• Indicator for Target 13.1 (Resilience to climate hazards): The article implies an indicator by describing the Amazon’s increasing flammability. It notes that “Sixty percent of all Amazonian forest loss that year came from fire—a historic first.” The proportion of forest loss caused by fire versus direct human clearing (e.g., chainsaws) serves as an indicator of the ecosystem’s declining resilience to climate-driven drought and fire.
• Indicator for Target 16.3 (Rule of law): While not a formal UN indicator, the article provides a powerful qualitative indicator of institutional collapse: the presence or absence of state authority. The description of areas where “police no longer patrol” and where “Indigenous guards shoulder the work of the state” can be used as a proxy measure for the effectiveness of the rule of law in remote, forested regions.
• Indicator for Target 15.3 (Land degradation/tipping point): The article mentions a scientific threshold: “lose a quarter of the forest, and vast areas could flip to savanna.” The total percentage of remaining Amazon forest cover relative to this 25% tipping point is a critical indicator for measuring proximity to irreversible ecosystem collapse.

4. Summary Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: news.mongabay.com