UN Chief Calls For Efforts To Preserve, Protect Forests

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged efforts to preserve and protect the world's forests

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Sep, 2019 ) :UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged efforts to preserve and protect the world's forests.

"Our world's forests are on fire," he told an event requested by France and held on the sidelines of the Climate Action Summit. "As the atmosphere fills with smoke and ash, our future grows dark." These fires not only contribute to climate change by releasing carbon dioxide, but also destroy trees and vegetation that act as a carbon sink and actively remove these emissions from our air, he said. "We cannot afford more damage to such a vital source of oxygen and biodiversity." For many forest-rich countries, it is deforestation, not fossil fuel use, that is the major source of carbon emissions. This means that reducing deforestation and forest degradation is central to the world's efforts to fight global warming.

Halting deforestation and restoring degraded forests are global imperatives, he said.

For every Dollar spent restoring degraded forests, as much as 30 U.S. Dollars can be recouped in economic benefits and poverty reduction, he told the event, which was also attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We must change the way we farm, and rebalance the global food system by growing food without destroying large tracts of forest and we must speed up our transition to a cleaner, greener future, with a healthy forest system at its core," the UN chief said.

"Deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate. Every year, seven million hectares of forest are lost," said Guterres. "These are not localized disasters but part of a global threat. We will not overcome the climate emergency without safeguarding our planet's very lungs."Lat