Using ecosystem integrity to maximize climate mitigation and minimize risk in international forest policy

The ecological, social and economic values of forests are widely known and avoiding their loss and degradation has been recognized in national and international policy as critical for helping address the many global problems we face. Protecting and restoring forests are a key solution for the climate crisis as forest ecosystems remove carbon from the atmosphere and accumulate it in living trees, dead wood and the soil. Forest ecosystems provide the habitat for millions of species found nowhere else, and help regulate local climate conditions and provide our freshest water. They function as natural quarantines against pathogen spillover from wildlife to humans and livestock. Forests are also the customary territories of many of the world’s Indigenous and local communities. However, not all forests are equal, and the benefits they provide us vary according to their ecosystem condition. The differences in their condition are mainly the result of the impacts from human land use and associated activities. Yet little consideration has been given to differentiating forest types and management schemes even though forests in poorer condition are at a greater risk of loss from both human and natural disturbances. To date, there has not been an agreed framework for assessing, mapping, and reporting on forest condition and therefore to identify forests that have higher/lower values, provide more/less benefits and are at relatively greater/lesser risk of loss. The concept of ‘ecosystem integrity’ (which is also referred to as ‘ecological integrity’) provides the basis for new framework to addresses this gap and help minimize risk in forest-based mitigation policies and maximize forest-related co-benefits.