Land rights

Conflict between companies that profit from forests and local people who depend on them could be tackled by industry-led approaches, but too few companies use them.

Forests continue to be trashed in many places. One recent estimate, admittedly ‘on the back-of-an- envelope’, indicates a global natural capital loss of US$2.5 trillion a year, of which forests represent a substantial part. We have all recently become used to hearing about trillions of dollars being wiped off the world’s ‘virtual economy’, but this natural capital is real, and its loss is permanent.