Exploring Trends in the International Media Coverage of Forests

The international media often plays a key role in informing the public as well as policymakers who often apply pressure upwards on key decision-makers. Over the last few years, there has been a notable increase in the international media coverage of deforestation and its link to climate change – with an increase by two thirds in global coverage between 2014 and 2018 and a more than doubling between 2016 and 2018.

These figures reflect the growing awareness of, and concern about, climate change as well as increased recognition of the role of forests in both mitigating and adapting to a changing climate. This recognition subsequently resulted in the signing of the New York Declaration on Forests in 2014 and the Amsterdam Declaration on Deforestation the following year as we well as the inclusion of REDD+¹ in the UN Paris Agreement in 2015.

Despite this, however, international media coverage of illegal logging decreased by nearly a quarter between 2016 and 2018 – falling back to the levels seen in 2014. This has taken place in spite of a number of significant developments in efforts to tackle illegal logging albeit at the national rather than global level.

For example, legislation to control the imports of illegal timber have been introduced by Japan and the Republic of Korea in recent years. There has also been progress with the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) that the EU is negotiating with a number of tropical forest countries – with Indonesia becoming the first country to start Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licensing in 2016, Guyana agreeing its VPA with the EU in 2018 and Vietnam ratifying its VPA in 2019.

Deforestation refers to the long term (>10 years) or permanent conversion of forested areas to non-forest land use.² It can happen both legally and illegally and intentionally or unintentionally, for example, as the result of wildfires. Illegal logging specifically refers to the harvesting, processing, transporting, buying or selling of timber in contravention of national and international laws.

The decline in global coverage of illegal logging and the increase in focus on climate change and deforestation has meant that, by 2018, coverage of these two issues was nearly on par whereas, five years previously, illegal logging coverage dominated with more than double the number of articles.

The question is, has this shift in media coverage had an impact on public opinion and on the actions of decision-makers and is this a positive or negative shift?

The reframing of a large portion of international media coverage on forest issues under the lens of deforestation and climate change has had some positive implications. A significant amount of forest clearance is legally sanctioned and widening the focus beyond illegal logging will capture the legal drivers of deforestation too. For example, more than 40 per cent of forest loss is directly related to agricultural commodity production, and while a significant proportion of this clearance is illegal, over half of the forests cleared for agriculture are cleared legally.

The world is facing a climate crisis and nature-based solutions, including forests, will be critical for climate change mitigation and adaptation. International media coverage of the link between deforestation and climate change is highlighting this and should help to ensure that forests are better considered in climate strategies.

Yet we should also be mindful that a focus by the international media on the link between deforestation and climate change may present an overly simplified view of forests. In particular, it risks focusing too much on the role of forests as a carbon sink while neglecting the range of other environmental services they provide, for example, water cycles and biodiversity as well as their cultural and economic values. It also risks deflecting attention away from illegal logging and the efforts that have been taken to address this through governance and market reforms.

It is possible that, with reduced attention, there will come less pressure on governments to maintain and strengthen these efforts. Therefore, those seeking to find ways to conserve and ensure the sustainable use of the world’s forests should try and capitalize on the increased coverage of forests framed around the climate crisis, and in doing so, they should try to introduce a more nuanced understanding of the environmental, economic and social values of forests.

Maintaining focus on the full range of these values will be crucial in supporting the development of policy measures for forests and forest lands that are both effective and equitable.