Today more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and by 2050 that figure is expected to reach seventy per cent. Yet even people who live in cities have begun to realise how vital for our mental health and for our wellbeing access to forests, urban parks and green spaces is.

Food and Agriculture Organization @FAO

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💧They purify our water
🍃They clean our air
🌩️They fight climate change
💊They give us lifesaving medicines
🏃♀️They improve our well-being

🌳Forests give us so much... We must look after them to protect the health of people and the planet.

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A precious asset

There is clear evidence showing that spending time in green spaces reduces stress, lowers blood pressure and the risk of heart attacks. Last month, a new study by Italian universities suggested that simply breathing forest air is enough to reduce anxiety, thanks to the volatile compounds released by trees. In Japan, where more than nine in ten people live in cities, "forest bathing" forms part of the national public health strategy. "Green prescription" programmes — a holistic approach to health and therapies — are also gaining ground in many countries.

Today, as we celebrate International Day of Forests (21 March), it is important to remember that there are many reasons to appreciate forests, and that even if we never set foot in one, forests keep us healthy. Forests help combat the greatest threat we face today: climate change. Forests are enormous carbon reservoirs, containing 662 billion tonnes of carbon — more than half the total amount of carbon held in soils and vegetation across the entire world. They also protect us from rising temperatures and extreme weather events, regulate rainfall and shield us from landslides and floods.

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Forests are home to the majority of the world’s terrestrial #biodiversity.

Protecting & preserving our forests is about more than just us, it’s about protecting the planet.
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Forests also act as a natural barrier against the spread of diseases transmitted from animals to humans. Ongoing deforestation is eroding this barrier, and more than 30% of new diseases reported since 1960 are attributable to changes in land use, including deforestation. Our forests are also natural pharmacies. Around 50,000 plant species — many of which grow in forests — have medicinal value and are used by local communities to treat conditions ranging from snakebite and dysentery to rheumatism and diabetes. Many common pharmaceutical medicines also derive from forest plants, such as the anti-cancer drugs derived from the Madagascar periwinkle.

Forests under threat

Our green spaces are the world's greatest gift to humanity. Yet forests and trees are at risk across the globe. Due to deforestation, we lose ten million hectares of forest every year, 90% of which is driven by agricultural expansion aimed at feeding a continuously growing world population. Forests and trees are also threatened by fires, pests and extreme weather conditions. In 2015 alone, fires affected around 98 million hectares of forest. It appears that around one third of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction. So what can we do to keep our forests — and ourselves — healthy?

We need to adopt a more hands-on approach to the sustainable management of forests. We must halt deforestation, but we must also grow new forests using species and techniques that optimise their resilience. We need to implement policies aimed at ensuring we can feed the world's population without destroying forests, by increasing agricultural productivity rather than expanding cultivated land. We must also take into account the financial benefits of sustainable forest management.

Food and Agriculture Organization @FAO

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It is essential to monitor natural forests and develop early-warning and rapid-response systems to eradicate diseases more swiftly. We must prevent the risk of fires long before the first spark ignites. We must support communities that live in or near forests so that their rights to land and forest resources are recognised. These communities — which are often among the poorest in the world — are frequently best placed to manage our forests well.

The more urbanised society becomes, the more we must strive not to forget that we are part of nature and that our health and wellbeing depend on it. We must act now to safeguard forests and ensure they continue to be a resource for our health, for that of our children and for future generations.

This article by Zhimin Wu, Director of the Forestry Department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), appeared in the 21 March 2023 edition of the daily newspaper Repubblica.