Under the Canopy
How USAID is Working in Tropical Forests to Tackle the Climate Crisis
The Deforestation Challenge
"Healthy, intact forests are critical for our survival and deliver a wealth of benefits: from clean air and water, to food and critical medicines. They conserve key biodiversity, store carbon, shield people from extreme weather, and provide livelihoods to people around the world."
- USAID Administrator Samantha Power
We rely on forests, especially tropical rainforests, for their ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide from the air—helping us fight the climate crisis.
Yet, half of the world’s tropical forests have been lost since the 1960s, both releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and preventing them from further absorbing carbon.
If tropical deforestation were a country, it would rank third in global emissions behind China and the United States.
Interactive World Forest Map & Tree Cover Change Data | GFW
USAID's Response
That’s why USAID is working with more than 45 partner countries to conserve, restore, and manage tropical forests and other carbon-rich lands.
Over the last five years, USAID’s forest conservation work has mobilized over $1 billion in public and private investment and reduced over 450 million tons of CO2 emissions—equal to taking 100 million cars off the road for a year.
Conserve, Restore, Manage
How does USAID protect forests and the people who depend on them?
USAID is partnering with Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which together are home to over half of the world’s tropical rainforests. This year, USAID helped conserve, restore, and improve management of more than 50 million hectares—an area larger than California—of critical ecosystems in these three forest-rich countries alone.
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Brazil
Brazil is home to 60% of the Amazon Basin and contains biodiverse ecosystems that provide essential services both regionally and globally. USAID is working with the Government of Brazil, Indigenous Peoples, civil society, and private sector partners to strengthen forest conservation and sustainable management of protected areas.
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Indonesia
Indonesia’s vast tropical forests and marine habitats provide a wealth of ecosystem services, but they are increasingly threatened by unsustainable practices in agriculture, logging, and mining. USAID partners with the Government of Indonesia to improve land use governance and promote sustainable private sector practices, protected area management, and biodiversity conservation.
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The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforest—but deforestation in the Basin has doubled in recent years. USAID supports sustainable land-use practices in the DRC by improving management of forests, mobilizing public and private finance for community forest concessions, and promoting alternatives to charcoal.
Conserving Forests in Brazil
The Amazon rainforest is home to unique biodiversity, serves as a critical carbon sink, and regulates rainfall patterns across South America and even as far as California. But as much as 17% of the Amazon has already been lost to deforestation, and scientists predict that losing just 3% more could lead to the forest as we know it disappearing, leaving behind a grassy savanna.
USAID is working to change that. For example, we help communities use satellite images to track and combat deforestation in the Amazon.
Photo: Undisturbed forests (bright green), deforested areas (vibrant purple) and degraded forests (faded purple) in the Brazilian Amazon. The red dot indicates an area of degraded forests that is likely caused by selective logging. The larger area of degraded forest in the bottom of the image was caused by a fire.
We partnered with NASA through the SERVIR initiative to create the TerraOnTrack app so community members can monitor and report threats to their land such as illegal mining, logging, and expanding livestock production in real-time. This both protects their land and helps authorities take action to prevent deforestation before it happens.
Work like this contributed to USAID and the Government of Brazil partnering to protect 48 million hectares, an area of forest larger than California in 2022, preventing more than 30 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions—roughly equivalent to the emissions from running nine coal-fired power plants for a year.
USAID’s work supports more than 110 businesses based in the Amazon. Nearly 100,000 people experience direct socioeconomic benefits from our partnerships, and one-third of the area this work protects is Indigenous land.
Restoring Forests in Indonesia
Southeast Asia is home to nearly 15% of the world’s tropical forests. Indonesia’s rich forests have the biophysical potential to absorb nearly 1.4 billion tons of carbon annually—an amount greater than the emissions of any country other than China, the United States, India, or Russia.
One way to do that is to restore forests where they’ve been lost or could have a high impact.
For example, USAID and the Indonesian Red Cross worked together to plant over 920,000 coastal plants such as mangrove trees along the country’s coast. Mangrove forests and coastal wetlands can store 10 times as much carbon as tropical forests, making planting them a highly effective climate solution.
And that’s not all—these forests also create a natural barrier along coastlines that protects people from storms and tsunamis. This natural defense is all the more critical as climate change leads to more frequent and severe storms.
Over the last 5 years, USAID and the Government of Indonesia have partnered to reduce 76 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector, equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road for a year.
Managing Forests in the DRC
The Congo Basin is the world’s second largest rainforest, after the Amazon. Sixty percent of the carbon-rich forest is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—meaning the country absorbs more carbon than it emits.
But the rate of deforestation in the Congo Basin has doubled in recent years—a major threat to global climate goals.
USAID and the DRC Government are working to tackle the root causes of deforestation, such as clearing trees to farm.
For example, we are partnering with Nespresso to help farmers plant coffee trees and grow coffee under tree cover around the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the DRC, a carbon-rich landscape and one of the few remaining habitats of the world’s 6,800 eastern lowland gorillas. This helps keep forest intact while ensuring communities prosper.
Over the last 5 years, USAID has worked with the DRC Government to reduce, sequester, or avoid over 50 million tons of GHG emissions—offsetting the country’s total emissions from the energy sector while improving the management of over 17.1 million hectares of biologically sensitive forests—an area the size of Florida.
Sound management of environmental and natural resources is integral to a country’s development and resilience. By investing in conserving, restoring, and managing forests and other lands, USAID is reducing emissions, protecting important carbon sinks, providing economic benefits for future generations, and helping build a sustainable and resilient future for people and nature.
Learn more about USAID's natural climate solutions work around the world.
