Status and trends in global primary forest, protected areas, and areas designated for conservation of biodiversity from the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015

The global community has recognized the importance of forests for biodiversity, and has prioritized the preservation of forest biodiversity and ecosystem functions through multiple multilateral agreements and processes such as the Convention on Biodiversity’s Aichi Targets and the Millennium Development Goals. The Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) provides one mechanism for tracking progress toward such goals in three particular areas: primary forest area, protected forest areas, and areas designated for the conservation of biodiversity. In this paper, we quantify current area and trends in forest areas designated for the conservation of biodiversity, protected forest areas, and primary forests by country and biome; and examine the association between total forest area and measures of protection, per-capita income, and population. The overall findings suggest that countries are increasingly protecting forests of ecological significance at the global scale (7.7% of forests were protected in 1990 rising to 16.3% in 2015), with a strong upward trend in protected areas in the tropical domain (from 12% in 1990 to 26.3% in 2015). However, primary forest area has declined by 2.5% globally and by 10% in the tropics over the period 1990–2015 (using data for countries that reported in all years). Given that many species in the tropics are endemic to primary forests, losses in that climatic domain continue to be of concern, although the rate of decline appears to be slowing. Using multiple regression analysis, we find that a 1% increase in protected area or area designated for biodiversity conservation within a country is associated with an increase in total forest area in that country of about 0.03% (p < 0.05). A 1% within-country increase in population density and per capita GDP are associated with a decrease in forest area of about 0.2% (p < 0.01) and an increase in forest area of about 0.08% (p < 0.05) respectively. Our findings also indicate that, since FRA is used as one mechanism for tracking progress toward goals like the AICHI Biodiversity Targets, country correspondents may require additional assistance toward reporting on primary forest, protected forest, and biodiversity conservation statistics.