Welcome to Forest Cover No. 52, the Global Forest Coalition newsletter that provides a space for Southern and Northern environmental justice activists to present their views on international forest-related policies.

In this 52nd edition of Forest Cover we focus on a truly burning issue, the loss of the world’s forests to fire, not only because of our changing climate, but also because of the increasing prevalence of highly flammable monoculture tree plantations that dry soils out, the deliberate burning of forests to create croplands and pastures for livestock, and plans to turn vast amount of lands over to growing trees to burn in industrial quantities to generate electricity in the Global North.

Given all this, GFC expresses its shock and dismay that FAO has chosen to transform this year’s international day of forests, on 21 March, into an international day of forests on fire, by focusing on forests and energy. This combined with FAO’s continued insistence on including plantations in its definition of forests (meaning that the two are interchangeable in FAO’s eyes), is a gift to industrial forestry that will contribute to the continued depletion of the world’s forests and biodiversity. Run, forests, run!

Read more here.