During a hike in Colombia's Tayrona National Nature Park, under a sweltering sun, the rare forest passages were the only real moments of breath. The heat remained, but the air changed: cooler, more humid, less aggressive, as if the trees had suddenly made the land habitable. This immediate sensation says something about the services that forests provide to humanity, but also about the powerful imagination we associate with them. In Latin America, this relationship with the living takes on a particular resonance through the idea of Pachamama, Mother Earth in Andean cosmovisions: here, nature is not just a backdrop or a reservoir of resources, but an entity that nourishes, protects and connects people. In Ecuador, this vision has even found legal expression, with the 2008 Constitution recognizing Pachamama as a subject of rights, including the right to respect for her existence and the regeneration of her vital cycles. At Tayrona, too, the territory is more than just a tourist area: the park closes several weeks a year to allow ecological restoration and the cultural practices of the Sierra Nevada's indigenous peoples.
Today, this imaginary world meets very real challenges: in the face of heatwaves and heat islands, urban greening aims precisely to reintroduce the capacity of living organisms to cool, filter the air, retain water and make spaces habitable. Yet these same forests are also called upon to make an active contribution to the energy transition, by supplying wood as a material or renewable heat. Herein lies the ambivalence: how can we mobilize the forest as a climate solution without weakening the very thing that underpins its ecological, symbolic and vital value?
Forests play a dual role in the face of climate change: they help to slow it down, while helping human societies to adapt to it.
Firstly, it acts as a carbon sink: over the period 2021-2025, the forest's net absorption reached 0.8 Gt of CO2 per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of a large country like Indonesia. However, this role is weakening: during the previous decade, this absorption was almost double the current level (1.4 Gt), according to the FAO. The main reason for this decline is deforestation and forest conversion: when trees are cut down, burnt or the soil turned over, some of the accumulated carbon is released back into the atmosphere.
In addition to mitigation, forests are also a lever for adapting to climate change: in concrete terms, they reduce a region's exposure to climatic shocks. Forests stabilize soils, slow runoff and limit erosion, thereby reducing the risk of flooding, landslides and torrential erosion. This function is becoming a real risk management issue for insurers, banks and large companies exposed to natural disasters. Mangroves provide the most quantified example: these coastal forests reduce flood-related damage by more than $65 billion a year, and protect more than 15 million people (Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), The Coastal Risk Index).
Finally, forests also play an adaptive role through their ability to cool inhabited spaces, an issue that has become central with the increase in heatwaves. In cities, trees provide shade, humidify the air through evapotranspiration, filter pollutants and reduce the heat islands produced by concrete and asphalt. According to a European Commission study of 93 cities, increasing tree cover to 30% would reduce urban temperatures by 0.4°C on average. But the effect would be mainly local: in certain districts, the drop could reach 5.9°C, preventing almost 3,000 premature deaths linked to heat islands. Urban revegetation shows that the forest, or more broadly the tree, is becoming as essential an adaptation infrastructure as water, energy or transport networks.
Forests are one of the mainstays of terrestrial biodiversity. They don't just provide habitat: they create a mosaic of environments (canopy, trunks, dead wood, litter, soils, wetlands) where species can feed, reproduce, circulate and protect themselves. According to the FAO, they are home to
On a global scale, forests continue to shrink. Since 1990, some 420 million hectares have disappeared (10% of the world's forest area), and almost 10 million hectares are still lost every year - an area the size of Iceland.
There are many reasons for this decline. In some parts of the world, wood meets real needs: it remains an essential source of energy for heating and cooking. But most of the world's deforestation is driven by more destructive economic factors. Agricultural expansion (crops, livestock, soya, palm oil, cocoa) remains the main driver of this disappearance. There are also political and criminal factors, particularly in Amazonia: land grabbing, illegal gold panning, drug trafficking and poor territorial control. Finally, climate change is also exacerbating the pressure on forests, by increasing drought, fire and disease.
Wood energy occupies an ambivalent position in the transition. It is officially classified as a renewable energy when it comes from sustainably managed forests, as the carbon emitted during its combustion can, in theory, be reabsorbed by the growth of trees. But this logic is disputed: burning wood releases CO₂ immediately, while forest regeneration takes decades. Added to this are emissions of fine particles and the risk that excessive demand for wood energy will increase pressure on soils, biodiversity and forest stands. That's why several reports have called for moderate, local development focused on co-products rather than on dedicated energy exploitation.
This controversy does not condemn wood energy, but it does force us to place it in a broader context: that of the cascade of uses. This principle is defended by the Renewable Energy Directive III (RED III), a European directive adopted in 2023 whose main objective is to accelerate the energy transition by increasing the share of renewable energies to at least 42.5% of the EU's final energy consumption by 2030, and calls for biomass to be used according to its highest economic and environmental added value: first as wood products, then as reuse and recycling, and only then as energy. This hierarchy makes it possible to overcome the opposition between profitability and climate protection: the most economically interesting uses (construction, carpentry, furniture, panels) are also often those that prolong carbon storage and maximize substitution effects.
The figures justify this hierarchy. Long-lasting wood products prolong carbon storage: a timber frame, a timber-framed wall or solid parquet can store carbon for almost 100 years, compared with around 20 years for some furniture and 8 years for a pallet. Above all, wood material avoids more emissions than wood energy: material substitution would save around 20 MtCO₂ per year in France, or 5% of national greenhouse gas emissions (FCBA, 2021).
However, wood energy remains highly relevant when it replaces gas, fuel oil or coal in local heating applications: wood chips emit around ten times less than natural gas. But its role must come at the end of the chain, to valorize sawmill residues, prunings or end-of-life products.
The energy transition and economic logic are based on the same idea: not burning up a precious resource too quickly.
In contrast to the major tropical deforestation fronts, the French forest has grown significantly since the 19th century, and today covers around 17 million hectares, or 31% of mainland France. Annual removals remain at around 48 Mm³, for an estimated gross biological production of 91 Mm³: on a national scale, the French forest is therefore not overexploited.
And yet, the French forestry and timber industry will post a trade deficit of €7.8 billion by 2024. This paradox can be explained less by a lack of resources than by a lack of local processing:
Beyond timber, a new way of valuing forests is emerging: forest carbon. Forest carbon credits make it possible to finance reforestation, preservation or sustainable forest management projects, in exchange for units generally corresponding to one tonne of CO₂ avoided or stored. They most often fall under the voluntary carbon market, where companies buy these credits to contribute to their climate commitments, finance nature-based solutions or offset part of their residual emissions. But the boundary with regulatory markets is not totally watertight: some compliance schemes also include forestry credits, notably in California and Australia. Forest carbon is therefore developing mainly on a voluntary basis, while gradually being drawn towards more demanding compliance, traceability and integrity frameworks.
However, forest carbon credits cover different realities.
This market is still in the structuring phase. It is characterized by a wide variety of standards and methodologies used to measure the carbon actually stored or avoided, as well as by a variable level of maturity depending on the geographical area and type of project.
Nevertheless, this market represents a precursory economic signal: that of the gradual monetization of ecosystem services. By assigning a financial value to carbon storage, it initiates a broader movement to integrate nature into economic decisions and investment strategies. In 2024, it represents 84 MtCO₂e traded, for a total value of around $535 million, or an average price of $6.34/tCO₂e. In this market, the Forestry and Land Use category, which notably includes REDD+, IFM, ARR projects but also other land-use-related projects, occupies a central position: it accounts for 44% of traded volumes and nearly 64% of total market value, with an average price of $9.27/tCO₂e (Ecosystem Market Place, 2025). Yet this level remains very low. It is lower than the average carbon price in regulated systems, estimated by the World Bank at nearly $21/tCO₂e, and a long way from the levels generally considered to be incentive-based, estimated at $30-50/tCO₂e by UNEP and Forest Trends. There are several reasons for this:
Conclusion
So, protecting forests is not just a matter of environmental responsibility for companies: it's also an economic choice. The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that over $44,000 billion in economic value - more than half the world's GDP - depends on nature and its services. Preserving forests, which store carbon, secure water, reduce certain physical risks and stabilize supply chains, is therefore tantamount to protecting part of the economic value on which businesses depend. As investors, regulators and consumers demand greater transparency on natural capital, protecting forests becomes a lever for resilience, access to finance and long-term competitiveness.
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