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Africa’s forests at a crossroads: AFF research reveals pathways to green transformation amid rising pressures – EnviroNews
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Africa’s forests are entering a critical transition. Environmental and economic pressures are intensifying, yet new evidence points to expanding opportunities for greener growth, resilience, and more inclusive economies, particularly in rural settings.
New research commissioned by the African Forest Forum (AFF), with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), finds that forests remain under pressure from deforestation, climate change, and rising demand for natural resources, while also becoming central to emerging green development pathways.
Covering about 624 million hectares – roughly 23% of Africa’s land area – forests and tree-based landscapes support more than 245 million people. They provide food, energy, medicine, and income, while sustaining ecosystem services essential for climate regulation and biodiversity conservation.
To better understand these dynamics, AFF commissioned 19 country studies across six forest biodiversity hotspots in 2024, namely, Guinean Forests of West Africa, Eastern Afromontane, Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa, Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands; and Horn of Africa, examining how governance systems, value chains, energy systems, and indigenous knowledge can be better aligned to strengthen forest management for climate resilience and sustainable development.
“Africa’s forests are no longer just a conservation priority – they are an economic and climate solution,” said Prof. Labode Popoola, Executive Secretary and CEO of AFF. “With the right coordination and investment, they can drive inclusive growth while strengthening resilience to climate change.”
What emerges is not a narrative of decline, but of uneven progress and significant untapped potential.
Across countries, a consistent pattern emerges: Africa has a strong policy foundation for sustainable forest management, anchored in global environmental commitments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the AU Sustainable Forest Management Framework for Africa (2020-2030) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. These frameworks increasingly integrate forestry, biodiversity, climate action, and land restoration, reflecting growing coherence at national level.
The constraint is no longer policy design but implementation. Progress is slowed by fragmented institutional arrangements and weak coordination across forestry, agriculture, energy, environment, other land uses, and biodiversity governance systems.
Stronger outcomes depend on three reinforcing enablers: improved cross-sector coordination, strengthened technical capacity, and more predictable financing. Together, these are essential for translating policy commitments into measurable results at landscape level.
Country experiences reflect both progress and divergence. Kenya shows relatively strong alignment across biodiversity and climate frameworks, supported by instruments such as the Forest Conservation and Management Act and the Climate Change Act. Ethiopia demonstrates strong ambition, including a commitment to reduce emissions by 68.8% by 2030. Madagascar and Cameroon continue to advance policy development but face deeper coordination and implementation constraints.
This gap between ambition and delivery is already visible in forest-based economies that sustain millions of livelihoods.
Non-timber forest products, timber, ecotourism, and ecosystem services continue to underpin rural incomes, particularly for women and young people. In Uganda, ecotourism supports more than 5,000 jobs and over 500 enterprises. In Nigeria and Madagascar, forest products remain a vital source of rural livelihoods, though many activities are still informal and low in value addition.
Across value chains, benefits are often highly uneven. In Madagascar, harvesters of high-value biodiversity products may receive as little as 1% of total value, while exporters capture up to 90%. By contrast, more structured governance arrangements show more equitable outcomes. Community-based ecotourism models, such as those around Uganda’s Bwindi landscape, return at least 20% of tourism revenues to surrounding communities.
A similar dynamics are evident in indigenous and traditional knowledge systems.
Across West, East, and Southern Africa, customary governance systems—including sacred forests, taboos, and pastoral institutions—have historically shaped how forests were managed and conserved but their role has become increasingly marginalised within modern forest governance regimes dominated by formal state institutions. The indigenous and traditional knowledge systems are also valuable in identifying forest and tree-based food species important for food and nutrition security. In South Africa alone, more than 115 wild edible plant species remain embedded in local food systems, underscoring the deep cultural and ecological value of forest landscapes. A key challenge remains how to better integrate this knowledge into formal policy systems in ways that strengthen conservation and resilience.
Nowhere is the tension between dependence and inefficiency more visible than in household energy systems.
Biomass remains the dominant energy source for 70–80% of African households. While essential for basic energy access, it is often highly inefficient, poses health risk to women, and places significant pressure on forests. In Nigeria, traditional cooking methods can lose up to 70% of energy, while in Togo, conventional charcoal production operates at around 11% efficiency. Across countries, improved cookstoves, briquettes, biogas systems, and agroforestry woodlots are gradually emerging as alternatives that reduce pressure on forests while maintaining energy access.
Taken together, these trends point to an ongoing transition across Africa’s forest landscapes – uneven, but increasingly visible.
Rising demand for forest-based goods and ecosystem services is creating new opportunities for value addition, enterprise development, and employment. Restoration efforts, agroforestry systems, carbon markets, and green finance mechanisms are expanding, while digital technologies are improving traceability and transparency across value chains.
However, progress remains constrained by structural barriers. Institutional fragmentation limits coordination, weak financing slows implementation, and uneven technology adoption restricts productivity. These constraints are reinforced by persistent inequalities in access to resources, markets, and decision-making – particularly affecting women, youth and indigenous people, who remain central to forest economies.
The central question is no longer whether Africa’s forests matter, but whether current systems can adapt quickly enough to match their growing ecological, social, and economic importance. The evidence suggests that the foundations for transformation already exist; what is required is a shift in institutions, incentives, and investment priorities.
These studies by AFF show that data exist, knowledge exists, solutions exist and frameworks have been negotiated and agreed. What remains is the will, collective, institutional, and personal, to act on what we know, to honour what we have committed to, and to build, with the urgency and the seriousness the moment demands.
With stronger coordination, targeted investment, particularly from the private sector, and more inclusive governance, Africa’s forest landscapes could evolve from fragmented systems into integrated engines of sustainable development – central to climate resilience, biodiversity protection, and inclusive growth.
