Heading into COP30, where tropical forests are set to be a central theme, it seemed worth looking today’s trajectories a little further forward and imagine where they might lead. Part 1 looked at possible fates of tropical forests. The first act of the forest crisis was destruction. The second, if there is to be one, must be design—deliberate, structural, and sustained. The world already knows what is burning; what it hasn’t decided is whether it truly wants to stop it.
Last year’s fires tore through more than three million hectares of tropical primary forest, most of it in South America. Drought and El Niño played their part, but so did the same chronic weaknesses: fragmented governance, cheap credit for land clearance, and a market that rewards destruction faster than it rewards restraint. The causes are structural, which means the solutions will have to be as well.
