The world’s forests face a dire threat. Each year, 15 million to 22 million acres of forests are permanently cleared and many millions more are degraded. But many decisions affecting forests happen from miles away: cities are home to government officials who set land policy, businesses that sell and buy the commodities that displace forests, and investors who finance it all.

Although city-dwellers often live far from the frontiers of deforestation, the impacts of deforestation still reach them. Forest loss and degradation contribute more than 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, leaving cities with rising sea levels, extreme heat events and more powerful storms. Smoke from super-charged wildfires reaches city residents regularly and is responsible for an estimated 340,000 premature deaths per year. Urban water sources are stressed and polluted with sediment where upstream forests have been removed. Forest clearance may even lead to the spread of diseases that devastate cities: Studies show a link between deforestation in bat habitats and the rise of coronaviruses such as SARS, MERS and, as many experts believe, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because cities are deeply affected by deforestation, they can also benefit from forest conservation. That is why a group of leading cities are taking action to support forest conservation and restoration worldwide. Through their policies, investments and political advocacy, cities are at the frontier of the forest conservation movement at a time when the issue is more urgent than ever.

Here are four innovative ways cities are enhancing forest conservation:

  1. Growing urban forests
  2. Protecting upstream forests for water security
  3. Taking political action for forests near and far
  4. Using purchasing power to halt deforestation

Cities are seizing the opportunity to exert some influence over the fate of the world’s forests. The rest of the world must follow the example created by this cohort of cities leading forest conservation.

Read the full article about forest conservation by  Priya Narayanan, James Anderson, Henrique Evers, Sakinah Ummu Haniy and Eric Pooley at GreenBiz.