Protecting the tropics to secure our future

Tropical and subtropical rainforests, housing 50% of the world’s biodiversity and 50% of its renewable water resources despite having only a 7% share of the Earth’s surface area. © Chokniti Khongchum/Pond5

The tropics, a region of the world covering about 40% of its terrestrial area, has an overwhelming role in sustaining biodiversity, providing livelihoods and highly capable of yielding effective solutions to the harmful impacts of various development and environmental challenges that we face today.

Situated between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn and spanning more than 120 countries, the tropics hosts the most biologically diverse areas of the world, supporting 80% of life on land and 95% of marine biodiversity found in coastal ecosystems.

Tropical and subtropical rainforests, housing 50% of the world’s biodiversity and 50% of its renewable water resources despite having only a 7% share of the Earth’s surface area, play a significant role in climate regulation, accounting for 60% of global carbon removals. 

Tropical ecosystems are important not only for forest-dependent communities but also for those engaged at the different stages of forest value chains. They provide communities with abundant resources, including clean water, timber and other forest products, and raw materials for pharmaceuticals and industrial use. Around 40% or 3.3 billion people live within the tropical belt, including many low-income populations, and this is projected to increase to 50% in a few decades. The World Bank estimates 8.5% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, of which 85% live in the tropics (James Cook University). 

While the tropics represents one of the most important regions in the world in terms of its economic, social, and ecological value, it is also among the most vulnerable to overlapping anthropogenic and environmental pressures.

In 2014, Australia’s James Cook University, together with other institutions across the world, published the inaugural State of the Tropics Report, which assessed the condition of the tropics based on several environmental, social, and economic indicators.

The report stated that although tropical ecosystems have shown resilience compared to other ecosystems, pressures from a ballooning population and rapid economic development are degrading their capacity to maintain ecological health and provide a continuous flow of ecosystem services.

While the tropics represents one of the most important regions in the world in terms of its economic, social, and ecological value, it is also among the most vulnerable to overlapping anthropogenic and environmental pressures. © ITTO

Celebrating the significance of the tropics

The groundbreaking report provided a deeper dive into the tropics – its importance and the challenges it confronts – and highlighted the value of tropical ecosystems in ensuring the effectiveness of environmental policies and decision-making at the local, regional, and global scales.

In 2016, the United Nations designated June 29 as the International Day of the Tropics, an annual celebration of the invaluable contribution of tropical ecosystems that serves as an opportunity to acknowledge its unique value and vulnerabilities.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) has unfailingly and consistently pioneered tropical ecosystems conservation, particularly forests, through sustainable forest management and diversification of trade. Its mandate was formulated to bolster sustainable resource extraction and unhampered growth in global trade to decrease the risk of forest loss and/or health.

As the world celebrates the International Day of the Tropics, ITTO reiterates its conviction that economic development does not have to come at a great environmental cost. Through ITTO’s active involvement in initiatives advocating global collaboration, equitable grassroots participation, forest landscape restoration (FLR) and resilient livelihoods, ITTO demonstrates how economic goals can be achieved whilst conserving the environment.

Together with AIDER (Peru), ITTO is supporting local communities to improve forest-based incomes through sustainable forest management and restoration. © AIDER

Sustainable management of tropical forests

In areas where ecological integrity is threatened by deforestation, amongst other factors, and reduces the ability of communities to sustainably utilize tropical forest resources, ITTO advocates FLR as an effective mechanism to revitalize ecological functions while ensuring that economic benefits still flow from forests to those who depend on them.

In Angola, ITTO collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests on an initiative that introduced FLR principles to address the degradation of Miombo forests in the country’s southern region. It piloted community forestry programs involving local communities, including women and youth, to address rapid deforestation that threatens food security and forest-based livelihoods.

FLR was also the basis for an ITTO-funded project in Peru, aimed at increasing the income derived by local communities from forests by improving knowledge generation and management on the status and use of forest resources. This project will also strengthen forest management, conservation, and restoration among institutional actors and private stakeholders.

ITTO has supported many projects on legal and sustainable supply chains of different forest products. The project titled “Promotion of sustainable domestic consumption of wood products in Thailand,” for example, aimed to facilitate processes to strengthen the wood and wood product markets and supply chains in Thailand. The initiative, which ITTO implements with Kasetsart University, employs different mechanisms to achieve this, including improving policies on wood verification, building the capacity of stakeholders on wood product innovation, and fostering collaboration between the wood industry and tree growers to ensure sustainable timber supply chains.

ITTO is supporting sustainable wood markets in Thailand and other countries in the region by promoting innovation for the sustainability of domestic timber supply chains. © Alfredo Ruzol/ITTO

Ensuring the future of the tropics

ITTO’s efforts spanning four decades, sustained through the support of its donors and partners across the globe, prove that it is possible to strike a balance between economic growth and ensuring the long-term health of tropical ecosystems.

Celebrating the International Day of the Tropics draws our attention not only to the inherent richness of the tropics but also to our significant role in finding sustainable routes to ensure the survival of the natural wonders that it holds.

“Tropical ecosystems, especially tropical forests, provide us with immense, incalculable value. The world derives all the resources that sustain us from its astounding ecosystems and biological diversity in the tropics,” stated Ms Sheam Satkuru, ITTO Executive Director.

“We, however, bear the responsibility to ensure that the benefits we derive today will also be available for future generations,” continued Ms Satkuru. “We are fully dedicated to working with different actors to ensure the health of our tropical forests, emphasizing that our interdependence with nature is a fundamental reality.”

“Safeguarding the long-term sustainability of the tropics is mandatory to secure our own future,” Ms Satkuru added.

Source: https://www.itto.int/news/2026/06/29/protecting_the_tropics_to_secure_our_future/