The world's most important forests need protection

The Amazon rainforest is an important carbon sink and one of world's the most biodiverse places. But decades of extensive logging and cattle farming have eradicated about 2 million square kilometers (772.2 million square miles) of it, while less than half of what remains is under protection. A recent study showed that some parts of the Amazon now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb.

This subarctic northern forest, mainly composed of conifers, stretches across Scandinavia and large parts of Russia. Conservation of the taiga varies from country to country. In Eastern Siberia, for example, strict Soviet era protections left the landscape largely intact but Russia's ensuing economic downturn has prompted increasingly destructive levels of logging.

North America's subarctic taiga are known as boreal forests and stretch from Alaska to Quebec — covering a third of Canada. About 94% of Canada’s boreal forests are on public land and controlled by the government but only about 8% is protected. Canada, one of the world's main exporters of paper products, logs about 4,000 square kilometers (1,500 square miles) of this forest every year.

The Congo River nurtures one of the world's oldest and densest rainforests — home to some of Africa's most iconic animals, including gorillas, elephants, and chimpanzees. But the region is also rich in oil, gold, diamonds and other valuable minerals. Mining and hunting have fueled its rapid deforestation, which scientists say will entirely wipe it out by 2100 at current rates.

A 140-million-year-old ecoregion that expands across Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia and gives shelter to hundreds of endangered species such as red orangutan and Sumatran rhino, large swaths of rainforest here are being degraded for timber, palm oil, pulp, rubber and minerals. Such activities have also boosted illegal wildlife trade as cleared forests have enabled hunters to access remote areas.

Located in Russia's far east, the coniferous forest hosts the Siberian tiger and dozens of other endangered species. With its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the forest sees tropical conditions in summer and arctic weather in winter. The Primorye Forest's remoteness, along with preservation efforts, have left it largely intact but expanding commercial logging has become a growing threat.

This forest region covers a narrow strip of land between the western slope of the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. Trees like the slow-growth, long-lived Nothofagus and Fitzroya grow in parts of the Valdivian. Extensive logging threatens these endemic trees, which are being replaced with fast-growing pines and eucalyptus that cannot sustain the region's biodiversity.