Skip to content

The State of the World’s Forests 2020: Forests, biodiversity and people

As the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity 2011–2020 comes to a close and countries prepare to adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, this edition of The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) examines the contributions of forests, and of the people who use and manage them, to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Forests cover just over 30 percent of the global land area, yet they provide habitat for the vast majority of the terrestrial plant and animal species known to science. Unfortunately, forests and the biodiversity they contain continue to be under threat from actions to convert the land to agriculture or unsustainable levels of exploitation, much of it illegal.

The State of the World’s Forests 2020 assesses progress to date in meeting global targets and goals related to forest biodiversity and examines the effectiveness of policies, actions and approaches, in terms of both conservation and sustainable development outcomes. A series of case studies provide examples of innovative practices that combine conservation and sustainable use of forest biodiversity to create balanced solutions for both people and the planet.

Data Resources (2)

Data Resource Preview - The State of the World’s Forests 2020: Forests, biodiversity and people.

Additional Info

Field Value
Document type Reports, journal articles, and research papers (including theses and dissertations)
Language of document
  • English
Short title (alternative/varying form of title) SOFO
Topics Forests and forestry
Geographic area (spatial range)
  • Global
Copyright Yes
Access and use constraints

Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons license. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original English edition shall be the authoritative edition.”

Version / Edition 2020
License Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
Author (corporate) Mette L. Wilkie,
Co-author (individual) Anssi Pekkarinen, Ewald Rametsteiner, Andrew Taber and Sheila Wertz-Kanounnikoff from FAO and Will Simonson from the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC)
Co-author (coorporate) FAO and UNEP
ISBN number 978-92-5-132419-6
ISSN number 2521-7542 [ONLINE], 1020-5705 [PRINT]
Publication place Rome, Italy
Publisher FAO
Publication date 2020
Pagination 214
Keywords The State of the World's Forests,V4MF,Forest Governance
Date uploaded May 23, 2020, 07:15 (UTC)
Date modified August 29, 2024, 08:52 (UTC)