Reasons to Celebrate International Day of Forests

The 2021 International Day of Forests celebration, has the main theme of “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being” raising awareness of how forests play a vital role in the health and wellbeing of people and the planet. Restoring the health of our forests and sustainably managing them are crucial to support livelihoods, mitigate climate change, safeguard biodiversity and reduce the risk of future pandemics.

Forests provide essential health supplies:

🌱 Ethanol for hand sanitizers
🌿 Toilet paper, paper towels and tissues
🍃 Masks and protective clothing.

Forests clean the water in your tap

🌿 3/4 of all fresh water comes from forests
🍃 1/3 of our largest cities get their fresh water from forests

Forests are good for our health

Being in a forest or urban park can:
🦋 boost your immune system, lower blood pressure
🌼 reduce stress, improve mood and relaxation.

Forests provide us medicines

Forests are nature’s pharmacies. Depending on where you live, 25 – 80% of the medicinal drugs you use come from forest plants.

Forests are nature’s air conditioners!

A young healthy tree cools as much as 10 room-sized air conditioners running 20 hours a day! It also absorbs carbon, filters air pollution and reduces noise.

Forests shield us against future pandemics

60% of all infectious diseases and 75% of all emerging infectious diseases are caused by germs moving from animals to humans.

Planting and restoring forests helps build the planet’s natural defenses against diseases!

Factors that are threatening the health of our forest:

🌿 Deforestation
🍂 Forest degradation
🔥 climate change

But there is hope, we can restore them.

2 billion hectares of land – an area 2 x the size of Europe – has been degraded. But there is hope! Regrowing our forests will help create new jobs, mitigate climate change, and safeguard biodiversity.