Deforestation and other land use changes are the second-largest contributors to climate change.

The main driver of deforestation is expanding agriculture – including commercial livestock, unsustainable planting of oil palm, soy, and other crops, but also encroachment and clearing by small farmers.

The HCV Approach supports forest conservation by identifying and protecting primary forests, Intact Forest Landscapes (IFLs) and forests harboring any of the six categories of High Conservation Values where development will or is already taking place.

Forest Integrity Assessment (FIA) tool

This simple and user-friendly tool developed by the HCV Network and WWF allows any person to assess and monitor biodiversity conditions in forests and forest remnants through simple checklists available for different forest types.

Users look for easily recognizable features like big trees, trees with epiphytes, nesting trees, and regenerating seedlings and saplings along 100-meter transects to come up with a score that can then be used to detect forest changes over time.

The Secretariat is looking to scale up use of this tool by developing an app to host FIA tool checklists on a global smartphone app. A first version for Southeast Asia lowland forests has been developed in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Lucey, Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford.

Our work with the High Carbon Stock Approach

The HCS Approach was developed in 2014 to support the implementation of No-Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) commitments by oil palm and pulp and paper plantation companies operating in fragmented landscapes in the humid tropics. The HCV and HCS Approaches can be jointly used to steer new plantations to degraded lands. The HCV Network has collaborated with the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA) Steering Group since 2014 to develop manuals, templates, and quality assurance procedures for HCV-HCSA assessments. A MOU was signed in 2020 to formalize this collaboration.

The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber

Car tires, along with many other rubber products, are made from mixes of synthetic rubber and natural rubber sap tapped from living rubber trees. Globally, smallholders are responsible for 90% of rubber production. Market prices of natural rubber tend to be volatile, driving deforestation by farmers, many of which are smallholders, to plant more rubber trees in times of high prices.

As a founding member of the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) and a member of its Executive Committee, the HCV Network supports implementation of policies related to safeguarding High Conservation Values and curbing deforestation.

For more information, please contact secretariat@hcvnetwork.org.