Thomas Hannah, Ward Michelle S, Simmonds Jeremy S, Taylor Martin F J, Maron Martine
School of the Environment, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2025 Feb;39(1):e14354. doi: 10.1111/cobi.14354. Epub 2024 Aug 20.
Many nations are struggling to reduce deforestation, despite having extensive environmental protection laws in place and commitments to international agreements that address the biodiversity and climate crises. We developed a novel framework to quantify the extent to which contemporary deforestation is being captured under national and subnational laws. We then applied this framework to northern Australia as a case study, a development and deforestation hotspot with ecosystems of global significance. First, deforestation may be compliant under all relevant legislation, either through assessment and approval or because of exemptions in the legislation. Second, deforestation may be compliant under at least one relevant law, but not all. Third, there may be no evidence of deforestation assessment or exemption from assessment, despite their apparent requirement, which could mean the deforestation is potentially noncompliant. Finally, deforestation may occur in an area or under circumstances that are beyond the intended scope of any relevant legislation. All deforestation that we analyzed was hypothetically covered by one or more laws. However, 65% of deforestation was potentially noncompliant with at least one law. Because multiple laws could be relevant to a given clearing event, the majority of clearing was still compliant with at least one law, but of these events, only a small proportion was explicitly approved (19%). The remaining were permitted under various exemptions. Of all the legislation we analyzed, most of the exempt clearing occurred under one subnational law and most potentially noncompliant clearing occurred under one national law. Our results showed that even a nation with a suite of mature environmental protection laws is falling well short of achieving international commitments regarding deforestation. Our framework can be used to pinpoint the pathways of policy change required for nations to align local laws with these international accords.
尽管许多国家制定了广泛的环境保护法律，并承诺遵守应对生物多样性和气候危机的国际协定，但它们仍在努力减少森林砍伐。我们开发了一个新颖的框架，以量化国家和次国家法律涵盖当代森林砍伐的程度。然后，我们将这个框架应用于澳大利亚北部作为案例研究，这是一个具有全球重要意义生态系统的开发和森林砍伐热点地区。首先，森林砍伐可能在所有相关立法下都是合规的，要么是通过评估和批准，要么是因为立法中的豁免条款。其次，森林砍伐可能符合至少一项相关法律，但并非所有法律。第三，尽管明显需要进行森林砍伐评估或豁免评估，但可能没有相关证据，这可能意味着森林砍伐可能不合规。最后，森林砍伐可能发生在超出任何相关立法预期范围的地区或情况下。我们分析的所有森林砍伐在假设上都受一项或多项法律的涵盖。然而，65%的森林砍伐可能至少不符合一项法律。由于多项法律可能与特定的砍伐事件相关，大多数砍伐事件仍符合至少一项法律，但在这些事件中，只有一小部分是明确批准的(19%)。其余的是根据各种豁免条款允许的。在我们分析的所有立法中，大多数豁免砍伐发生在一项次国家法律之下，大多数可能不合规的砍伐发生在一项国家法律之下。我们的结果表明，即使是一个拥有一系列成熟环境保护法律的国家，在实现有关森林砍伐的国际承诺方面也远远不够。我们的框架可用于确定各国使地方法律与这些国际协定保持一致所需的政策变革途径。
