Issue Forest cover alone misreads land system health

Summary

The land system boundary uses remaining forest share as its control variable for its simplicity, scientific basis and data availability, but recent research exposes its limits. Forest presence alone reveals nothing about ecological quality or functional integrity, and secondary or degraded forests differ greatly from intact old growth in biodiversity, carbon storage, water regulation and resilience. Expanding forest is no sign of recovered function if new stands are monocultures, poorly connected or under stress, and northward shifts into the Arctic count positively for the boundary while disrupting local ecosystems. This year's rise in estimated forest cover from about 59 to 64 percent stems from adding two omitted satellite classes and correcting a calculation, not from real recovery. The corrections make forests in the Americas look better, but because the method misses degradation from logging or extreme weather, the Amazon's apparent good state should not inspire confidence. The report calls for multiple datasets and additional control variables such as fragmentation, ecological integrity and land-use intensity.