Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Cross-Chapter-Paper-7 (section)

== CCP7.1 Introduction ==

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Climate change is already impacting tropical forests around the world, including through distributional shifts of forest biomes, changes in species composition, biomass, pests and diseases, and increases in forest fires ( ''high confidence'' ). These impacts are often compounded by non-climatic factors such as conversion of land for other uses, burning to clear land, mining, and road and infrastructure development. It is notable that, despite societal awareness and financial opportunities to restore forests ( [[#Brancalion--2017|Brancalion and Chazdon, 2017]] ), tropical forests are increasingly threatened. For instance, the conversion of tropical forests to large-scale agricultural production (mainly soybeans, oil palm, maize, cotton, livestock), is among the strongest drivers of species richness decline of both flora and fauna, thereby impacting the adaptation opportunities of ecosystems and local people to climate change ( [[#IPBES--2018|IPBES, 2018]] ). Reducing direct and indirect drivers of deforestation and forest degradation is therefore critical to building, maintaining or enhancing the resilience of tropical forests against climate and non-climate drivers alike ( ''high confidence'' ).

With climate change-related drivers becoming increasingly important in the future, changes to tropical forests will most ''likely'' [[#footnote-000|2]] be aggravated overall, although some tropical forests may temporarily benefit, physiologically, from higher temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns. To the degree to which forests are affected by climate change and other drivers, their resilience against these stressors is diminishing leading to a reduction in the regulating, supporting, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services they provide ( [[#Alroy--2017|Alroy, 2017]] ; Cadman et al., 2017; Pörtner et al., 2021) (Chapter 2) ( ''high confidence'' ). This, in turn, is affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people who depend on forests and their products, in particular forest dwelling communities, but also, via the teleconnections between forests and surrounding areas of influence, in socio-ecological systems outside the forests themselves.

While strong mitigation efforts are fundamental to minimising future climate impacts on forests, forest management can be improved in many places in support of enhancing the resilience of tropical forests, often with significant co-benefits for carbon storage, biodiversity, food security and ecosystem services ( ''high confidence'' ). Sustainable management practices allow forests to be utilised, frequently with equally high or even higher productivity levels, while keeping their core functions intact. While there are numerous approaches to managing forests and forest landscapes sustainably, an element that appears to be critical is property rights and tenure arrangements allowing stewards of the land, including Indigenous Peoples, securing long-term access and utilisation of forest resources ( ''medium confidence'' ) ( [[#Rahman--2016|Rahman and Alam, 2016]] ; Naughton-Treves, 2014).

Figure CCP7.1 illustrates the interconnections of climate risks and non-climate drivers facing tropical forests. On the one hand, the rates and extent of deforestation and forest degradation result in loss of ecosystem services, biodiversity and human well-being and enhance the vulnerability of the social-ecological system to the impacts of climate change. On the other, forest protection and sustainable forest management result in higher resilience of the ecosystem against climate impacts. This framing illustrates both the complexity and scale of the challenge and provides opportunities to reduce impacts at different scales by eliminating the underlying drivers, both climate and non-climate related, through policies and measures at global, national and subnational levels, involving state and non-state actors alike.

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'''Figure CCP7.1 |''' '''Impacts of climate change and human disturbances on tropical forests lead to high risk of biodiversity loss and uncertainty of livelihoods for the majority of forest-dependent communities (left side).''' Good forest governance would increase the resilience of tropical forest through better adaptation to and mitigation of climate change (right side).

Building on what has been presented in IPCC AR5, SR15 and SRCCL, Section CCP7.2 first briefly describes the types and extent of tropical forest ecosystems, and then looks at current rates and drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. Section CCP7.3 presents current and projected climate change impacts on tropical trees and forests, focusing primarily on drought, heat and fires, looking from physiological responses to risks, projected climate change impact and forest resilience. Section CCP7.4 addresses the impacts of climate change and tropical forest destruction on the livelihoods and well-being of communities and peoples living in or being strongly dependent upon tropical forests. This section includes a Box on Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge and community-based adaptation. Section CCP7.5 assesses adaptation options for the sustainable management of tropical forests drawing upon the protection, management and restoration framework, and includes a Box on the connection between sustainable forest management and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Section CCP7.6, finally, assesses opportunities and challenges of tropical forest governance to maintain and enhance resilience against climate change impacts on forests.

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