Tropical forests absorb huge amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide and support rich biodiversity, so protecting them can be one of the surest ways to limit climate change and defend nature.

But they are still vanishing rapidly - at a rate of a football field every six seconds - from clearing of land for farming or development, as well as from logging and wildfires.

How could that be reversed? Norway, a top forest protection donor, is doubling the cash it is willing to pay to governments each year to keep tropical forests standing and carbon locked up in their trees, hoping to outbid the loggers and farmers.

That could grease the wheels for eventual bigger payments by corporate giants like Microsoft, Apple and Walmart that have set net-zero emissions goals and will need to pay to offset emissions they can't slash themselves - for example, by backing projects to conserve forests.

Kenya, meanwhile, is promoting sustainable activities like eco-tourism and beekeeping to try to ensure those living in and near threatened forests have a financial incentive to keep them standing.

Saving forests may also mean focusing enforcement efforts on those responsible for damaging them most.

In Indonesia, government efforts to clamp down on forest fires have too often netted small farmers - like 63-year-old Muakit, imprisoned for eight months for setting a fire - while oil palm companies get off lightly, legal experts said.

Protecting imperilled natural systems is a sure way to boost resilience and safeguard human rights as global threats - from climate change to COVID-19 - surge, said Johan Rockstrom, an earth scientist and leading thinker on resilience.

"It seems like we've reached a saturation point on what the planet can cope with," he told us in an interview.

In Costa Rica, doing the right things to stem climate change and protect nature is expected to have a big economic payoff - $41 billion in benefits by the time the country reaches its net-zero-by-2050 aim, the president said, calling the switch "the right road to follow".

In Brazil, though, continuing loss of Amazon forest - and growing climate risks - could bring worsening security threats, military experts are warning.

Wondering what you can do to help? There's a new app that can check how genuinely climate-smart your "green" investments are. And could curbing advertising that promotes overconsumption also help deal with climate change? We take a look.

See you next week!

Laurie

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