Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on the environmental stakes of forest fires.

Covering one-third of the globe's land surface, forests are the lungs of the planet, so when they burn, it's not just the trees that go.

Its entire ecosystems that fall apart, with dire consequences for all of us.

So how is the EU protecting them?

Stay with us.

When climate activist Greta Thunberg went to Divorce in 2019 to tell world leaders that

are houses on fire, she couldn't have been more right.

Because 2019 was, quite literally, the year the world burned. From the Amazon to Australia and

Siberia, wildfires ravaged millions of hectares of forest, grass and farmland, destroyed

thousands of homes and caused many deaths. But beyond the human suffering and material loss they cause,

forest fires have a direct impact on ecosystems,

causing habitat and biodiversity loss, affecting water and soils.

By releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases,

they also have a direct impact on climate change and

pollute the air we breathe.

So why are forests so essential to life in our planet?

Well, we, quite simply, depend on forests for our survival.

They provide us with food, wood, water, fuel and medicines.

And they support the livelihoods of over 1.6 billion people

globally. And besides providing habitats for animals and livelihoods for humans, they also protect

us from floods and erosion and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Indeed, after oceans, forests

are the world's largest storehouses of carbon.

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