Centre for Global Wood Security
Securing forest products and biodiversity under global change.
Forests are critical for preserving a liveable climate, safeguarding nature, and meeting societal needs.
Many trees planted today will not be harvested for decades or are meant to be protected by restoration programmes to restore carbon stocks and biodiversity. Yet the trees we are planting and protecting will have to survive in very different climates than those today.
The world is experiencing unprecedented global change, with hundreds of millions of hectares of forests already impacted by drought, pests and diseases, or burned in severe wildfires.
This places forestry-based products, on which humanity relies at severe risk including:
- $1.5 trillion of annual timber production
- Hundreds of billions of dollars in carbon-market funding
- 80% of terrestrial biodiversity
Decisive action must be taken within the next few years to ensure global wood security and prevent significant losses of timber, carbon stocks, and biodiversity for future generations. This is such a concern that the United Nations Conventions on Climate Change and Biological Diversity have issued urgent appeals for the protection and restoration of forests globally.
Cambridge’s Centre for Global Wood Security
Uniting global experts for the sustainable future of forests.
To address these urgent issues, the University of Cambridge is leading a global collaboration of more than 60 researchers from over 20 universities, businesses, and civil society organisations in establishing the world’s first Centre for Global Wood Security.
Launched in November 2024, the core mission of the Centre is to deliver major societal and environmental benefits through cutting-edge research and translation into practical solutions and policy action.
The Centre is focused on three key pillars of research activity:
- Enhancing sustainable forest use
- Securing forest services under global change
- Building the forests of the future
World-leading researchers at the Centre are at the forefront of our global understanding of wood security issues. We are building the evidence base to tackle the grand challenges that we face in ensuring the sustainable provision of timber, carbon stocking, and forest conservation.
Through shared supervision, research exchanges, and annual symposia, the Centre is training the next generation of scientists in tackling issues surrounding global wood security. Vitally, we translate our research into policy and management tools, co-designed with end users to maximise improved outcomes for forest products and biodiversity.
Professor David Edwards
Director of the Centre for Global Wood Security and Professor of Plant Ecology
Over the last two decades, David Edwards’ research has primarily focused on understanding the responses of forest-based biodiversity and ecosystem services to global change, including selective logging, conversion to farmland, and restoration. His research combines intensive field study, with remote sensing, global mapping, and land-use modelling, to tackle key questions in forest ecology, management, and conservation, with a focus on issues of global policy significance.
His work has underscored the importance of logged tropical forests, resulting in the protection of large areas in Malaysia and the adoption of remote-sensing techniques developed by researchers at the Centre to prevent illegal logging in Peru. His recent work has revealed the threats posed to global timber supplies from wildfire and competition with farming under climate change. This work has the potential to drive further improvements in forest production and biodiversity outcomes.
Support global wood security
The most overlooked challenge in natural resource management is the future of forest-based products and biodiversity under global change. The Centre for Global Wood Security is a unique opportunity for global philanthropists to take a leading role in driving forward our world-leading research and training, delivering huge impacts for people and nature across the globe.
You can support the Centre for Global Wood Security by donating online or to learn more about how you can help transform the future of global food security, we would be delighted to discuss this opportunity with you further. Please contact:
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