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The Accountability Framework calls for eliminating deforestation and ecosystem conversion from supply chains. Doing so helps companies mitigate risk while protecting critical values including carbon storage, biodiversity, water supplies, and the wellbeing of local people and communities. Core Principle 1 specifies what a company should include in a commitment or policy to protect forests and other ecosystems.

Related definitions

The Framework provides consensus-based definitions to guide the achievement of no-deforestation and no-conversion supply chains.

Deforestation: The loss of natural forest as a result of: 

  1. conversion to agriculture or other non-forest land use; 
  2. conversion to a plantation; or 
  3. severe or sustained degradation

Conversion: Loss of a natural ecosystem as a result of its replacement with agriculture or another land use, or due to a profound and sustained change in a natural ecosystem’s species composition, structure, or function.

These definitions are globally applicable and can be contextualised to different regions and commodity production systems. This creates alignment between global-level commitments and localised methods for ecosystem identification and land-use change monitoring.

Learn more and apply the Framework

Related Core Principle

1

Protection of forests and other natural ecosystems
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