The Global Trees Campaign is a partnership between:

Not all trees are equal...

While the importance of conserving and restoring forests and planting trees is widely recognised today, making sure that the right species of trees are protected and planted is equally crucial. There are a multitude of products and services that we use in our everyday lives that can only be provided by one or a few species of tree. Some of these tree species, such as those that provide food, medicine or building materials, have a direct and essential value to human populations, both those in nearby forest communities and all over the world. Other tree products bring economic benefit to local communities if they can be traded locally or internationally.

In addition to these direct benefits, some tree species have indirect benefits that are often more difficult to quantify. Certain trees may be incredibly ecologically important, acting as key building blocks of ecosystems and sustaining a myriad of animal and plant species. Other tree species have great cultural, religious or historical significance to local people and so are valued in a completely different but equally important way.

Despite their multiple values, over 8,000 tree species, 10% of the world's total, are threatened with extinction, with 1,002 species listed as Critically Endangered – likely to go extinct unless urgent action is taken now to save them. These include a number of species of great significance to human life.

The following pages explore the many and various ways in which individual tree species are of vital importance to people throughout the world, illustrating the need to maintain not just tree cover, but the full, diverse range of tree species that exist today.

Trees used for food
There are examples of every part of trees being used for food, from fruit to seeds and from leaves to sap.

More pages will be added soon, including trees used for medicines, building, musical instruments, cosmetics and more.