Forests: Nature at your Service’—this year’s World Environment Day theme—emphasises the variety of life-sustaining services that forests provide and reminds us to take action to protect these resources. The problem of forests is intrinsically linked to the problem of black carbon. One reason we are losing our forests is that people still have to use fuel-wood from forest trees for cooking and heating. These fires are also a major source of the black carbon that scientists now realise is negatively affecting us all in many ways.