Global Deforestation Continues, But Slows
Each year about 13 million hectares of the world's forests are lost due to deforestation, but the rate of net forest loss is slowing down, thanks to new planting and natural expansion of existing forests, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) announced recently. Although new forests and trees are being planted at increasing rates, plantations still account for less than 5 percent of forest area.
The annual net loss of forest area between 2000 and 2005 was 7.3 million hectares/year - an area about the size of Sierra Leone or Panama - down from an estimated 8.9 million ha/yr between 1990 and 2000. This is equivalent to a net loss of 0.18 percent of the world's forests annually. These are some of the key findings of "The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005" (FRA 2005), the most comprehensive assessment to date of forest resources, their uses and value, covering 229 countries and territories between 1990 and 2005.
Forests now cover nearly 4 billion hectares or 30 percent of the world's land area. However, 10 countries account for two-thirds of all forest area: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Indonesia, Peru, the Russian Federation and the US.
Forests have multiple functions, including conservation of biological diversity, soil and water, supplying wood and non-wood products, providing recreation opportunities and serving as carbon sinks. While most forests are managed for multiple uses, FRA 2005 found that 11 percent are designated principally for the conservation of biological diversity - and such areas have increased by an estimated 96 million hectares since 1990.
Around 348 million hectares of forests are used to conserve soil and water, control avalanches and desertification, stabilise sand dunes and protect coastal areas. One-third of the world's forests are mainly used for production of wood, fibre and non-wood products, and more than half have production of these products as one of their management objectives, indicating the importance of forest products at the local, national and international levels.
The report can be found at: http://www.fao.org/forestry/home/en/ |
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