Global deforestation : Wood through the trees /// The Economist

Global deforestation decreases, but still remains high


Mar 25th 2010
From The Economist online


THE pace at which the world’s forests are vanishing has slackened over the past decade but it is still alarming, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a UN agency. Between 2000 and 2010, the net loss of forest was 5.2m hectares per year, compared with 8.3m in the previous decade. South America and Africa had the biggest net annual decrease over the past decade—at 4m and 3.4m hectares respectively. But tree-planting programmes in China, India, Vietnam and the United States helped to offset this. Most of these programmes are due to end in 2020, and the current situation is at best a “short window of opportunity” to stop the disappearance of forests, says the co-ordinator of this year's quin-annual assessment.