Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Forests and Deforestation

Jan 27 2003 (IPS) - Forests cover 3.87 billion hectares of the earth’s surface, according to the latest report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on the State of the World’s Forests

The 2001 report underlines that 95 percent of that surface area corresponds to naturally occurring forests and 5.0 percent to plantation forests. It also points out that 14.2 million hectares are lost every year to deforestation, and 5.2 million hectares are planted, amounting to a net annual loss of 9.4 million hectares.

FAO’s forestry division states that progress was made towards conservation goals in the 1990s, but warns that in order to bring to life a vision based on sustainable management, a number of factors are necessary, such as the capacity to equitably finance the costs and benefits of strides made in conservation, as well as the materialisation of effective political commitments.

In September 2003 delegates from around the globe will take part in the XII World Forestry Congress to promote the conservation of forests, a habitat that is home to 80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity, as the conference web site notes.

Although the surface area covered by forests may appear extensive, the web site of the World Resources Institute http://forests.wri.org/ shows an animated map that clearly demonstrates the enormous reduction of forest land over the past 8,000 years.

Deforestation is produced by the excessive use of forestry resources, in other words the cutting of trees by large logging interests as well as small farmers who clear land to make way for their crops. Other factors are natural catastrophes and forest fires.

Abundant information can be found on the Internet on the characteristics of deforestation, especially in tropical forests, which according to a web site are home to 70 percent of the world’s plant and animal species. There is also a large quantity of specialised reports on the issue and web sites that provide information useful to outlining plans for the management of forest ecosystems