Global pace of deforestation slows: FAO

The Independent via Agence France-Presse: The worldwide pace of deforestation has slowed down for the first time on record, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday. On a total forest area of four billion hectares, the world lost 13 million hectares of forests per year between 2000 and 2010 - down from around 16 million in the 1990-2000 period, it said in a report.

"For the first time, we are able to show that the rate of deforestation has decreased globally as a result of concerted efforts taken both at local and international level," said Eduardo Rojas, assistant director general of FAO's forestry department, in a statement.

"New forests are being created. Either through the expansion of forests or more rapidly through the planting of trees" said Mette Loyche Wilkie, the Coordinator of the Assessment, at a press conference, Planted forests now account for about 7.0 percent of global forests, said Wilkie.

Over the 10-year period, Asia which "registered a net gain of some 2.2 million hectares annually in the last decade, mainly because of large-scale afforestation programmes in China, India and Vietnam," Rojas said. But Rojas warned: "The rate of deforestation is still very high in many countries and the area of primary forest - forests undisturbed by human activity - continues to decrease"…

The diverse forest canopy on Barro Colorado Island, (Darien Jungle) Panama - Colombia, shot by Christian Ziegler, Wikimedia Commons via Public Library of Science, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license