Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Deforestation report

Since we just finished our homework that asked what we thought about countries' rights to deforestation, I was amused when I came across a report of a U.N. report that shows deforestation is slowing. An article on BBC reported that deforestation slowed from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s to 13 million hectares per year in the past 10 years. Tree planting is also up, so the net loss per year was 5.2 hectares per year in the 2000s, as opposed to 8.3 the previous decade. The report attributed the change to tree-planting efforts in Asia and efforts by Brazil and Indonesia to slow loss of trees. There is also evidence that suggests some huge losses came from Australia, not because of logging but because of drought. the worst losses remain in Africa and South America.

According to a graph in the report's key findings, China had the largest net gain in trees in the world.

1 comment:

  1. I was shocked to see that forest now accounts for 31% of the earth's land. I thought the figure would be much lower. It was also encouraging to read that Brazil has a goal to cut deforestations 80% by 2020. This was a great article to post after our last home work. Thanks Ayrel.

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