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Global Forest is Disappearing Slowly, But Alarmingly: UN

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Do you know how mush forest is destroyed each year across the world? Be it by man or nature, it is some 13 million hectares! Yes, ‘each year.’ It is an area the size of Greece, although the net loss of trees has finally slowed. Thanks mainly to new plantations, the United Nations said. Covering 229 countries and territories, the Global Forest Resources Assessment of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), was the most exhaustive survey undertaken, it claimed. The net loss of forest area between 2000-2005 was some 7.3 million hectares a year against 8.9 million hectares in the 1990-2000 period, taking into account plantations, landscape restoration and the natural expansion of some forests, the FAO said. Bashing all these claims, environmental groups accused the FAO of playing down the devastation of the world’s most important forests. They claim that the FAO is misleading by emphasizing the net forest loss number. The reason for it, Simon Counsell, head of the Rainforest Foundation in Britain claims is that most of the world’s most valuable forests, especially in the tropics, are vanishing as fast as ever.

Via: Environmental News Network

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