Tropical Countries Continue to Lose Forests at High Rate: FAO Report
COPYRIGHT 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY
October 4, 2001
DAR ES SALAAM, October 4
Tropical countries continue to lose their forests at a very high rate, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned in a new issue of the "State of the World's Forests 2001."
"During the 1990s, the loss of natural forests was 16.1 million hectares per year, of which 15.2 million occurred in the tropics," FAO said in its biannual report, which was published Wednesday and made available here Thursday.
This corresponds to annual losses of 0.4 percent globally and 0. 8 percent in the tropics. Deforestation was highest in Africa and South America. "The countries with the highest net loss of forest area between 1990 and 2000 were Argentina, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mexico, Nigeria, the Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Those with the highest net gain of forest area during this period were China, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and the United States," the FAO report said.
The findings are based on FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, the most recent and comprehensive assessment of the status and trends of forest resources worldwide.
Of the 15.2 million hectares lost annually in the tropics, 14.2 million hectares were converted to other land uses and 1.0 million hectares were converted to forest plantations. Outside tropical countries, 0.9 million hectares of natural forest were lost per year, of which 0.5 million hectares were converted to forest plantations and 0.4 million hectares were converted to other land uses.
Natural forest expansion was estimated at 3.6 million hectares annually in the past decade, of which 2.6 million hectares were in non-tropical countries and 1.0 million hectares in the tropics.
"Forest expansion has been occurring for several decades in many industrialized countries, especially where agriculture is no longer an economically viable land use," FAO said.
Plantations also contributed to the gain in forest area, with 1. 9 million hectares of new plantations per year in tropical countries and 1.2 million hectares in non-tropical areas. Future increases in demand for wood are predicted to be met largely by forest plantations, according to the report.
FAO said that the major causes for the loss and degradation of forests are: conversion to other land uses (mainly agriculture), pests and diseases, fire, overexploitation of forest products ( industrial wood and fuel-wood), poor harvesting practices, overgrazing, air pollution and storms.
The 1990s were marked by periods of severe drought, setting the stage for devastating wildfires to occur in practically every corner of the world, FAO said.
Hundreds of thousands to millions of hectares burn annually in dry West Africa, large areas of Africa south of the Equator, central Asia, southern South America and Australia. For example, during the 2000 fire season an estimated 200 million hectares south of the equator in Africa burnt.
Concerning the bans and restrictions on commercial logging, the report said that they have in some countries contributed to the conservation of natural forests. In others, however, "they have negatively affected the forest sector and local communities or have simply transferred the problem of over-harvesting to other countries."
Commenting on forest-based wildlife in developing countries, the FAO report noted that "unsustainable hunting, especially commercial hunting, is the major cause of what is known as the ' empty forest syndrome' -- the elimination of most of the animal life by hunting."
Meat from wild animals, widely known as bush-meat, has long been a staple of rural people in many parts of the world, but with urbanization, the demand for bush-meat is increasingly being met by commercial hunters and traders.
A bush-meat crisis has evolved in equatorial Africa, according to the report. The forests of tropical Africa are rich in primate species, which are particularly vulnerable to overexploitation because they breed slowly and often have small populations.
"About 15 primate species are believed to be threatened by the bush-meat trade. The number of chimpanzees in Africa is believed to have declined by 85 percent during the 20th century. Other species threatened by the bush-meat trade include the forest elephant, the water chevrotain, six duiker species, the leopard and the golden cat," the report added.