ABSTRACT
From the viewpoint of a global perspective of changes in land use and cover, Williams (1994a) noted that felling trees for the combined objectives of obtaining wood for construction, shelter and toolmaking, of providing fuel for commercial as well as domestic purposes, and of creating land for agriculture 'has culminated in one of the main processes whereby humankind has modified the world's surface of vegetation'. However, 'the distribution, quantitative extent, and rate of change in the area of forest, through both deforestation and reforestation, have been and remain subjects of great debate and uncertainty'.
