ABSTRACT
Division of Plant Biotechnology, Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding, Forest Campus, R.S. Puram, Coimbatore-641002, India.
Email: yasodha@icfre.org * Corresponding author: ghoshm@icfre.org; modhumitaghosh@hotmail.com
Forests currently cover about 4 billion hectares, about 31 percent of the earth’s land surface (FAO 2010). Around 13 million hectares of forest are converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year in the last decade (FRA 2010). Estimates made by FRA 2010 show that the world’s forests store 289 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon in their biomass alone. Forests and trees are planted for many purposes and make up an estimated 7 percent of the total forest area, or 264 million hectares. Between 2000 and 2010, the area of planted forest increased by about 5 million hectares per year.
