ABSTRACT
Forests cover about 4 billion hectares worldwide, which represents 30.3 percent of total land area. Deforestation is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a radical removal of vegetation to less than 10 percent crown cover. This definition refers to a change in the land use and long-term removal of tree cover (Angelsen and Kaimowitz 1999). Annual loss of tropical forests was estimated at 15.4 million hectares in the 1980s (FAO 1992), and at 12.7 million hectares in the 1990s (FAO 1997). Net annual loss was estimated at 7.3 million hectares in the GEO Year Book of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP 2006: 75). Latin America and the Caribbean region, which has the largest proportion of forest area, experienced a decrease in the forest cover from 49.2 percent in 1990 to 45.8 percent in 2005. Africa also shows a continued net loss of forest area, with 21.4 percent in 2005, compared to 23.6 percent in 1990. Forest areas in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific region remained stable and even increased slightly during this period. Overall, deforestation is most severe in developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mexico, Nigeria and Sudan (Smouts 2002).
