By Xinhua,
Rome : The world has lost more than 70 million hectares of forests between 1990 and 2005, the UN said in a report.
The State of the World’s Forests report released Monday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said most of the deforestation has taken place in South America, Africa and the Caribbean.
The global organisation said the pace of deforestation in the developing countries is unlikely to decline in the near future as high food and fuel prices would favour continued forest clearance.
Between 1990 and 2005 Latin America lost 64 million hectares of forests, some seven percent of the world’s total, the report said.
“In Africa, forest loss is likely to continue at current rates,” the report said. The recurrent droughts, floods and the declining water supplies will undermine the afforestation work in Africa, which lost eight million hectares of forest land from 1990 to 2005, the report said.
“In Asia and the Pacific, home to more than half of the world’s population with some of the most densely populated countries in the world, demand for wood and wood products is expected to continue to increase in line with the growth in population and income,” the report said.