If we are to manage our forests wisely for the benefit of current and future generations, we need to understand the situation of the world’s forests and ongoing trends.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has gathered data from 234 countries and territories to provide an up-to-date report on about 88% of the world’s forests.
FRA 2015 shows an encouraging tendency towards a reduction in the rates of forest loss. The rate of annual net loss of forests (i.e. land taken out of forests and turned into something else like houses or agriculture) slowed from 0.18% in the 1990s to 0.08% over the last 5 years. This means the rate of global net forest loss has been cut by 50%, reflecting improvements to sustainable forest management, more land designated as permanent forest, increased assessment, monitoring, reporting, planning and stakeholder involvement and larger areas designated for conservation of biodiversity.
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