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The rate of net forest loss declined from 7.8 million ha per year in the decade 1990–2000 to 5.2 million ha per year in 2000–2010 and 4.7 million ha per year in 2010–2020. The rate of decline of net forest loss slowed in the most recent decade due to a reduction in the rate of forest expansion.
A year earlier, an academic claimed that, since 2016, forested area has declined by 18,000 rai, a significant improvement over the period 2008–2013, when a forested million rai were lost each year. [68] In 1975, the government set a goal of 40% forest coverage—25% natural forest and 15% commercial forest—within 20 years.
Deforestation in the tropics – given as the annual average between 2010 and 2014 – was responsible for 2.6 billion tonnes of CO 2 per year. That was 6.5% of global CO 2 emissions . Deforestation is a primary contributor to climate change , [ 1 ] [ 2 ] and climate change affects the health of forests. [ 3 ]
Although global forest area is decreasing, the rate at which we are losing trees has slowed. In the 1990s the world was losing 7.8 million ha of area per year, but in the 2000s this rate slowed to 5.2 million ha, and in the 2010s it shrank even further (down to 4.7 million).
While the rate of net forest loss for Africa has increased since 1990, it has declined in South America by about one half between the decades 2000-2010 and 2010–2020. On the other hand, Asia had the highest net gain of forest area in 2010–2020 at 1.2 million ha per year, followed by Oceania at 0.4 million ha then Europe [17] at 0.3 million ha.
This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, with half of that loss occurring in the last century. [27] Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. [28]
Many ancient cultures along the Mediterranean Sea harvested these trees including the Phoenicians who used cedar, pine and juniper for boat building, the Romans, who cut them down for lime-burning kilns, and the Ottomans, who used much of the remaining cedar forests of Lebanon as fuel in steam trains in the early 20th century. [118]
Over the decade since 2010, the net loss in forests globally was 4.7 million hectares per year. However, deforestation rates were much significantly higher. The UN FAO estimate that 10 million hectares of forest were cut down each year. This interactive map shows deforestation rates across the world.