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This is a list of countries and territories of the world according to the total area covered by forests, based on data published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In 2010, the world had 3.92 billion hectares (ha) of tree cover, extending over 30% of its land area. [1] [need quotation to verify]
As of 2013, Peru had more than 50% coverage of the country in forest. [153] An important part of this coverage is Peruvian Amazonia . According to the Ministry of Environment (Peru) between 2001 and 2018 the country lost 2.2 million hectares of forest, mostly in the Amazonian regions of Loreto , San Martín and Ucayali .
In the United States, the forest cover by state and territory is estimated from tree-attributes using the basic statistics reported by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Forest Service. [2] Tree volumes and weights are not directly measured in the field, but computed from other variables that can be measured. [3] [4]
According to IUCN, more than 5,000 of the tree species on the Red List are used for timber in construction. Over 2,000 species are used for medicines, food and fuels.
Russia has the largest forest area in the world, at 815 million hectares (a fifth of global forest cover). The other four countries all house more than 100 million hectares of forest each. The small African nation of Gabon, while only containing 0.58% of the world's forest cover, has the largest forest-to-land ratio of any country (91.3%). [4]
Gains in forest land have resulted from conversions from crop land and pastures at a higher rate than loss of forest to development. However issues have been identified such as the continued loss of old-growth forest, [ 9 ] the increased fragmentation of forest lands, and the increased urbanization of forest land. [ 10 ]
A country that consumes more than 1.73 gha per person has a resource demand that is not sustainable world-wide if every country were to exceed that consumption level simultaneously. Countries with a footprint below 1.73 gha per person might not be sustainable: the quality of the footprint may still lead to net long-term ecological destruction.
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