New agricultural fields are seen in northwestern Argentina. The small city of San Ramon De La Nueva Oran is in the center of the image. The deforestation of this region of Argentina near the Bolivian border has increased since the mid 1980s. The 330 mile (531 km) long Blanco River, which rises in the Andes Mountains of southeast Bolivia, is just to the right of the top center of the view. Photo: Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 8 May 2003.

By Staff Writers, Buenos Aires (AFP) Oct 22, 2009 The equivalent of 36 football fields are being stripped from the world’s forests each minute, the environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said in a statement released here on Thursday. The group, presenting its figures during a UN-organized World Forestry Congress held in the Argentine capital, called for “net deforestation of zero” by 2020. Rodney Taylor, in charge of the WWF’s forestry program, said the call underlined the “urgency” of confronting deforestation threats “to maintain the planet’s health.” The appeal was not a call for deforestation to be stopped completely, but rather that the devastation of forests be compensated with forest renewal initiatives. According to the WWF, the pace of deforestation “generates around 20 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases.” In Argentina, the menace was seen with massive eradication of forests in the central and north of the country to make way for lucrative soja crops. The country has only 30 percent of its original forests, according to a document presented by five environmental groups including Greenpeace
and Argentina’s Forestry Life Foundation. …

36 football fields deforested each minute: WWF