Graph of the Day: Global Deforestation Rate, 2005-2010
Previous figures underestimated global deforestation rate for the 1990s. FRA 2010, like FRA 2005, did not directly compile data on deforestation rates, because few countries have this information. In FRA 2005 the global deforestation rate was estimated from net changes in forest area. Additional information on afforestation and on natural expansion of forest for the past 20 years has now made it possible to also take into account deforestation within those countries that have had an overall net gain in forest area. As a result, the revised estimate of the global rate of deforestation and loss from natural causes for 1990–2000 (close to 16 million hectares per year) is higher, but more accurate, than was estimated in FRA 2005 (13 million hectares).
World deforestation decreases, but remains alarming in many countries [PDF: The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 Key Findings]
Civilization lives or dies because or access to sufficient supplies of clean water–The water cycle is primary to life on this planet! With the severe reduction of trees–
the water cycle is deprived of the main element that keeps the cycle working. Trees and the natural shrug undergrowth take years to grow to sufficient levels to maintain the water cycle needed to support life on this planet. A severely reduced water cycle may not be replaceable before great reductions of life, (of all kinds) occurs! We nay have passed the point of no return already! Add the acidification of the ocean and large lakes—?