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Primary forest loss

The following section is a quantitative look at primary forest loss.

More than seven million hectares of primary forest were lost on an annual basis between 2000 and 2005, the most recent period for which data is available from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Roughly half this loss occurred in Brazil, which is home to the largest extent of tropical forest in the world: the Amazon.

A global policy to preserve forests and limit carbon dioxide emissions will likely be folded into a draft text this week at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Farmers who cut and burn trees in Brazil's part of the Amazon River Basin cause less environmental destruction, than rich Western nations have done in the past, the Brazilian President says. (read more about historical deforestation here)

With the world facing global warming and a biodiversity crisis, a new study in Conservation Biology shows that within 15 years logged forests—considered by many to be 'degraded'—can be managed in order to successfully fight both climate change and extinction.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Six developing countries will join five western nations, including the United States and Britain, to combat climate change by better managing forestry resources, the World Bank said Tuesday.