Deforestation

Satellite data reveals that demand from urban areas may be the primary driver of the loss of trees--a shift from the patterns of the past

MUZAFFARABAD, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, January 25, 2010 (ENS) - Yousaf Butt, a timber worker in the Neelum Valley at the Line of Control in Kashmir, is worried about his job because of government plans to enforce a ban on the cutting of trees.

TREES are one of the most efficient systems of carbon capture and storage on the planet. They breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, locking the carbon into their roots, trunk, branches, twigs and leaves and the soil. They are so good at this that about 20% of the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere can be attributed to deforestation. In the run-up to the climate talks in Copenhagen in December, bright minds around the world are negotiating a formal scheme for reducing the loss of trees as a way of lowering the world’s carbon emissions.

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.