For Five Straight Years, 2014-18, We Destroyed 26 Million Hectares Of Forest Per Year
Meeting a landmark target to slash by at least half losses of natural forests by 2020 is likely to be "impossible", as deforestation has soared in the five years since it was set, warned a report on progress towards the goal.
The 2014 New York Declaration on Forests garnered more than 200 signatories among countries, companies and green groups, including the governments of Colombia, Norway and the United States and consumer goods giants such as McDonald's and Walmart.
Nonetheless, the world lost more than 26 million hectares of trees - an area the size of Britain - each year from 2014-2018. That represented a 43% jump in the global rate of tree loss compared with the period 2001-2013, said the report issued on Thursday ahead of a U.N. climate summit on Sept. 23.
Tropical forests accounted for about 90% of global deforestation from 2001-2015, it added. Their annual rate of loss rose by 44% in the 2014-2018 period, largely due to land being cleared to produce agricultural commodities such as beef, soy and palm oil.
EDIT
http://news.trust.org/item/20190912123534-rteig/
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