New study finds global forest area per capita has declined by more than 60%

Over the past 60 years, global forest area has shrunk by 81.7 million hectares, a loss that contributed to a decline of more than 60% in global forest area per capita. This loss threatens the future of biodiversity and affects the lives of 1.6 billion people around the world, according to a new study published today by IOP Publishing in the journal Environmental investigation letters.

A team of researchers, led by Ronald C. Estoque of the Center for Biodiversity and Climate Change, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) in Japan, found that the forest The area has decreased by 81.7 million hectares between 1960 and 2019, which is equivalent to an area of ​​more than 10% of the entire island of Borneo, with a gross forest loss (437.3 million hectares) that exceeds the gross forest profit (355.6 million hectares).

The team used a global land use dataset to examine how global forests have changed over space and time. Consequently, the decline in global forests combined with the increase in world population over the 60-year period has resulted in a decline in global forest area per capita by more than 60%, from 1.4 hectares in 1960 to 0.5 hectares in 2019.

The authors explain that “the continued loss and degradation of forests affects the integrity of forest ecosystems, reducing their ability to generate and provide essential services and maintain biodiversity. It also affects the lives of at least 1.6 billion people worldwide. predominantly in developing countries, which depend on forests for various purposes”.

The results also revealed that the change in the spatio-temporal pattern of global forests supports the forest transition theory, with forest losses occurring primarily in lower income countries in the tropics and forest gains in higher income countries. high in the extratropics. Ronald C. Estoque, the study’s lead author, explains that “despite this spatial pattern of forest loss occurring primarily in less developed countries, the role of more developed nations in such forest loss also needs to be studied more deeply.” With the strengthening of forest conservation in more developed countries countriesforest loss shifts to the smallest developed countriesespecially in the tropics.

“Today, monitoring the world’s forests is an integral part of several global environmental and social initiatives, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Agreement and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. To help To achieve the goals of these initiatives, there is a profound need to reverse, or at least flatten, the global curve of net forest loss by conserving the world’s remaining forests and restoring and rehabilitating degraded forest landscapes,” the authors further explain.