 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Facts
about DEFORESTATION
|
|
|
Deforestation
occurs at a rate of 150,000 square km per year
|
|
|
worldwide
(every 2.5 years, an area equivalent to the state of
|
|
California
disappears).
|
|
|
Tropical
forests once occupied 16 million square kilometers of the
|
earth's
surface, but now cover only 9 million.
|
|
|
It is
estimated that Latin America and Asia have already lost 40%
|
|
of their
original forest; Africa a little more than half.
|
|
|
In many
countries the rate of deforestation is accelerating. For
|
|
|
example, most
of the forested areas of Bangladesh, India, the
|
|
Philippines,
Sri Lanka and parts of Brazil's rain forest could be
|
|
gone by the
end of the century.
|
|
|
Only in the
Congo Basin and some of the more isolated areas of
|
|
|
the Amazon
Basin does the forest remain largely intact.
|
|