Forest Map References

"We are destroying the world’s precious ancient forests at an unprecedented rate. An area of natural forest the size of a football pitch is cut down every two seconds."

Estimation based on: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO 2005), Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 (FAO, Rome, Italy).

One football pitch every two seconds equals an annual loss of natural forests of approximately 100,000 square kilometres. FAO assesses the total annual loss of forest of 130,000 square kilometres of which at least 60,000 square kilometres are losses of primary (ancient) forests.

Greenpeace estimates the real figure to be higher because countries with significant loss of primary forest like Canada, Cameroon, Central African Republic or Democratic Republic of Congo did not report this loss.

"A quarter of the forest lost in the last 10,000 years has been destroyed in the last 30 years."

Adapted from: McNeill, J.R. (2000). Something new under the sun - An environmental history of the twentieth century world. Norton, New York, USA, 421.

"The current extinction rate of plant and animal species is around 1,000 times faster than it was in pre-human times – and this will increase to 10,000 times faster by 2050."

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.

"Scientists predict that the Earth is entering the sixth major extinction event in its history."

Thomas, J.A., Telfer, M.G., Roy, D.B., Preston, C.D., Greenwood, J.J.D., Asher, J., Fox, R., Clarke, R.T. & Lawton J.H. 2004. Comparative losses of British butterflies, birds, and plants and the global extinction crisis. Science, 303, 1879-1881.

"Until now, world maps have not been sufficiently accurate or consistent to reveal which forest areas remain intact, which have been damaged and to what extent. This has made it difficult to see which forest areas are most in need of protection. Greenpeace has created a new map of the world’s forests, based on the most up to date, high-resolution satellite imagery and a consistent set of criteria."

For a detailed list of all results per country, forest region and globally as well as for a list of peer reviewers see: www.intactforests.org

"In the tropics alone, over 5 million square kilometres of forest have been degraded by destructive logging and a further 3.5 million square kilometres has been totally deforested during the last few decades."

International Tropical Timber organisation (ITTO 2002), Guidelines for the Restoration, Management and Rehabilitation of Degraded and Secondary Tropical Forests (ITTO, Yokohama, Japan).