Rainforests across the world are in great danger. Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2016 State of the Forests report revealed that 7 million hectares of forest are lost annually while agricultural land expands by 6 million. The biggest threat to forests today is industrial agriculture production of commodities like Conflict Palm Oil, fabric, paper and logging. Only 4 billion hectares of forest remain worldwide according to Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015.

How many trees are cut down each year? For what purpose?

1. As for how many trees are cut down each year, IntactForests.org concludes that intact forest landscapes from 2000-2013 were reduced globally by 70,000 square kilometers per year (about the size of Costa Rica) for a total of 919,000 square kilometers. As to the "number of trees" this represents, it's impossible to get an accurate count. Tree density in primary forests varies from 50,000-100,000 trees per square km, so the math would put this number at 3.5 billion to 7 billion trees cut down each year. 
   
   
2. According to IntactForests.org,  major categories contributing to forest loss include: Timber harvesting (37%), agricultural expansion (28%), wildfire (21%), construction of roads for resource mining and extraction, pipelines, and power lines (12%) and expansion of transportation networks via roads (2%).

The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has welcomed Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price’s recognition this morning that the Coalition’s commitment to plant one billion new trees over the next decade will play a key role in meeting Australia’s climate change targets, AFPA Chief Executive Officer Mr Ross Hampton said today.

“This morning on national ABC radio program AM, Environment Minister Melissa Price discussed the new national forest industries plan and used it as an example of how Australia can meet climate targets,” Mr Hampton said.

Minister Price – “Only a couple of weeks ago, we announced our new forestry plan, which is a plan to build one billion trees and create some 18,000 jobs”.

“It is pleasing that there is increasing interest in the vital role that growing Australia’s plantation estate through initiatives identified in the national forest industries plan can play in tackling climate change and creating jobs across the country,” Mr Hampton said.

“Earlier this year AFPA released the ‘18 by 2030 – Forest industries help tackle Australia’s climate change challenge’ strategy, which outlined that with the right government policies, forest industries can be responsible for removing 18 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent from Australia’s economy, per year from 2030.

“Furthermore, it was noted in a column by Environment Editor Graham Lloyd in today’s Australian that, “Support by the Australian government for plans to plant one billion trees to reboot our plantation timber industry has received scant attention, yet this measure could achieve about one-quarter of Australia’s Paris targets, while creating an estimated 18,000 jobs.”

Read more:

http://ausfpa.com.au/media-releases/one-billion-trees-commitment-recogni...

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