Deforestazione diminuisce

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FAO Says Deforestation Continues Despite Slowdown

Last updated: 22 Jan 2001 16:57 GMT (Reuters)

ROME (Reuters) - The rate of global deforestation is slowing, but huge
swathes of forest still disappear each year the United Nations' Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Monday.

The Rome-based agency said the slowdown was mainly due to new plantations in
Europe and the United States, where forest areas are actually increasing.

In global terms, the current rate of net forest loss amounted to nine
million hectares per year, 20 percent lower than in 1995, the FAO said in
its latest global forest survey.

In Asia, new plantations are largely compensating for the reduction in
natural forests, which are disappearing most rapidly in Africa and Latin
America.

"These differences cannot be explained by population pressure on forests
alone. Rather, they are apparently the result of economic developments at
large, and national forest or land use policies," said FAO's
Director-General Jacques Diouf.

"Forestry surveys should address, on a sustainable basis, further
development of the forestry sector which constitutes a backbone of world
food security," Diouf said.

FAO said its Committee on Forestry, a leading forest policy conference
attended by more than 100 member countries, was due to meet in Rome on March
12