According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), an area of forest about five times the size of Germany disappeared between 1990 and 2005. On the African continent alone, nine per cent of forests were lost during this period. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 0.5 per cent of forest cover is lost each year. Incipient climate change is leading to further forest losses – for example as a result of the increase in the number of forest fires. If the trend is not stopped, within two generations tropical forests will have disappeared completely.
