Fading Forests: U.S. Losing Trees Faster than Other Heavily Forested Countries

[amborin]

U.S. losing trees faster than other heavily forested countries


By Doyle Rice

Out of seven of the most heavily forested nations on Earth, the United States experienced a greater percentage of forest loss from 2000 to 2005 than did any of the other countries, a study said Monday.
The United States lost more than 46,000 square miles of forest in those years, a size roughly equivalent to the state of Pennsylvania. That's about 6% of the nation's forested land.


"That's the most of the seven countries that have over 1 million square kilometers of forest," says study lead author Matthew Hansen of South Dakota State University.

Worldwide, researchers determined that the globe lost forest cover of nearly 400,000 square miles — roughly 3% of the world's forested areas — during the first half of the last decade. The other countries in the study were Canada, Russia, China, Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The study, which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the forest loss was the result of both human and natural causes.
"We do not quantify what the causes are, and we do not quantify how much forest gain there was from 2000 to 2005," Hansen says. "But clearly, industrial harvesting/clearing is very important."
Man-made causes of forest loss include logging and wildfires caused by people. Natural causes would include natural wildfires and storm damage.

The one part of the contiguous USA that experienced the most forest loss was the Southeast, a large chunk of which lost more than 10% of its forest cover from 2000 to 2005, the year for which the most recent data were available.
Hansen points out that the forest loss in the USA isn't necessarily permanent: "This does not mean that (the forests) do not regenerate, and we make no statements whatsoever about sustainability," he says. "But, compared to other regions of the world, a lot is going on."

The first of its kind, the study used satellite images to measure forest loss around the world. Hansen says much more study in the area is needed as improvements are made in satellite technology and accessibility. "We need to be more ambitious," he says. "If we had an improved monitoring capability, you could imagine a daily 'land report,' akin to weather, where fires, floods, crop emergence, new forest clearing, new construction are quantified."

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2010-04-27-forests27_ST_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News

[G_j]

1. no surprise at all nt

[pitohui]

2. a devastating loss of trees in 2005 to hurricane katrina

i can't remember the number now, was it something like 30 million trees lost?

i lost ALL of the remaining mature oaks in the line of sight from my house, ALL of them

mature oaks won't be replaced, there is no place for them left in this world because they take up so much room and grow so slowly :-(

it's amazing how much more light there is in the places i go, because of the overwhelming loss of trees in louisiana

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

6. I have planted acorns just the same, many are 30 feet tall now.

[pitohui]

8. good for you, someone must stand for the future

most don't plant oaks because the mature trees won't be seen in their lifetime, we are mayflies compared to the great oaks

[Dappleganger]

3. Wow, look at Canada!

[Lorien]

4. Why all the unrecs?

Who here is wildly pro-deforestation?

[ConsAreLiars]

5. I call them "The Jackass Brigade."

They will be drawn out of stealth un-rec mode in threads about Greenpeace or police brutality or PETA or Chavez. And such.

[Lorien]

7. aka "freeper trolls".

[G_j]

9. -=

if there is one plus to the un/rec function, it's the reminder that they are always with us.

[G_j]

10. delete

malfunction..