He said that every year, 20 million hectares of forest – equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland – were destroyed and called for a "gigantic partnership" of governments, businesses and consumers to slow it down.
More lies from the left. The truth is that since 2000, worldwide deforestation is declining at the rate of 7.3 million hectares annually. This sounds like a lot, but it is a reduction of only 0.18%. Plus, the rate of deforestation is lessening. In the 1990s, deforestation was 9.9 million hectares annually.
I highly recommend downloading and reading a copy The Index of Leading Environmental Indicators 2008 by Stephen Hayward. Make a point of reviewing the table at the bottom of page 25, which shows how air quality has dramatically improved. Most people think things are worse. They aren't.
The following is from the report's section on deforestation...
State of the World’s forests 2007
The seventh biennial State of the World’s Forests1 report was issued by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2007. The report offers confirmation of the positive findings of a separate UN forest-tracking effort, the Global Forest Resource Assessment (GFRA), summarized in last year’s edition of the Index (p.36). The State of the World’s Forests report utilizes GFRA data, but supplements them with data from other national and international sources to attempt to provide a more detailed picture, especially of policy efforts to affect forest trends and conditions. As with the GFRA, State of the World’s Forests notes that “[t]he biggest limitation for evaluating progress is weak data. Relatively few countries have had recent or comprehensive forest inventories.”
State of the World’s Forests represents another striking departure from the typical pessimism of past global assessments. It concludes that progress is being made, albeit unevenly and with net forest losses still occurring in some regions, especially Africa and Latin America. Yet the report strikes repeated optimistic notes: “[E]ven in regions that are losing forest area, there are a number of positive trends on which to build.” State of the World’s Forests divides the world into six major regions, and even in the areas experiencing forest loss it still finds positive developments and grounds for optimism for the future:
Africa: “During the 15-year period from 1990 to 2005, Africa lost more than 9 percent of its forest area . . . . But the picture is not all gloomy. Forests are obtaining political support and commitment at the highest levels in Africa.”
Best-performing African nation: Rwanda (6.9 percent annual forest-area increase from 2000 to 2005).
Worst-performing African nation: Burundi (–5.2 percent). Asia and the Pacific: “The good news for the Asia and Pacific region is that net forest area increased between 2000 and 2005, reversing the downward trend of the preceding decades . . . . [T]here are a number of positive trends that support an optimistic view of the future. Rapid economic growth in the two largest countries, China and India, may help to create the conditions for sustainable forest management.”
Best-performing Asia/Pacific nation: China (2.2 percent).
Worst-performing Asia/Pacific nations: Pakistan and the Philippines (–2.1 percent).
europe: “Forest area is increasing in most countries, and the positive trends exceed the negative.”
Best-performing european nation: Spain (1.7 percent). (Several European nations tied at zero; none have negative forestation rates, with the possible exception of the Russian Federation, where the data are incomplete.)
Latin America and the Caribbean: “Latin America and the Caribbean join Africa as the two regions that are losing forests at the highest rates. The annual net rate of loss between 2000 and 2005 (0.51 percent) was higher than that of the 1990s (0.46 percent).”
Best-performing Latin American nation: Cuba (2.2 percent).
Worst-performing Latin American nation: Honduras (–3.1 percent).
Near east: “Largely because of the arid climate, the forest sector in the Near East region represents a small part of the economy . . . Despite the problems and limitations faced by countries in the region, progress is being made to develop strategies and implement programmes that effectively address local conditions.”
North America: “Net forest area is stable in Canada and the United States. It is declining in Mexico, but the rate of decrease is slowing and is much less than the rate of forest loss in Central America.”
Best-performing North American nation: United States (0.1 percent).
Worst-performing North American nation: Mexico (–0.4 percent).
One obvious fact jumps out from this compilation: forest stress is highest in poor nations. The finding of the National Academy of Sciences’ review of these data from last year bears repeating: “No nation where annual per-capita gross domestic product exceeded $4,600 had a negative rate of growing stock change.”
New Uncertainties about Conditions and Trends Last year’s edition of the Index referred to the findings of the most recent GFRA (for the year 2005), which reported a significant drop in the rate of global deforestation, from about 8.9 million hectares a year in 1990–2000 to about 7.3 million hectares per year in 2000–2005. A reanalysis of the GFRA’s data published by the National Academy of Sciences further noted that some important transitions had taken place, such that key areas of Asia had halted deforestation and were experiencing net reforestation. However, a number of anomalies and inconsistencies in the data series were evident, casting doubt on the accuracy of the estimates. (For example, the GFRA’s data for forest trends in the United States and Europe don’t match up with U.S. data or European Environment Agency data.)
A fresh study published early this year by the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the data inconsistencies for tropical forests and cast doubt on whether estimates of net tropical deforestation are accurate, noting that each successive revision to previous data reported a declining deforestation rate, based on new data and changes in statistical design. British geographer Alan Grainger concludes that “the evidence for [tropical forest] decline is not as clear as commonly assumed, even since the 1970s, by when as much as 300 million hectares of tropical forest may have already been cleared since 1860 alone.” Grainger identified one time series that actually finds a long-term trend of increase, not decrease, for tropical forest area, a phenomenon Grainger calls “forest return.”
The chief point of Grainger’s review is not to challenge categorically the conventional wisdom about tropical deforestation, but to direct our attention once again to the inadequacy of our data sets and analytical techniques. Despite three decades’ worth of satellite imagery, many of our land assessments on the global scale are still done using low-resolution images with a high margin of error. Studies performed using high resolution imagery often find statistically significant differences in forested area and land condition—often less alarming than the general numbers. Too many conclusions are based on “expert judgment,” always prone to the errors and biases of conventional wisdom group think and activist anecdotes. Grainger concludes:
Our analysis does not prove that tropical forest decline is not happening, merely that it is difficult to demonstrate it convincingly using available tropical forest area data, despite the dedication of all who collected them. Global generalizations about tropical forest trends should therefore be more cautious until better global data are obtained.
Meanwhile, one of the tropical forest areas that receives the most attention and comment—Amazonia—may be experiencing a declining deforestation rate. At the end of 2007, the Brazilian government announced that its rate of deforestation had been cut by one-fifth during the previous year (and two-thirds from peak years), marking the third straight year of declining deforestation.
The enviromarxists are especially skilled at grabbing empty headed celebrity dunderheads and filling them with lies, deceptions, and inaccuracies of the doomsday myth du jour (e.g., Remember Alar). The dunderheads blindly follow the script because it never occurs to them to do a little independent research. The press blindly reports the empty headed celebrity rantings as fact because they're too lazy to do a little independent research.
It's up to all of us to spray a little truth when we hear someone at work, church, etc. repeating fallacies. Hayward's report is a great tool to do that.