Forest cover is the amount of trees that covers a particular area of land. It may be measured as relative (in percent) or absolute (in square kilometres/ square miles). Nearly a third of the world's land surface is covered with forest, with closed-canopy forest accounting for 4 - 5 billion hectares of land. Forests provide many ecosystem services that humans and animals cannot survive without, but anthropogenic actions and climate change are threatening global forest cover in potentially irreversible ways.

Global patterns

Forest cover by the numbers

According to the FAO's Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020, the world has a total forest area of 4.06 billion hectares (10.0 billion acres), which is 31% of the total land area. More than one-third of the world's forest cover is primary forest: naturally regenerated forests with native species and no visible indication of human activity. More than half (54%) of the world's forests are found in only five countries (

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and the United States). Countries with the highest share of forest area in land area are located in all regions of the world, mostly the tropical ones; they also tend to be low- and middle-income countries. In 2022, forest covered 95% of the land area in

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

, 94% in

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

and 92% in the Federated States of Micronesia. Russia has the largest forest area in the world, at 815 million hectares (a fifth of global forest cover). The other four countries all house more than 100 million hectares of forest each. The small African nation of

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

, while only containing 0.58% of the world's forest cover, has the largest forest-to-land ratio of any country (91.3%).

Variation in forest ecosystems

Forests are found throughout the world on a spatial scale determined by temperature and precipitation. There are four types of forest biomes:

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

, subtropical, and boreal. Most of the world's forest cover (45%) is found in the tropics, which is defined by high temperature and humidity. The boreal zone, which includes Russia and the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

, contains the second largest amount of forest (33%). The temperate/subtropical zone, located between the tropical and the boreal, contains 25%. Almost half of global forest cover (49%) is relatively continuous, while 9% is found in fragments with little to no connectivity. Roughly 80% of the world's forest area is found in patches larger than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres). The remaining 20% is located in more than 34 million patches across the world with the vast majority being less than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) in size. Tropical rainforests and boreal coniferous forests are the least fragmented, whereas subtropical dry forest and temperate oceanic forests are among the most fragmented.

Ecological impacts

Benefits of forest cover

The World Health Organization has compiled a list of

ecological goods and services Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

that depend on forests and without which humans could not survive, including: flood and drought mitigation, water purification, erosion control, and disease reduction. Tropical forests especially act as one of the world's largest carbon sinks, accumulating atmospheric carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and thus mitigating climate change. Maintaining the size, continuity, and biodiversity of the world's forests is crucial for human health and prosperity. However, forest cover is severely threatened by deforestation, as a direct consequence of

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, grazing, and

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

. Since the onset of agriculture (about 12,000 years ago), the number of trees worldwide has dropped by 46%. Since 1990, the world has lost 178 million ha of forest (an area roughly the size of Libya).

Forest cover remediation tactics

Although global forest area is decreasing, the rate at which we are losing trees has slowed. In the 1990s the world was losing 7.8 million ha of area per year, but in the 2000s this rate slowed to 5.2 million ha, and in the 2010s it shrank even further (down to 4.7 million). This pattern is due to the regeneration abilities of forests, as well as a conscious global effort to reduce deforestation. Plantation forests are one method of reforestation/ afforestation that has become increasingly popular since the 1990s. Intensively planned to be biodiverse and well-managed, these forests exist for the purpose of regenerating our global forest cover. Although it is impossible to gain back the ecosystem services lost when a plot of forest is destroyed for industrial purposes, these new regenerative methods carry hope for the future of our global forest biome.

Sources

References

External links

* {{Forestry by country Deforestation Forests