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| By Population Action International
The amount of forested land available to each person has declined by 50 percent since 1960 -- a loss unprecedented in modern history, according to a new study by Population Action International (PAI). The growing desire among women worldwide for smaller families, however, is one of the most promising trends for conserving the world's remaining forests, reports PAI in Forest Futures: Population, Consumption and Wood Resources. "Nearly 1 in 3 people (1.7 billion) already lives in countries considered to have critically low levels of forest cover," says lead report author and PAI senior researcher Tom Gardner-Outlaw. "And if current rates of deforestation continue, this figure could nearly triple to 4.6 billion people by 2025, under the medium population projection." Asia and Africa are the regions at greatest risk of future forest scarcity, according to the study. Population growth is slowing significantly as more and more people gain access to -- and choose to use -- family planning, according to PAI. Average family size worldwide has fallen from five children per woman 30 years ago to about three today. Now growing by roughly 78 million people, or 1.3 percent, annually, the world's population is projected to reach between 7.3 and 8.4 billion by 2025.
Key findings of PAI's report include:
Eight out of every 10 people use less paper than is considered necessary to meet basic needs for literacy and communication. Bridging this "paper gap" is essential to improving the effectiveness of education programs in developing countries. Further declines in the per capita availability of forests could undermine the efforts of poorer nations to provide the education needed for economic development. "Forests provide goods and services that are critical to economic prosperity, a healthy environment and human well-being," says Gardner-Outlaw. "Finding innovative ways to meet these growing demands highlights our dilemma -- we both need more forests and we need forests more than ever before." HOW LITTLE FOREST IS TOO LITTLE? For the first time, Forest Futures provides an assessment of forest resource availability for 157 countries based on the most recent United Nations data on population and forest cover for 1980, 1995 and projections for 2025. Two concepts related to forest sustainability -- the forest-to-people ratio and low forest cover -- are used to assess the ability of each nation's forests to supply goods and services to its inhabitants. Using the forest-to-people ratio, the report projects changes in the area of forest cover available to each person in each country between 1995 and 2025. Low forest cover countries are defined as having less than 0.1 hectare of forest cover (roughly a quarter acre -- about one-fifth the size of an American football field) per person. Some of the problems facing countries with low forest cover include watershed degradation, the loss of rare plant and animal species, and scarcities of forest products such as timber, paper and firewood. The study reveals that per capita forest cover has declined even in countries where forests have expanded in size. For example, in China, technological adaptation and government conservation policies helped increase the size of its forests between 1980 and 1995. Nevertheless, these efforts failed to keep pace with China's growing population, and the forest-to-people ratio shrank as a result. This demonstrates the tremendous challenge that population growth poses to all forestry conservation initiatives. India and Belgium provide another example of the linkage between population growth and forest resource scarcity. Today, these countries have similar forest-to-people ratios. By 2025, however, India's per capita forest cover is projected to fall by 30 percent as its population increases by over 300 million people. By contrast, Belgium's forest cover remains unchanged over the same period, since the size of its population has stabilized and may even decline slightly by 2025.
"Though governments have yet to agree on how best to conserve the world's forests, they have agreed to base population policies on human rights and the development of every individual's capacity to make critical decisions -- especially reproductive decisions -- about their own lives," says Mr. Gardner-Outlaw. "The good news is programs that invest in human capacity -- by improving access to education, reproductive health care, and economic opportunities for girls and women -- provide by far the greatest return to individuals, societies, and the environment." As we approach the new millennium with six billion people sharing the planet, Forest Futures provides recommendations on population policy, consumption patterns and sustainable forestry. Pursued together, these strategies could help sustain the world's remaining forests and the web of life they support for generations to come, according to PAI. Commenting on the study's recommendations, NRDC's Mr. Ward says, "PAI's study pulls no punches in describing the magnitude and consequences of global forest decline. Yet it offers promising solutions too, such as independent forest certification and forest product labeling." In Forest Futures, PAI recommends that:
"It may strike some as odd that programs that appear to have nothing to do with trees are at the heart of efforts to address the complex relationship between population, forests and human well-being," says Ms. Coen. "Yet the new cooperating agreement reached between the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Environment Program shows how this understanding is gaining in the international arena. We hope our study can help inform such efforts."
Forest Futures was printed on paper made by the Lyons Falls Pulp and Paper Company, the world's first producer of printing paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Paper and wood products bearing the FSC logo meet the highest standards for environmentally and socially responsible forestry. |
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