Rainforests
Tropical forests cover 6 per cent of the world's land surface but comprise half the planet's wood and house 70-90 per cent of the earth's organisms. Some 25 per cent of pharmaceutical drugs are derived from rainforest plants. Tropical forests also regulate the local and global climate by storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.³ And deforestation can lead to severe flooding as unprotected sediment washes into rivers and causes them to silt up.

Why have tropical forests declined so fast? Partly because of the demand for specialist woods like mahogany, teak and ebony and partly because forests are cleared for land, which often ends up as plantations for export crops.¹

The wood and the trees
Almost half the forests that once covered the earth are gone, but we are still cutting down trees. Nearly 200 million hectares were lost between 1980 and 1995. That's an area the size of Mexico.

These three globes show the percentage of land covered by forest. In 1950 it was 30-per-cent, half of which was tropical forest. By 1975 the area covered by tropical forest had declined to 12-per-cent and today it is half that. In contrast, temperate forests have remained at a steady 20-per-cent, thanks to reforestation.¹