Ten hectares of the world’s forests are destroyed every minute, amounting to 4.9 million hectares a year. Between 1990 and 2005, 72.9 million hectares of forest vanished. Forests cover a total surface area of 3.69 billion hectares, or 30% of the Earth’s land mass.
These are the latest figures published by the FAO on 30 November 2011, which also reveal that the rate of net loss of forested land is speeding up, rising from 4.1 million hectares between 1990 and 2000 to 6.4 million hectares between 2000 and 2005.

Cattle farming has been the major cause of deforestation of the Amazon since 1970. A recent study published by INPE (Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales, the Brazilian Institute for Special Investigations), shows that 61% of deforested land is currently used as grazing land or for cattle breeding.

The Brazilian Institute for Space Research has published annual estimates of deforestation in the Amazon region since 1988. Since 2002, these estimates have been calculated using digital satellite images generated by Landsat satellites under Brazil’s Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Programme (PRODES).

According to the latest data collected by Earth observation platforms and published by INPE, the deforestation rate of the Amazon is at its lowest level since 1998: between August 2010 and July 2011, 6,238 km2 of forest was destroyed, a fall of 11% compared with over 7,000 km2 between August 2009 and July 2010. The Brazilian government’s new strategy for action is aimed not only at combating illegal deforestation but also at recovering the areas that have been destroyed.

Download image: Near Querencia, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Images COSMO-SkyMed © ASI, acquired on 24 July – 25 August – 26 September 2011