Diminishing forests
Once, half of the earth's landmass was covered with forests. Today, this cover has been reduced to one-third. A map of the world's forest cover, produced by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), shows that 94% of it has no protection. Human intervention is now reducing that cover by 1% per year.
WWF's Forest for Life Campaign aims to increase the amount of forested land placed under some form of protection to a minimum of 10% by the year 2000.
The map does not distinguish between primary and secondary forests. In the United States, although overall forest cover is greater today than it was at the turn of the century, 98% of all forest has been logged at least once (the remaining 2% of primary old-growth continues to disappear), and roughly half of all managed forests in the country are now in plantations.
[From the People's News Agency, Platanvej 30, 1810 Frederiksberg C, Denmark, gtimes@cybernet.dk.]