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Forests in the Americas: An Overview

Frederick Cubbage, Kathleen McGinley, and Ramya Mohan
Professor, Ph.D. Student, and Master's Graduate
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Introduction

Forests provide many benefits for people, plants, animals, ecosystems, global geochemical cycles, climate, and more. This encyclopedia is intended to provide thorough summary of the status of forests and forestry in the Americas. We have based the outline of topics in this encyclopedia on the spectrum of natural resources and social benefits associated with forests, as well as the disciplines included in various forestry educational programs. Summarizing all the forests and forestry in the Americas in this short entry is not possible, given that we have an encyclopedia to address this same subject. So we will cover some of the principal background information about forests in the Americas, which can be used to supplement the detailed entries that many authors will provide in this encyclopedia.

The greatest issues with forests, in the Americas and elsewhere, are how to retain forest areas and the associated economic, environmental, and social benefits; what goals and benefits of outputs and services these forests should provide; who should receive these benefits; how to manage, protect, and restore forests; and how to employ markets, government regulation, incentives and ownership, or nongovernment organizations and funds to help achieve these goals. To draw on apt book title by Clawon (1974), allocating uses implies questions of “Forests for Whom and for What.” The perspective one has on these issues of course depend on the values of the forest owners and interest groups involved, and vary by country and region within countries. This encyclopedia covers most salient issues in the many entries, so we will focus more on broad statistics and summary data about our forests in this discussion. We will draw on the United Nations Food and Agriculture data (FAO 2003, 2005) for much of this, because it provides the best current overview of forests in the world.

Forest Extent

Table 1 summarizes some of the key data that are available about forests in the Americas, supplemented by summary data for all continents. These data are taken from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) summaries, the most recent of which is termed the Global Forest Resource Assessment (FAO 2001, 2003, 2005). 

As the table indicates, forests in the world are most prevalent in the northern boreal regions and in the tropical equatorial regions. However, there is a great extent of forests throughout the world, and the Americas. This includes 3.9 billion ha in the world, almost 30% of the world’s land area. Forests cover 1.5 billion hectares (ha) (this equals 3.5 billion acres, with a conversion rate of 2.47 ac = 1 ha), or about 37% of the land area in the Americas. Brazil has the largest share of forests in the Americas, with 478 million ha or 32% of the forests in the Americas. Forests in Canada (310 million ha; 21% of the Americas) and the United States (303 million ha; 20%) are the next largest forested countries in the Americas. No other country has more than 5% of all the forests in the Americas.

In total, South America has 53% of the forests in the Americas, North America 45%, and Central America slightly more than 1%. The Caribbean has only 0.4% of the forests in the Americas. The forested share of the total land area in each country is generally greatest in Latin America, which has about half its total area in forests, and in a few Central American countries. Thus while the total area of many of these countries is relatively small, forests play a proportionately greater role in the life of people, flora, and fauna than in even some of the large forested countries.

Brazil has 56% of its land base in forests, but has experienced rapid declines in the total forest cover. Uruguay has the smallest share of forested land in the continental Americas at 8.6%. At 34%, Mexico surprisingly has slightly more of its total land area classified as forested than the U.S. and Canada. In South America, the northeastern countries of French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname have the highest percentages of their land base under forest cover, ranging from 70% to almost 95%. The northwestern countries of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, as well as Bolivia, have a smaller share of their area classified as forests, though still more than North America, at 39% to 54%. Argentina has 33 million ha of forests, which comprise only 12% of the land cover in the country (FAO 2005).

The loss of forest area from 1990 to 2000 was greatest in percentage terms in Central America, at –1.47% per year, although this rate dropped to –1.23% per year from 2000 to 2005. From 1990 to 2000, South America lost 0.44% per year. The rate of forest loss in South America increased to 0.50% per year between 2000 and 2005. There was no significant loss of forests in North America from 1990 to 2000, only –0.01% per year from 2000 to 2005, virtually all in Mexico. In terms of total area, forest loss was greatest in Brazil from 1990 to 2000 at 2.7 million ha per year, which increased to 3.1 million ha per year from 2000 to 2005. In total, South America lost an average of 4.3 million ha of forests per year from 2000 to 2005 (FAO 2005).

Types of Forests

Natural forests comprise 98% of all the forests in the Americas. The balance consists of planted forests, either on bare land, second growth forests, or replacing other planted forests. Forests may be classed in broad species group as coniferous or deciduous. Sometimes these are called softwoods (pines and conifers) or hardwoods. Boreal forests are closest to the poles, and mostly in Canada. Temperate forests are those in the next latitudes mostly, although this may vary by altitude as well. Similarly, subtropical forests are roughly between the latitudes of 30˚ North and South and the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and tropical forests are mostly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Canada has 26% temperate and 76% boreal forests; the U.S.A. has 37% subtropical, 48% temperate, and 15% boreal; and Mexico has 70% tropical and 30% subtropical. Most of the countries in South America have 100% of their forest area classed as tropical forest. The only major exception is Chile, with 54% subtropical and 45% temperate forests. Brazil has 2% subtropical forests and Argentina has 5% subtropical and 4% temperate, with the rest classified as tropical, surprisingly. All the forests in Central America and the Caribbean are tropical (FAO 2003).

Planted forests comprise about 5.6% of U.S. total forest area. In South America, plantations account for approximately 1.1% of Brazil’s forest area; 3.7% of Argentina’s forest area, 16.5% of Chile’s forest area, 50.9% of Uruguay’s forest area, and only about 1% or less of the other countries in South America (FRA 2005). The world total planted area for the 2005 FAO data was at least 142 million ha, not including this countries that did not report. This is much less than the 186 million ha reported by FAO in 2003, largely due to substantial reductions in the plantation data reported for China and India, which were apparently overstated.

Most forests in the world (80%) are publicly owned by national, state, or local governments. A small amount are owned by communal organizations, although this includes 41% of the forest in Mexico. In Central America, public forests comprise a wide range of total forest area in each country, from 10% to 75%. Canada has 92% of its forest owned by provincial or federal governments. Data are lacking from some of the larger South American countries, but public ownership averages 76%. Uruguay has 97% of its forests in private ownership, and Chile has 63% private. On the other hand, French Guiana, and Guyana are virtually all public forests (FAO 2005). The United States has 57% private forests, but the U.S. South has 88% of its forests in private ownership (Smith et al. 2004).

Wood Products and Timber

Growing stock is one measure of the amount of merchantable wood that is grown in forests throughout the world. It usually includes trees greater than 4 inches in diameter at breast height (dbh) in the United States, or some similar measure of about 10 cm dbh in other countries. Biomass is another measure of forest volume, and may include above ground (main stem and branches) or below ground (root) volume, as well as dead wood. Growing stock is approximately equivalent to wood that may be harvested for industrial or fuelwood purposes, and is often referred to as timber volume. Not all countries have collected this information, but the large ones have records.

The FAO data (2005) suggest that Brazil has more than half of the growing stock volume in all of the Americas, with 81 billion cubic meters. Bolivia has 4 billion cubic meters, and most other South Amrican countries have less than 2 billion. The Central American countries all have less than one billion cubic meters of growing stock. Canada has 33 billion cubic meters of timber volume and the U.S.A. has 35 billion cubic meters.  (There are about 35 cubic feet of wood in one 1 cubic meter.)

Countries harvest fuelwood, for domestic and industrial purposes, and industrial roundwood, for making pulp, paper, boards, panels, and other wood products. Brazil harvested 290 million cubic meters of roundwood annually, 58% for industrial products and 32% for fuelwood. The fuelwood component does include much used for industrial purposes such as charcoal for manufacturing plants and some ethanol fuel. Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay were also leaders in industrial roundwood removals, with 33 million, 5 million, and 3 million cubic meters annually. The U.S. was the largest industrial roundwood producer in the world and harvested about half the timber in the Americas, at 490 million cubic meters per year, followed by Canada, at 220 million cubic meters per year. The U.S. South harvested about 63% of the country’s timber (Smith et al 2004), which would make it the largest industrial timber producing region in the world. The U.S.A., Guatemala, Chile, and Honduras had the largest fuelwood harvests after Brazil (FAO 2005).

Forests provide many other benefits, both quantifiable and not. These include production of non-timber (or non-wood) forest products (NTFPs or NWFPs); protection of natural ecosystem functions and values; conservation; and social services. Biomass in forest trees and soils stores carbon, contributing to reduction of the effects of global climate change. Trees produce oxygen as part of this cycle, and help cleanse the air of particulates and pollution. Non-wood plant forest products include food, fodder, raw materials for medicines and aromatic products or for utensils, crafts, and construction, ornamental plants, and other plant products. Forests also provide commercial habitat for fauna, including the a place for animals themselves; hides, skins, and trophies; wild honey and beeswax; bushmeat; raw material for medicines and aromatic products; material for colorants and dyes; and edible and non-edible animal products (FAO 2005).

Last, forests provide many jobs, both direct and indirect. Data for total world employment are lacking, but a few countries have records. Per the FAO (2005) data, the U.S. recorded 281,000 person year equivalents employed in forestry, Guatemala reported 82,000, Costa Rica 7,000, Chile 54,000, Argentina 33,000, and Peru 117,000. These wildly disparate data in relation to the size of the forest or economic production in each country suggest the unreliability of these estimates. For example, we calculated the total U.S. and southern forest-based employment using the IMPLAN model (Minnesota IMPLAN Group 2004) with 2000 data, and found that there were 778,000 forest-based jobs in the U.S. South, and 2, 108,000 total in the U.S. (Abt et al. 2005, personal communication). This comprised about 1.3% of all employment in the U.S. at the time. This proportion is apt to be much lager in rural communities and more forested countries. Furthermore, local forest based communities and direct forest dwellers obviously depend almost entirely on wood and non-wood forest products, including for shelter, food, game, clothing, and indeed their livelihood.

Population and Development

The United States is one of the richest nations in the world, with about one-fifth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, with only 7% of the global land area and 4.6% of the world population. The 2004 U.S. GDP per capita was $36,790 per year. This is approximately 10 times greater per person than that of Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, and Brazil. Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela have slightly greater GDPs per capita, at more than $5,000 per person, but this is still far less than the U.S. Canada has a large GDP per person, at $24,712 per year. This greater GDP and per capita GDP means the U.S. uses more or less proportionately more resources, and places more pressure on the environment in doing so.

Population density also places pressure on the environment and natural resources. Central America and the Caribbean have the greatest population densities in the Americas, with an average or 77 people per km2 and 172 people per km2, respectively. These high population densities, and systemic poverty, help explain the significant social issues and pressure on natural resources and forests in those countries. El Salvador has the highest population density in the Americas, and one of the lowest proportions of forested area, followed closely by Guatemala. Argentina and Uruguay have a small forest area share as well, but this is largely due to natural environments, not exploitation.

In sum, the historical interaction of the wealth of a country and its population affect the status of forests, and their use, protection, and benefits. These relationships are not, however, always clear. Subsistence economies rely heavily on forests for wood and nonwood products, but at low population densities, may exist in relatively stable in sustainable use patterns. However, high population densities and exploitation often lead to loss of forests, at least in poor countries. This has been the case in the Amazon as it develops in Brazil, and is similar in much of Central America. On the other hand, forests often have regenerated naturally or been planted in North America and Europe as population has increased, but society has become more affluent and relied less on forests. Thus population pressures in poor and high population density countries often cause reduction of forest areas, goods, and services. Efforts to protect them will need to address basic human needs and protection of property and people, as well as forests and trees. Efforts to protect forests and trees in developed countries may focus more on preventing urban sprawl, destructive development, and adverse effects of fragmentation.

A contemporary natural resource explanation of this shift in the demand for environmental services is the Environmental Kuznets Curve (Grossman and Kruger 1995). Initial observations based on air pollutants indicated that with economic growth, emissions typically follow an inverted U-shaped curve. A broader Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, encompassing environmental pollution or degradation, was subsequently proposed, suggesting that the early phases of economic growth inevitably imply increased environmental damage as nations draw heavily upon their natural environment to “secure industrial takeoff”, but as incomes increase, environmental damage peaks and then declines as exploitation of the natural environment becomes less central to the economy (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al. 2002).

For forests, this inverted U-shaped curve relates deforestation or extractive use of forests to income per capita. As countries develop, both their ability to exploit the forest and their demand for forest goods increases, pushing them up the Kuznets curve. At some point, countries undergo a transition in production technology (e.g., from fuelwood to kerosene) and in demand (e.g., greater value placed on non-use and passive use of forests). This marks the “forest transition” from shrinking to expanding forest area, as has occurred in both the U.S. and Europe. However, contemporary evidence for this pattern is mixed. The turning point, where deforestation rates start to fall, appears to vary across countries and to depend on other conditions, such as the distribution of wealth and political freedoms (Bhattarai and Hammig 2001).

As we will note below, simply having more forests in developed countries does not mean that all environmental goods and services, particularly wildlife and plants, are better. Higher economic development and per capita income may place excessive pressure on natural ecosystems, plants, and wildlife, even if the area of forests stabilizes or recovers somewhat from earlier eras of exploitation.

Threatened and Endangered Species

We examined the effects of economic and demographic factors on one measure of forest health—biodiversity—by summarizing the data on the status of animal species using two major data sources for the Americas—The NatureServe (2004) data base and the IUCN (2004) Red List of threatened animal species (Tables 2 and 3). Diverse habitat yields diverse wildlife, and protection of threatened and endangered species. Forests do comprise habitat for at least their proportional share of animals and plants in the world. In fact, developed and agricultural lands strive to have less wildlife and biodiversity, and probably succeed, other than for undesirable insects and diseases. Thus a majority of the biodiversity in the world probably does reside in forests.

The Nature Serve data classes species into 9 classes, as noted in Table 2. We lumped these into five classes for ease or presentation and discussion. We used the same approach with the IUCN data. Both systems have two classes of extinction, and two classes of imperiled or endangered. In both cases, the United States has by far the brunt of identified species that are extinct, possibly extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered/imperiled, or endangered/imperiled. Specifically, for the NatureServe data, the U.S. has 88% of the extinct species in the Americas; 76% of the imperiled species; and 26% of the vulnerable species. This is with the U.S. having only 24% of the land area in the Americas, and 20% of the forest area in the Americas. Similarly, the U.S. has 69% of the IUCN extinct species in the Americas; 25% of the endangered; and 27% of the vulnerable.

For the secure or lower risk species, the U.S. has a share closer to its proportional land area. This includes 18% of the secure species under the NatureServe data; 12% of the lower risk species in the IUCN data source; and 10 of the least concern under the IUCN data. So it appears that the U.S., as the most developed country in the Americas, also has posed the greatest threat to amphibia, aves, and mammalia (amphibians, birds, and mammals) according to these sources. Furthermore, the U.S. has less than a proportionate share of secure or least concern species. These results certainly suggest that while the Environmental Kuznets Curve concept may posit an eventual benefit to more developed and affluent countries for the environment, the destruction of forest and other ecosystems along the way leads to the greatest animal species loss, and animals probably do not recover nearly as well as the forests do themselves.

Brazil has 22 % of the land area and 32% of the forests in the Americas, and Canada has 24% of the land and 21% of the forests. They have the second most extinct or imperiled/endangered species. But even so, their share in any category is less than 4%--far below their land or forest share. This is the same for other countries as well.

These findings are striking, and illustrate perhaps many important factors about relationships among people, development, forests, and wildlife at the aggregate scale. First, the United States, with the largest Gross Domestic Product and the largest GDP per capita in the Americas, has the most species in some form of endangerment. Intuitively, development does lead to habitat destruction and problems. Second, while the popular literature commonly indicates that the greatest number of species in the world are found in tropical rainforests, the NatureServe data, and to a lesser extent, the IUCN data, collected so far do not demonstrate that. Brazil has a great number of species, but less in total and less known to be in some form of endangerment than in the United States. The Kuznet’s curve concept, while useful at indicating something about forest retention and restoration, may not help explain the fact the more species apparently continue to be lost, even in developed countries.

Some of these results are probably due to the limited amount of data collected in tropical forests, and then entered in the NatureServe data base. The U.S. does have a wide variety of ecosystems, ranging from Everglade swamps to Northern forests to Alaska tundra to California deserts, so does have many species. Also, it surely has a much larger share of scientists and managers who collect and report data on species that is used in these data bases. But despite these caveats, there is at least apparent evidence that greater development and economic activity causes essentially irreparable damage to wildlife, and perhaps likely to plants and biodiversity. We have not statistically tested these hypotheses, which could be an opportunity for more elegant research to examine these relationships. But the results summarized here do provide an excellent basis for thinking about forests and forestry in the Americas, and tradeoffs between economic development, forest management and protection, and biodiversity.

Conclusions

The Americas contain about 38% of the world’s forests, and Brazil has about 32% of all the forests in the Americas and 12% of all the forests in the world. Forest loss continues to be significant in Central and South America, averaging about 4.5 million ha per year from 2000 to 2005. Forest loss is becoming a renewed issue with moderate population growth and rapid rural and recreation development in North America. Forests provide a wide variety of economic, environmental, and social benefits. They provide timber for industrial uses, fuelwood for heating and cooking; clean water and air; wildlife habitat and biodiversity; and ecological functions and values. They provide homes for rural and indigenous people, recreation for them and others, and amenity and spiritual values, and employment opportunities in the forest and secondary industries and services.

This entry provides an overview of forests in the Americas, focusing on statistics about the extent and use of forests and wildlife. Rather than recapitulating all of the findings, let us conclude by restating the fundamental issue of forests and other natural resources: forests and natural resources are influenced greatly by humans and economic development, as well as by their natural ecological ranges and physiographic factors. The challenge of sustainable forest management parallels that of sustainable development. How can we use and mange forests today so that future generations can enjoy the same or greater benefits? This paradigm suggests that forests should provide economic, environmental, and social benefits for present and future generations. Achieving this almost universally accepted goal is a challenge to our forests in the Americas, which is addressed in the balance of this encyclopedia.

References  

Abt, Karen, Frederick Cubbage, Clair Redmomd, and Aruna Murthy. 2005. Trends in economic contributions of the forest products industries in the South. Mimeo. USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA.

Bhattarai, M, Hammig, M., 2001. Institutions and the environmental Kuznets curvefor deforestation: a cross country analysis for Latin America, Africa and Asia. World Development 29 995-1010.

Clawson, M., 1974. Forests for Whom and For What? Resources for the Future/Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Maryland.

Ehrhardt-Martinez, K., E.M. Crenshaw, and J.C. Jenkins.  2002.  Deforestation and the environmental Kuznets Curve: A cross-national investigation of intervening mechanisms.  Social Sceince Quarterly 83(1):226-243.

FAO, 2003. State of the World’s Forests, 2003. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. 243 p.

FAO, 2005. The State of the World’s Forests 2005. Available at: www.fao.org/forestry/index.jsp.

Grossman, G., Kruger, A., 1995. Economic growth and the environment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 353-377.

IUCN. 2004. IUCN Red List of threatened animal species. Accessed at: http://www.iucn.org/. January-July 2004.

Minnesota IMPLAN Group. 2004. Micro-IMPLAN software and data. St. Paul, MN.

NatureServe. 2004. Status of Amphibia, Aves, and Mammailia from NatureServe. Accessed at: http://www.natureserve.org/. January-July 2004.

Smith, W.B., J.L. Vissage, R. Sheffield, and D.R. Darr.  2004.  Forest resources of the United States, 2002.  General Technical Report NC-241.  USDA Forest Service North Central Forest Experiment Station.  St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Table 1. Land, Forest, and Population Statistics for Major Forested Countries in the Americas, 2005

Country	Land Area (1 000 ha)	Total Forest Area (1 000 ha)	Forest as % of Total Land Area	Public & Community Owned Forests (% of total)	Change in Forest Area, 2000-05 (1 000 ha/yr)	Planted Forest Area (1 000 ha)	Timber Growing Stock (million m3)	Industrial Roundwood Removals 2005 (1000 m3)	Fuelwood Removals 2005 (1000 m3)	Wood Removals Value 2005 (million US$)	Population 2004       (million)	Popula-tion Density 2004 (people/ km2)	Gross Domes-tic Product Per Capita, 2004 (US$)
Canada	922 097	310 134	33.6	92.1	0	-	33 983	219 500	4 000	-	31.9	3.5	24 712
Mexico	190 869	64 238	33.7	100.0	-260	1 058	-	7 667	684	564.5	103.8	54.4	5 968
U.S.A.	915 896	303 089	33.1	42.4	159	17 061	35 118	489 586	51 252	18 991.9	293.5	32.1	36 790
North America	2 028 862	677 461	36.9	70.7	-101	>18 119	-	-	-	-	429.2	20.7	-
Belize	2 280	1 653	72.5	-	0	-	159	71	145	-	0.3	12.4	3 669
Costa Rica	5 106	2 391	46.8	24.3	3	4	249	1 932	468	122.1	4.1	79.5	4 534
El Salvador	2 072	298	14.4	72.5	-5	6	-	682	4 519	-	6.7	321.3	2 124
Guatemala	10 483	3 938	36.3	42.2	-54	122	642	623	18 622	196.8	12.2	116.5	1 676
Honduras	11 189	4 648	41.5	75.0	-156	30	540	1 009	14 567	58.7	7.1	63.8	952
Nicaragua	12 140	5 189	42.7	-	-70	51	591	106	1 740	43.3	5.6	46.2	778
Panama	7 443	4 294	57.7	9.6	-3	61	686	53	410	6.6	3.0	40.7	4 373
Central America	51 073	22 411	43.9	42.5	-285	>274	-	-	-		39.4	77.1	-
Caribbean	22 907	5 974	26.1	83.4	54	>449	-	-	-	-	39.3	172.0	-
Argentina	273 669	33 021	12.1	-	-150	1 229	1 826	7 536	3 490	143.7	38.3	14.0	7 511
Bolivia	108 438	58 740	54.2	-	-270	20	4 360	582	38	49.5	9.0	8.3	1 036
Brazil	845 942	477 698	56.5	-	-3 103	5 384	81 239	168 091	122 385	3 839.0	178.7	21.1	3 675
Chile	74 880	16 121	21.5	26.9	57	2 661	1 882	32 964	15 903	851.1	16.0	21.3	5 448
Colombia	103 870	60 728	53.5	-	-47	328	-	3 246	7 029	-	45.3	43.6	2 069
Ecuador	27 684	10 853	39.2	77.1	-198	164	-	1 360	6 979	138.9	13.2	47.7	1 435
Falk. Island	1 217	0	0.0	-	0		-	-	-	-	0.003	0.2	-
Fr. Guiana	8 815	8 063	91.5	100.0	0	1	2 822	70	-	2.7	0.2	2.2	-
Guyana	19 685	15 104	70.3	100.0	0	-	-	-	-	-	0.8	3.9	962
Paraguay	39 730	18 475	46.5	-	-179	43	-	4 976	6 847	478.2	5.8	14.6	1 413
Peru	128 000	68 742	53.7	84.8	-94	754	-	1 891	8 898	4.4	27.5	21.5	2 207
Suriname	15 600	14 776	94.5	99.7	0	7	2 216	200	5	15.1	0.4	2.8	2 388
Uruguay	17 502	1 506	8.6	2.7	18	766	118	3 160	1 740	61.3	3.4	19.4	5 826
Venezuela	88 205	47 713	54.1		-288	-	-	812	2	43.9	26.1	29.6	4 575
South America	1 753 646	793 597	45.2	75.9	-4 251	>11 357	-	-	-	-	364.7	-	-
Total Americas	3 856 488	1 493 469	38.4			>30 199	-	-	-	-	830.1
Africa	2 962 656	635 412		97.6	-4 375	>13 170					868.1	29.3	-
Asia	3 097 913	571 577		94.4	1 003	>64 896					3 837.9	123.9	-
Europe	2 260 180	1 001 394		89.9	661	>30 641					723.5	32.0	-
Oceania	849 116	206 254		61.3	-448	> 3 865					323.7	3.9	-
World	13 067 421	3 869 455	29.6	82.8	-7 317	>142 771	-	-	-	-	6 335.1	48.4	-

Source: FAO 2005, Global Forest Resource Assessment

Notes: a dash (-) indicates data not reported or not available

Planted forest area totaled by authors from individual country data, not by FAO, and provide a minimum level, not including countries that did not report.

Table 2-3. Status of Fauna in NatureServe Data Base, 2004, and IUCN Red List of Threatened Animal Species, 2004.

(Attached separately as an Excel file.)

Forests_Americas_Overview_V10; 21 April 2007

Editorial Record:

Entry Last Revised by Author: 28 February 2008