LONDON - large tracts of tropical forests of the world have been formally protected from deforestation, but an international conservation group said that might not be enough to save them.
A report published Tuesday by the International Tropical Timber Organization, said that much of the land being set aside for forest was not managed sustainably - leaving vulnerable that the production of agriculture and biofuels gobble up acre after acre (hectare after hectare).
"Deforestation is going down and there is a very substantial increase and good coverage of protected areas" Duncan Poore, one of the authors of the report, said Associated Press advance of its publication.
But he said that, in the future, "Outlook could not therefore seem favourable."
It is that food because increasing and the price of fuel mean land covered in trees to the left becomes much less profitable than the land used to grow soy or wheat beans. And a global climate still occupy a distant prospect, it is not at all certain that companies rich funds invest tropical forests to offset their greenhouse gas emissions will continue to flow.
"Forces promoting the destruction of forests, such as higher food and fuel prices, could easily be those that promote the conservation of the forest," the organization said in a report.
The report itself counted 761 million hectares (1.88 billion acres) of what is called "permanent forest estate" - land set aside for forest tropical host in perpetuity.
That would make the size of the estate permanent about as much as the Australia, but the report warned that only 10 for % of the land was managed sustainably - a term meaning that wood, fruit and nut harvest are retained within healthy levels and forest borders are secure.
Speaking of the light room, the first floor of Royal Overseas League London, Poore said that the international community should focus on ensuring that the 700 any remaining hectares (1.73 trillion-SDO acres) set aside for the use of the forest were in sustainable management.
If that had happened, he said, he could live with having the rest assigned to agricultural or other uses. "If these 700 million hectares is secure, I think that we are O.K.," he said.
"It would be good if there was more," he added, before becoming thoughtful for a moment.
"It is more important to decide what you want to keep and secure it and take care of property, is to a forest which has disappeared", he said.
The Japan International Organization-based tropical Woods, founded in 1986, is composed of 33 member countries who together represent 1.42 billion hectares (3.51 billion acres) of tropical forest, or 85% of the total world.
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Online:
http://www.ITTO.int/
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