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星期六, 十一月 19, 2005
联合国报告：中国是世界唯一森林急增的地区
2005年11月17日 09:52
凤凰卫视11月17日消息 据海外媒体报道，据联合国最新报告显示，中国广泛开展的植树造林运动大大地降低了地球森林面积消失的速度，但是全球范围内热带森林的数量仍然呈减少的趋势。
纽约时报指出，这份最新的研究报告是由总部设在罗马的联合国粮食及农业组织提供的。
“虽然许多国家和地区正在取得很大的进展，但不幸地是，森林资源仍然在以足以引起警觉的速度持续减少”，联合国粮食及农业组织林业部助理总干事拉卡尼说。
一些森林问题专家表示，森林面积消失速度的放缓是鼓励人心的，但是生物学家则有不同看法：大多数通过种植获得森林面积只包括很一小部分通常与处女森林地共生共灭的植物和动物种类，而森林面积一直以来都在北美、欧洲及中国增加，但是热带雨林的面积却在持续减少。
这份报告指出，2000年以来，世界范围内总共有5万平方英里森林——面积略小于美国纽约州的土地--从地球上消失。
报告指出，与90年代相比较，南美已经超过非洲成为年度森林消失面积最多的国家。
这份报告指出，近几年，南美森林的消失大多发生在亚马逊南部盆地地区，那里的森林被在以很快的速度被人为变成牧场和农耕地，特别是大豆种植地。
报告指出，在10年内，亚洲在森林面积增长方面起色很大：在20世纪90年代，亚洲大约有3000平方英里的森林消失，但至2000年以来，共增加了约 4000平方英里的森林土地。但是，这一地区情况的改善应主要归功于中国新的森林政策，而亚洲其他地区的热带森林面积仍然在急速减少。
一些独立的森林问题专家表示，这份研究报告对研究未来全球森林的走向非常有价值，但同时警告这份报告的数据是由有著不同森林检测标准的国家独立提供的。
“联合国粮食及农业组织正在尽他们所能完善这份报告”，一位森林监测专家表示。她同时表示，她以及其他组织正在准备利用卫星图像的方式来研究森林变化的趋势，以证实政府提供的数据是否完整和正确。
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Original:
China Is Bright Spot in Dark Report on the World's Diminishing Forests
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: November 15, 2005
Widespread tree planting in China has slowed the rate at which the earth's forested area is dwindling, but the clearing of tropical forests, much of it in areas never previously cut, continues to grow, according to a new United Nations report.
The study was published yesterday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome, and is online at fao.org/forestry.
"While good progress is being made in many places, unfortunately forest resources are still being lost or degraded at an alarmingly high rate," said Hosny El-Lakany, assistant director-general of forestry for the food and agriculture agency.
The slowing rate of forest loss is encouraging, some forest experts say, but biologists contend that most acreage gained by plantation forestry contains a fraction of the plant and animal diversity destroyed with virgin forests. Forest cover has generally been expanding in North America, Europe and China and diminishing in the tropics.
The report said that worldwide just over 50,000 square miles of forest - an area a bit smaller than New York State - had been cleared or logged annually since 2000. Nearly half of that annual loss affected tracts with no evidence of previous significant human use, the report said.
In the report, which compared forest trends over the last five years with those through the 1990's, South America passed Africa in net annual loss of forests (the difference between areas added as plantations and lost through cutting or burning).
Much recent clearing in South America has occurred in the southern Amazon basin, where jungle is rapidly being converted to pasture and farmland, especially soybean fields, the report said.
Asia has seen an extraordinary turnaround in a decade: it lost about 3,000 square miles of forest a year in the 90's but gained nearly 4,000 annually since 2000, said Mette Loyche Wilkie of the F.A.O. But almost all of that change has occurred because of China's new forest policy, she said. Tropical forests elsewhere in Asia are still being cleared at a rising pace, the report said.
Several independent forest experts said the study was a valuable rough estimate of global trends, but cautioned that it was generated using data provided by countries with widely varying track records in monitoring deforestation.
"The F.A.O. is doing the best it can given what the governments are providing," said Mila Alvarez, who tracks forest trends for World Resources Institute and Global Forest Watch (globalforestwatch.org). She said they and other groups were preparing to develop a way to use satellite imagery to analyze forest changes and to verify government estimates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/science/earth/15forest.html ◆