Future of the forests.

Remarkably when talking about land use change emissions, countries such as the USA, Europe and China were in the year 2000 net absorbers of CO2 as a result of their aforestation (planting new forests) and reforestation (re establishing old forest areas) programs. However, the planting of one tree does not offset the damage caused by the removal of another, as trees absorb CO2 very slowly. It could take 100 years for a growing tree to recover all the CO2 released when a mature tree is cut down!. For this reason, carbon offset programs which suggest planting a tress to offset co2 produced are pretty worthless, due to the time it would take for that tree to remove co2 from the atmosphere.

There is some good news however, as in 2006 the Brazilian government announced a sharp drop in deforestation. Loss for the year 2005/6 was 13,100 km2, (5,057 sq miles) down more than 40% from the year before. Its too early to say whether this is a declining trend, or just one good year out of the previous eight where deforestation levels were all in excess of 16,000 km2, (6,177 sq miles).

As the worlds forests are being destroyed, huge amounts of CO2 are being released back into the atmosphere. The forests that were once able to absorb and store this potent greenhouse gas, will no longer be standing which will push CO2 levels up higher, thereby contributing to the warming of Earth's climate.

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