Good news — so at the current rate of deforestation, it will take 768 rather than 517 years, to clear-cut the planet.
Climatewire reports,
The pace of global deforestation is not as severe as once thought, averaging a loss of 4.9 million hectares of forest per year between 1990 and 2005, a report from the United Nations says. (A hectare equals 2.47 acres.)
The study, from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, found a total loss of 72.9 million hectares per year over that period. That figure is a 32 percent drop from previous estimates that the planet had shed 107.4 million hectares over the same 15-year period.
The report says there are 3.69 billion hectares of global forest area.