Global deforestation and forest degradation rates have a significant impact on the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that during the 1990s 16.1 million hectares per year were affected by deforestation, most of them in the tropics. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated that, for the same period, the contribution of land use changes to GHG accumulation into the atmosphere was 1.6±0.8 Gigatonnes of carbon per year, a quantity that corresponds to 25% of the total annual global emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the Kyoto Protoco (KP), industrialized countries can use land-based activities, such as reducing deforestation, establishing new forests (afforestation and reforestation) and other vegetation types, managing agricultural and forestlands in a way that the “carbon sink” is maximized. |
