The rate at which the deforestation

The rate at which the deforestation of the world is proceeding is alarming. In 1950, 25 percent of the
Earth’s land surface had been covered with forest, and less than twenty - five years later the amount of
forest land was reduced to 20 percent. This decrease from 25 percent to 20 percent from 1950 to 1973
represents as about 20 million square kilometers of forests. Predictions are that an additional 20 million
square kilometers of forest land will be lost by 2020.
The majority of deforestation is occuring in tropical forests in developing countries, fueled by the
developing countries’ need for increased agricultural land and the desire on the part of developed countries
to import wood and wood products. More than 90 per cent of the plywood used in the United States, for
example, is imported from developing countries with tropical rain forests. By the mid – 1980s, solutions to
this expanding problem were being sought, in the form of attemps to establish an international regulatory
organization to oversee the use of tropical forests.