Asia-Pacific region pays high price for loss of forests and grasslands
It is robbing people of their livelihoods and worsening desertification and climate change.
Forests and grasslands make up 58% of the region’s land mass, but each year 2m hectares (20,000 square kms) are degraded and rendered useless, Patrick Durst, an FAO senior forestry officer told a food conference in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator.
Across the Asia-Pacific, 400m hectares (4m sq kms) — an area equal to the combined size of India and Myanmar — are now in bad need of restoration, he said.
In China and Mongolia, over-grazing and poor land management mean herders have to give up and seek jobs in fast-growing cities. Lost grassland boosts desertification and helps cause massive sand storms that sometimes carry as far as eastern Canada.
Meanwhile, illegal logging, farmland expansion and urbanisation drive deforestation across the region, especially in Southeast Asia.
