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Report: Global deforestation finally being reversed in some countries.
(Natural News) An analysis of the world's forests -- published in the Tuesday edition of the Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences -- has shown that an increasing number of countries are reversing the trend toward deforestation.
"From the new data, it seems possible that we could reverse a global trend that manypeople thought was irreversible," said one of the lead authors, Pekka Kauppi of the University of Helsinki.

The scientists analyzed information from national databases and the United Nations Food andAgriculture Organization and calculated that the forests had expanded in 22 of the 50 most forested countries during the past 15 years. They added that many of the remaining 28 were also close toswitching from deforestation to reforestation in the next few decades. Brazil and Indonesia still had serious problems with deforestation, and the cutting in these countries means that the global trendis still leaning toward deforestation overall.

The report attributed the reversal trend partly to social changes resulting from countries developing and becoming wealthier, rural families moving tocities, for example. As fewer people live in the country, fewer trees are used for things like heat and buildings, the report said. In countries such as China, India and Turkey, a lot of credit forthe change was given to strong public policies such as tree-planting campaigns, promotion of efficient agriculture practices, and restrictions on clear cutting.

"On a global level, deforestation willbe reversed if we maintain this trend, which has involved a lot of different factors: a shift to highly productive agriculture in some places, as well as people like you and me reading newspapers onthe Internet, so that forest is not destroyed," said Jesse Ausubel, an environmental researcher at Rockefeller University in New York.

The research team was comprised of scientists in Europe, the...