Surprisingly, we know very little about the status of the world's forests as a whole. Most monitoring efforts are confined to individual countries, and the results often do not compute across borders.

Sponsored by the United Nations (U.N.), the most comprehensive study of the world's forests to date estimates recent deforestation, but gives no information on the overall condition of remaining forest.[16] This U.N. study cost $4 million -- less than one eighth the amount U.S. citizens spend each day on newspapers.[17],[18]

To help fill the gap, WRI asked the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) to develop a map of Earth's forest cover as it appeared 8,000 years ago. The result represents the first detailed attempt to show what the world's original forest cover looked like before humans began transforming it.

The WRI map also shows current forest cover, drawing from an earlier WCMC map that provides the most comprehensive image of total forest cover today. Though based on the best available data, the WCMC current forest cover map is far from complete. Many areas depicted as forested can hardly be considered forest. Some are heavily degraded by logging and other activities, while others are single-species plantations. A rough picture of where forests are is invaluable, but until WRI's assessment virtually nothing was known about their condition on a global scale.

References and notes

16. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forest Resources Assessment 1990: Global Synthesis, FAO Forestry Paper 124, (Rome: FAO, 1995), p. 43.

17 K.D. Singh, personal communication, January 1997; Washington Post, January 1, 1997.

18. United States Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996, (Washington: United States Department of Commerce, 1996), pp. 8, 562.