The world’s lungs(part1)

THE summer dry-season, now drawing to an end, is
when the Amazon rainforest gets cut and burned. The smoke
this causes can often be seen from space. But not this year.
Brazil’s deforestation rate has dropped astoundingly fast. In
2004 some 2.8m hectares (10,700 square miles) of the Amazon
were razed; last year only around 750,000 hectareswere.
This progress is not isolated. Many of the world’s biggest
clearers of trees have started to hug them. Over the past decade,
the UN records, nearly 8m hectares of forest a year were
allowed to re-grow or were planted anew. This was mostly in
richer places, such as North America and in Europe, where
dwindling rural populations have taken the pressure o forestland.
But a couple of big poorer countries, notably China,
have launched huge tree-planting schemes in a bid to prevent
deforestation-related environmental disasters. Even in tropical
countries, where most deforestation takes place, Brazil is
not alone in becoming more reluctant to chop down trees.
The progress made in recent years shows that mankind is
not doomed to strip the planet of its forest cover. But the transition
from tree-chopper to tree-hugger is not happening fast
enough. Over the past decade, according to UN gures, around
13m hectares of forestland an area the size of England was
converted each year to other uses, mostly agriculture. If the
world is to keep the protective covering that helps it breathe,
waters its crops, keeps it cool and nurtures its biodiversity, it is
going to have to move fast.