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Table 12

Estimates of forest area and rate of deforestation by geographical subregion
Geographical

subregion / region

Number of

countries

Land area

Forest cover

Annual deforestation

1981-90

1980

1990

million ha

million ha

% per annum

Africa

40

2 236.1

568.6

527.6

4.10

0.7
West Sahelian Africa

6

528.0

43.7

40.8

0.30

0.7
East Sahelian Africa

9

489.7

71.4

65.5

0.60

0.9
West Africa

8

203.8

61.5

55.6

0.59

1.0
Central Africa

6

398.3

215.5

204.1

1.14

0.5
Tropical Southern Africa

10

558.1

159.3

145.9

1.35

0.9
Insular Africa

1

58.2

17.1

15.8

0.14

0.8
Asia & Pacific

17

892.1

349.6

310.6

3.90

1.2
South Asia

6

412.2

69.4

63.9

0.55

0.8
Continental S.E. Asia

5

190.2

88.4

75.2

1.31

1.6
Insular S.E. Asia

5

244.4

154.7

135.4

1.93

1.3
Pacific

1

45.3

37.1

36.0

0.11

0.3

Latin America & Caribbean

33

1 650.1

992.2

918.1

7.41

0.8
C. America & Mexico

7

239.6

79.2

68.1

1.12

1.5
Caribbean

19

69.0

48.3

47.1

0.12

0.3
Tropical South America

7

1 341.6

864.6

802.9

6.17

0.7

TOTAL TROPICAL

90

4 778.3

1 910.4

1 756.3

15.41

0.8

Non-tropical Africa

8

727.2

14.3

13.0

0.13

0.9
Northern Africa

5

600.3

6.4

5.7

0.07

1.2
Southern Africa

3

126.9

7.9

7.3

0.06

0.8
Non-tropical Asia

17

1 712.4

130.2

125.7

0.44

0.4
Middle East

13

601.2

3.8

3.3

0.04

1.2
Temperate Asia

4

1 111.2

126.4

122.4

0.40

0.3
South America

3

366.0

44.3

41.6

0.27

0.6

TOTAL NON TROPICAL

28

2 805.6

188.8

180.2

0.85

0.5
TOTAL DEVELOPING

118

7 583.9

2 099.2

1 936.5

16.27

0.8

Source: FORIS database

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