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Imperilled Riches Deforestation Defined Deforestation refers to the loss of forest cover; land that is permanently converted from forest to agricultural land, golf courses, cattle pasture, homes, lakes, or desert. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.) defines tropical deforestation as "change of forest with depletion of tree crown cover to less than 10%." Depletion of forest to tree crown cover greater than 10% (say from 100% to 12%) is considered forest degradation. Logging most often falls under the category of forest degradation and thus is not included in deforestation statistics. Therefore forest degradation rates are considerably higher than deforestation rates. For example, according to satellite surveys Indonesia has considerable forest coverage, but millions of hectares are highly degraded by logging and no longer contain their full diversity or original structure. |
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