10 reasons to care for our forest resources

Forests are too important to lose.
 
Here are ten reasons to take care of them:

1. Almost half of the surface of Latin America and the Caribbean is covered with forests! They cover 46% of the regional surface, which represents more than 23% of the total forest area of ​​the world

2. There are 935.5 million hectares of forest in the region. 83% of the forest area is in the countries of the Amazon subregion, and only 1% in the Caribbean.

3. Five countries have 80% of the total forest area: Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia.

4. Brazil has more than half of the forested area of ​​Latin America and the Caribbean! 53%.

5. 46% of the forest area in the region is considered primary forest. 2% corresponds to planted forest, the remaining 52% is naturally regenerated forest. The region has more primary forest and less planted forest than the world average.

6. The annual per capita consumption of edible forest products is 9.4 kg. Its consumption is concentrated in rural areas and in populations with limited incomes; deforestation is not only an environmental problem, but a socioeconomic one.

7. The region continues to have one of the highest deforestation rates in the world! But it is slowing down: it fell from 4.4 million hectares per year between 1990-2010 to 2.1 million per year between 2010-2015.

8. The largest extension of natural forests in the region is in South America, particularly the Amazon region: they house 80% of the regional biodiversity.

9. There are 199 million hectares of dry forest in the region: it corresponds to 18 percent of the world's forest area in drylands. They are little known but have genetic characteristics that allow adaptation to drought conditions.

10. The forests cover 15% of the surface of the Southern Cone; 58% of the Amazon, 35% of Mesoamerica, and 31% of the Caribbean area.