UN FAO, 2010 - Two Sides

Productive functions of forest resources 95
although it appears to have peaked during 2000–2005. Given this trend, a further rise
in the planted forest area up to 300 million hectares by 2020 can be anticipated. Planted
forests are therefore expected to increasingly contribute to the world’s wood, fibre, fuel
and NWFPs supply, as well as providing environmental and social services at a time
when demand for these resources is increasing. The impact of this development on
timber markets should be considered by policy-makers, planners and forest managers
and supported by outlook studies that evaluate the future contribution of planted
forests to economic, environmental and social services. To supply the data needed for
such analysis, it is recommended that future assessments estimate the proportion of
planted forests designated for different functions.
AffOREsTATIOn And REfOREsTATIOn
Introduction
In view of the growing significance of planted forests and to enable countries to report
on progress towards the Global Objectives on Forests, the parameters ‘afforestation’
and ‘reforestation’ were included in FRA 2010.
Afforestation is the act of establishing forests through planting and/or deliberate
seeding on land that is not classified as forest, while reforestation refers to the
re-establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land classified
as forest, for instance after a fire, storm or following clearfelling. No attempt was
made to quantify the area of forest regenerated through natural or assisted natural
regeneration in FRA 2010. Afforestation implies an increase in forest area through
the conversion of land not bearing forest to forested land, while reforestation does
not have an impact on the size of the total area of forest. It should be kept in mind
that afforestation and reforestation are not only aimed at establishing planted forests
to fulfill productive purposes. However, all afforestation and reforestation efforts are
reported in this chapter regardless of their intended purpose.
From a global perspective reporting on these two parameters is fragmented
(Table 5.6).
Since afforestation and reforestation activities may vary slightly between the
years, countries were asked to report the average area afforested or reforested over a
five-year period centred around the years 1990, 2000 and 2005. Of the 233 countries
and areas covered by FRA 2010, 29 countries (12 percent) reported that they did
not currently carry out any afforestation or reforestation measures and 74 countries
(32 percent) did not report at all for 1990, 2000 and 2005. However, most of these
countries and areas are small and would not influence the global figures in a significant
way. Both afforestation and reforestation measures were reported by 60 countries
Table 5.6
Country reporting on afforestation and reforestation by region, 2005
Region
Total number
of countries
both
afforestation
and
reforestation
number of countries that reported....
only
afforestation
only
reforestation
zero
afforestation
and
reforestation*
number of
countries that
did not report
africa 57 10 14 14 8 11
asia 48 17 3 10 4 14
europe 50 24 5 3 5 13
North and Central america 39 3 6 5 6 19
Oceania 25 3 2 2 2 16
South america 14 3 0 6 4 1
World 233 60 30 40 29 74
* including also those countries which reported zero for one of the categories and no data for the other.