The last century has witnessed massive deforestation in the tropics and the Philippines has been no exception. When the Spanish colonizers first set foot in the Philippines in 1521, 90 percent of the country was covered with lush tropical rain forest (approximately 27 million hectares out of 30 million hectares of total land area). By 1900, there was still 70 percent or 21 million hectares of forest cover (Garrity et al. 1993; Liu et al. 1993). However, by 1996 there were only 6.1 million hectares (20 percent) of forest remaining (FMB 1997). Thus, in the last century alone, the Philippines lost 14.9 million hectares of tropical forests or an average of about 150 000 hectares/year (Table 1).
Publication year
2023
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
carbon, carbon sequestration, forests
Geographic
Philippines
