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May 22, 2020 Urgent action to protect the biodiversity of forests in the world, because their rates of deforestation and degradation are alarming.

This is the alarm launched by the latest edition of the UN report on the State of Forests in the World, published today on the occasion of the World Biodiversity Day, which shows how the conservation of biodiversity totally depends on the way man interacts and uses the forests of the planet.

The report was produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), for the first time in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and with the technical contribution of the Center of Monitoring for Conservation, which is part of the United Nations Environment Program (Unep-Wcmc).

The document reveals that since 1990, some 420 million hectares of forest have been lost due to the conversion of the soil to other uses, although the rate of deforestation has decreased in the past thirty years. Every year, FAO denounces, in its Evaluation of World Forest Resources 2020, mentioned in the report, about 10 million hectares of forests are lost. This is despite the slowdown in deforestation over the past decade.

The Covid-19 crisis shed light on the importance of conservation and sustainable use of nature, recognizing that people's well-being is linked to the health of the ecosystem. The report also indicates that forests contain 60,000 different tree species, 80% of amphibian species, 75% of bird species and 68% of those of Earth's mammals.