Q. How are major land uses changing on a global scale?
A. As of the mid-1990's, cropland
represented about 11 percent of the world's total land
area, or about 0.3 hectare per person. Permanent pasture
represented 26 percent of total land area, and forest
land represented 30 percent. In recent decades, cropland
has been expanding by an average of 0.3 percent per year
as forest land is cleared and permanent pasture is brought
under cultivation.
Cropland has been expanding most rapidly in Latin America and the
Caribbean (1.3 percent per year) and in sub-Saharan Africa (0.7
percent per year). The net change in permanent pasture has been
negligible, but forest land has been shrinking by an average of
0.2 percent per year, with the most rapid losses in East Asia and
the Pacific (0.7 percent per year) and Latin America and the Caribbean
(0.5 percent per year).
Nationally protected areas represent about 7 percent of total world
land area, and have grown rapidly in recent decades, although the
effective protection afforded by such designation varies widely.
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