By Joe Grossman

June 26 (UPI) -- About half the original forests on Planet Earth have been destroyed, many of them in the last 30 years, according to estimates accepted by a number of forest environmental groups. Tropical forests are currently being cut down and burned at a rate that could lead to their disappearance, according to some projections.

Unrestrained illegal logging in many countries is contributing heavily to a significant reduction of tropical forests around the world. Forests in temperate and cold climates are not nearly as threatened.

Tree plantations are replacing some of the forests cut down and burned. The World Wide Fund for Nature predicts that by 2030, half of the planet's wood and fiber needs could come from tree farm plantations.

Plantations, while extremely destructive of existing ecosystems, biodiversity and the water provision functions of natural forests, are a very rapidly growing sector of world wood supply. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, plantations, now about 1 percent of the world's forests, are capable of producing 20 percent of the world wood supply.

But forests do much more than provide paper, wood and pulp and an economic livelihood to those involved in harvesting, processing and marketing wood products. Forests provide watersheds for gathering and purifying water naturally. They preserve biodiversity as home to tens of millions of species of plants and animals, huge numbers of which will be lost forever as forest size shrinks.

"You have industrialized nations that have ravished their forests already that are now kind of recovering, and that includes us in the United States, and then you have countries that are in development that are chewing up their natural resource base," Michael Jenkins, executive director of Forest Trends, told United Press International.

While much of the forest that is being destroyed has been harvested previously, there are also big chunks that have never been cut, called intact forest or frontier forest, that are now threatened.

Dirk Bryant, director of Global Forest Watch at the World resources Institute, told UPI, "The hidden story to me, which is not just happening in the tropics, is the last bits of intact forest which are being subjected to cut-and-run logging. And we're not just doing a cut-and-run in Brazil and in Africa. . . . It's industry moving through really quickly, liquidating it, making a lot of money, and saying ‘we'll worry about managing it sustainably, tomorrow.'"

Bryant says that this approach might have worked in the past, when returning to a cut forest forty years later might find second growth that could be harvested. But with the pressures of today often agriculture moves in or human settlements spring up, meaning that a cut forest is gone forever. "It's an incredibly short-sighted policy. Intact forests bring out the worst in people," Bryant added. Only about 2 to 3 percent of the original forests in the continental United States remain today.

Entrenched corruption is accelerating the destruction of tropical forests. Forest policies in many developing countries are often rudimentary or they are not enforced. Frequently the staff necessary to make inspections is a fraction of what is necessary and bribery is a way of life.

Bryant told UPI, "The biggest problem is illegal logging. It's just huge everywhere. In Indonesia somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of all wood coming out of forests there is illegally harvested. According to the Brazilian government about 80 to 85 percent of the wood being harvested in the Amazon basin is being cut illegally. We see similar trends in Central Africa, with trends of 50 to 90 percent of the wood cut in some regions is illegally harvested."

Brazil is the world's largest producer of tropical wood, producing about 20 percent of the world total, while Indonesia is the second largest producer with about 10 percent of the tropical wood total.

One approach to combat illegal logging and logging done with unsound practices may be a system of forest certification. In use for only about seven years, the Forest Stewardship Council has succeeded in promoting standards that foster sustainable logging practices. Their logo is a checkmark with a sort of fluffy abstract tree next to it. While they have only succeeded in certifying about 2 to 3 percent of world production, it is a start. Just five companies, International Paper, Georgia Pacific, Weyerhaeuser, Stora-Enso and Smurfit Stone, process about 20 percent the wood harvested in the world. It is hoped that if the certification idea catches on with the majors, others will follow.

Three of the five largest wood buyers in the world, Home Depot, Lowes and IKEA are supporting certification. Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble have yet to sign on according to World Wide Fund for Nature.

But ardent free-traders my put a kink in anything except voluntary participation in certification schemes. Early signs are that any national mandate for certification would be challenged under the regulations of the World Trade Organization as a barrier to trade.

The most widely used data on forests worldwide is gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The FAO concludes in its 2000 global forest assessment that each year there is a net loss worldwide of 62,000 square miles (161,000 sq. km) of natural forest, almost all of it in tropical forests. The total area of tropical forests is reduced about 0.8 percent annually, a little less than 1 percent. But these FAO numbers have been attacked by more than one group as understating the extent of the deforestation problem.

Critics say that not enough satellite images are being gathered and this has created a sample that is too small to be reliable. Furthermore, many countries do not maintain accurate records of their forests.

Janet Abramovitz, a senior scientist at Worldwatch Institute, an organization committed to developing environmentally sustainable approaches, told UPI, "I think that the FAO numbers are extremely conservative. They really underestimate the extent of the problem and I would say it's at least twice as bad as what they measure."

According to a report on the FAO forest survey by forest researcher Emily Mathews of the World Resources Institute, titled "Understanding the FRA (Forest Resources Assessment) 2000, "The FAO has limited resources, and as in the 1990 survey has relied on a sample of satellite images that cover only 10 percent of total tropical forest area, rather than undertaking a more extensive survey, as recommended by an expert advisory group." WRI says the true rate of loss is about 17 percent higher for the period of 1990 to 2000, than FAO concludes.

In the midst of a lack of generally accepted baseline data, a crisis may be approaching more quickly than most people think. James Alcock, a professor of environmental sciences, at Penn State, has developed a mathematical model of deforestation for the Amazon River Basin. According to Alcock, if there is no change in the patterns of logging, mining and agricultural practices, the giant forested area could pass a "point of no return," after which it would no longer be able to sustain itself and could disappear in 40 to 50 years.

A number of previous estimates project massive deterioration of the Amazon River Basin forest in 75 to 100 years. Alcock presented his findings earlier this week at a conference of the Geological Society of America and the Geological Society of London, held in Edinburgh, Scotland.

On the flip side of supply abuses are practices that lead to skyrocketing demand. Paper recycling, more efficient packaging, changes in construction techniques and new office practices could go a long way to reducing timber product use, according to Janet Abramovitz, of the Worldwatch Institute. According to Abramovitz, the per person use of paper in the Untied States is 740 pounds, about seven times the world average. The average paper use by an American office worker is 12,000 sheets of paper a year.