To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development pursuant to his answer of 10 June 2003, Official Report, column 770W, to the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on deforestation, if he will indicate the principal locations of forest cover lost between 1990 and 2000. [122778]
While "deforestation rate" is one official indicator for measuring success or failure of Millennium Development Goal 7 it is an imperfect one that hides differential impacts on poor people and does not capture the underlying causes of reducing forest cover—population growth, trade (including trade in illegal timber), macro-economic policies, weak governance, unclear access rights and conflict.Official estimates of forest cover are contested by independent organisations like Global Forest Watch. In addition, estimates disguise the fact that increased areas under plantation are replacing natural forest cover in, for example, parts of Asia and Costa Rica. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, State of the World's Forests, the principle locations of forest cover lost between 1990 and 2000 are:
| Region | Annual Rate of Change (%) |
| Africa | -0.8 |
| In particular: | |
| Comoros | -4.3 |
| Rwanda | -3.9 |
| Niger | -3.7 |
| South America | -0.4 |
| In particular: | |
| Ecuador | -1.2 |
| Argentina | -0.8 |
| Paraguay | -0.5 |
| Oceania | -0.2 |
| In particular: | |
| Micronesia | -4.5 |
| Samoa | -2.1 |
| Papa New Guinea | -0.4 |
| Asia | -0.1 |
| In particular: | |
| Yemen | 1.9 |
| Nepal | -1.8 |
| Sri Lanka | -1.6 |
| North and Central America | -0.1 |
| In particular: | |
| Haiti | -5.7 |
| Saint Lucia | -4.9 |
| E1 Salvador | -4.6 |